I turn right on Spring. It’s been so cold today’s cold feels warm and my hands are fine without gloves. Three men walk by carrying pieces of wood painted like wheat fields, maybe set pieces for an off-off play somewhere. The man closest to the curb stares at me like I’m someone.

I see a woman in a red coat, nice legs, walking purposefully, and I think it’s her. I’m on the other side of the street, cars going by, a bus, and the bus passes and I’m just ahead and it is her, The Technical Writer. I thought I was a few minutes late, but she’s a step later. I cross the street. She stops and smiles like she’s been caught thinking too hard or talking to herself, which she wasn’t. I don’t kiss her hello. I touch her shoulder and we walk the rest of the way to where we were supposed to meet.

The Ear Inn’s barstools are filled with Monday drinkers, but the tables are open. I tell her to take the one remaining seat at the bar and I’ll stand until a place frees up, but she says a table’s better if we don’t want to drink as heavily as last Monday when we met and drove over the Queensboro drunk and didn’t fuck. Yesterday she texted me her tests came back all clear. She said she wanted to make sure she was safe.

We take a table against the wall. The waiter takes our order. The Technical Writer gets what she drank last time, Grey Goose and tonic, but I switch up and order a Beefeater martini with olives. I don’t say Shaken, not stirred like I do sometimes, just for me, when I’m drinking alone and feeling James Bond. The tabletop’s covered by a sheet of white paper. There’s a glass filled with crayons next to the ketchup and I choose a red one and draw a straight line. The waiter spills a little gin before he sets down the martini glass, but it’s almost impossible not to. The wide-mouthed V is good for craning necks and dipping heads and sips without lifting but waiters hate carrying martinis.

“Almost,” I say.

“Last week I delivered one without spilling a drop. From the bar all the way to the corner table there. Not a single drop.”

“You did well.”

“Cheers,” the waiter says.

The Technical Writer lifts her glass and moves it to mine, tap, and I keep my martini on the table and bend my head like a prayer for the first sip that’s cold and good.

We started mid-conversation last time, easy banter, and we start the same now, talking, laughing. She laughs easy too. Her arms look slim and strong in a sleeveless blouse, her jacket off, her workday done. Her nails are painted dark red and she touches my arm.

“I have to tell you something,” she says.

I take a long sip. I pull out an olive, chew, swallow. Whatever she has to say won’t be that momentous and I won’t really care. I’ve only seen her once, we’ve never fucked, and her face looks older in this light and in my still-sober eyes. I already know after I fuck her, if I fuck her after whatever she tells me, I’ll never see her again.

“I slept with someone on Friday,” she says. “I slept with him because of you. It was protection. After we met, I liked you too much and wanted to sleep with someone so I wouldn’t need to see you again. It was to protect myself.”

“That’s a compliment.”

“I thought you’d take it that way.”

“What if I just stood up after you said what you just said and walked out of here? That would make a good scene.”

“Is that a scene you want to write?”

“What would you do?”

“I’d ask for the bill and finish my drink and leave. I’m all about self-preservation.”

“Did he wear a condom?”

“He did.”

“The whole time?”

            “I put it on him. I made sure it stayed on. He was a competent fuck. He was technically competent and he came in his condom.”

            “Good boy.”

            “He is. He’s nice. He’s texted me every day since. He’s a chemistry teacher. He lives in Canarsie.”

            “He’s the guy you met here?”

            “How did you know?” she says.

            “You told me last time. You told me you had a Friday night date with a guy and you were meeting at the Ear Inn. Why do you think I suggested this place?”

            “I forgot.”

            “We were drunk, but I remember that. I knew you were meeting him near your job.”

            “You don’t remember everything you told me.”

            “I’m sure I fed you a lot of entertaining shit. Or at least shit.”

“You said some things.”

“I remember pieces. That’s what happens when I drink. I’m there and then I’m somewhere else. I remember we ended up in that Irish bar.”

“You got into an argument with the bartender about buybacks. Do you remember that?”

“No.”

“I asked my friends at the office about your three-to-one rule. No one does buybacks at any of the bars they go to.”

“Your friends at the office go to the wrong bars. Did he listen? I don’t remember. Did the bartender listen?”

“He did. He finally gave you a buyback.”

“I’m a real man.”

“Do you blackout a lot?”

“I remember we ate at Carmine’s after. I remember a big plate of chicken parmigiana. I remember you got an Uber and we rode back to Queens. I remember you were housesitting for a friend. I remember you put the sheets in the laundry before I left. I would have left them there.”

“My friend’s a very judge-y person. I think she’s asexual.”

“So you fucked him to protect yourself.”

“I did. I don’t know why I’m telling you. I think I wanted a clean slate.”

“We don’t know each other. You can tell me anything.”

“I’ve already told you some things.”

“You told me about your two husbands.”

“I know.”

“You told me your first one beat you. You told me your second one hates you. I remember that.”

“That’s my husband history.”

“Don’t worry about the guy from Brooklyn. I get it. I fuck a lot.”

She takes a sip of her G&T.

I eat another olive.

“How many women have you fucked?” she says.

“I couldn’t tell you.”

“Give me a ballpark.”

“I can’t. I can tell you how many I’ve fucked this year.”

“It’s still January.”

“The end of January. I know the count so far.”

“How many?”

“I’ve fucked eleven women.”

She laughs. She has nice teeth and an open laugh. She sips her vodka tonic.

That’s more people than I’ve fucked in my whole life,” she says. “I’ve been with nine men. You’d be the tenth.”

“That’s big,” I say.

“It is. If you were the ninth it wouldn’t be the same. You’d be number ten.”

“I’ll live up.”

“I think you will.”

I finish my martini. The waiter who took our order has his coat on. He’s talking to the bartender. He’s done with his shift. The Technical Writer gets up to get more drinks and I take her arm, tell her she should allow a man to be a man sometimes, and she says she knows. I walk to the new waitress who’s texting. She looks up, apologizes. I order. I stand at the bar while the bartender makes the drinks. I make sure he fills the martini glass to the top. I walk back to the table, sit down.

“Hi,” The Technical Writer says.

The waitress delivers our drinks.

“No spilled drops,” I say.

“I’ve got steady hands,” the waitress says. Her accent’s Australian.

“Sydney or Melbourne or somewhere in between?”

“None of the above. I’m from Perth.”

“The Swan River. Bottlenose dolphins, right?”

“You’re right.”

“I like the sounds they make.”

“Me too,” she says and smiles and walks away.

I sip my martini.

“You’re a good flirt,” The Technical Writer says.

“I was just curious.”

“It’s in your eyes and your voice.”

“Want an olive?”

“No thanks.”

I take one off the toothpick, chew, swallow.

“Nine men,” I say. “In your life.”

“Including my two exes.”

“Let’s do the math. I’ve slept with two women since I met you but that’s out of all the women I’ve slept with. You slept with one out of nine. That means you cheated on me with about 11 percent of the men you’ve ever slept with. That’s big.”

She’s smiling. I take the red crayon from the glass and write the number 11 and a percentage sign and circle the number and draw an arrow pointing to her.

“You didn’t know I was a mathematical genius, did you?” I say.

“I didn’t.”

“What’s his name?”

            “Are you going to write it next to your equation?”

            “Maybe.”

            “It’s Matthew.”

            “Matthew. I just met someone whose last boyfriend was named Matthew. She said he was lazy. She’s ambitious, or pretended she was. I always thought Matthew was a weak-sounding name.”

            “It’s a common name.”

            “How could a guy named Matthew be anything more than a competent fuck?”

I turn the 1 into a 2. 12% now points at The Technical Writer.

“I’m counting him as a half man.”

“That’s mean.”

“Maybe.”

“You’re playing fast and loose with the numbers.”

We drink.

The crayon’s in my hand.

I start drawing a face. It’s automatic. It’s hard just to hold a crayon when there’s a sheet of white paper on a table in front of you.

“I’m a mathematician and an artist,” I say.

“He looks like Jesus,” she says.

I draw a neck and the outline of a torso and an outstretched arm and a hand. I put a dot at the center of the hand like a nail.

“He does,” she says. “He sort of looks like Jesus.”

“Maybe half a Jesus.”

“That’s a little sacrilegious.”

“Not at all,” I say.

“What religion are you?”

“Mine.”

“I see,” she says and she’s watching me closely. “What’s that smile? I’m always cautious about people’s smiles.”

“I’m not smiling because I’m laughing at you. I’m not smiling in a superior way.”

“I’m glad.”

“It’s a smile of beatitude.”

“Very Jesus-like.”

“No. I don’t think the meek will inherit the earth.”

“I can tell.”

She finishes her drink.

“You’d be my tenth,” she says. “We should drink to that.”

“We weren’t going to get drunk tonight.”

            “We can have one more.

I turn the 1 to a 4 with a quick triangle, just to draw something, it’s hard not to, so now it’s 42% pointing at her and half-Jesus looking at me and she’s signaling the waitress from Australia for another round and I don’t get up to watch the bartender pour and don’t watch to see how steady the waitress’s hands are and the drink’s in front of me and I pull the olives off the toothpick and drop them into the gin and some spills. The Technical Writer orders shrimp scampi to share and I haven’t eaten much today and the olives are good and the gin is cold and the shrimps are garlicky and three drinks go to four and a lot of the paper’s filled with red. I’m not there and then there, I’m still here, but time skips. She’s paying, expense account, she says, and we’re walking out of the Ear Inn.

The cold feels cold.

She lights up a cigarette.

A cab goes by. Another.

I take a hit. I tell her I didn’t want to drink too much, didn’t want to smoke at all, and it sounds like a line.

I’m hailing a cab.

It’s a blur but not over a bridge. City streets always look different from the back of a cab, like everything needs to get seen quickly, not like where I learned to drive, fields and sky, or cross-country drives where the image in front lingers, becomes a memory solidified by hours of looking and looking at the same view. Not here. I’m counting the street numbers going up.

There and then there.

We’re at my building.

We’re in my room, on my bed.

She’s on her period. I don’t care. She’s been tested. The guy she fucked wore a condom. I’m drunk. I put a red towel under her and fuck her. We sleep and fuck more. The dog in the next apartment’s barking. There’s blood all over my cock, the towel, the sheets. I don’t care. She’s saying my name. She’s coming with my name in her mouth. She saying she wants to look at me, asks me to kiss her. I don’t. Kissing is just to get to the next place. I’m already there. She was hit by her first husband, hurt by her second, weak fuckers, she’s only been with nine men, and her cunt, blood fucked out, wetness fucked out, feels tight, chafing, it’s my time, and I fuck her for me and come. We sleep. She snores. I touch her arm and she stops. Cabs drive by. I open her legs, fuck her again, the dog’s barking again, morning light’s coming in, can see her eyes, her cunt, my cock going in and out. I fuck her slow and slow, then hard. She comes. I come. I move off her.

I’m looking at the ceiling.

“Thank you,” she says.

“My mother always told me to thank the man,” she says.

“Your mother told you that?”

“She did.”

“Good for her.”

“I think so too. I don’t want to give you a swelled head, but I’ll say it anyway. I’ve been waiting to get fucked like that for a while. So thank you.”

“You’re welcome.”

“You’re very polite.”

“I’m jaded. I’ve heard it before. But thank you.”

“That wasn’t so polite.”

“Sorry. Thank you.”

She slides closer and puts her head on my chest.

“Your heart is so steady.”

We sort of sleep until her alarm goes off.

“Can I shower here?”

“Sure.”

I get up. I get her a clean towel.

I lift the sheet and there’s blood on the mattress cover. Cold water will take it out.

She showers. I get back in bed. I check my phone. She comes out of the shower.

“I’m sorry about your sheets.”

“No worries.”

What an Australian would say. Maybe I’ll go back to the Ear Inn tonight. Maybe I’ll talk to the waitress from Perth.

“No worries,” I say again and some accent creeps in. “I have to do laundry anyway. You don’t mind if I don’t walk you to the subway?”

“No. Stay in bed.”

She dresses.

I’m looking at the ceiling.

She leans over and kisses me.

She leans over again.

“One more kiss,” she says. “Then I’ll stop or I’ll want to get back into bed.”

I taste cigarette in her mouth.

I stay in bed until the door closes.

I stand up and stand there.

The joke comes in. It always does. It’s come in so often it can’t not come in.

What’s the definition of eternity?

The time between the moment you shoot your load and the moment she walks out the door.

I don’t know if I’ve said it out loud.

I listen to hear if the words are still in the air.

I’m looking down at my cock.

Then I’m laughing.

It’s not the eternity joke.

I don’t know the numbers, my numbers, all of them, added up.

It’s still January.

It’s only this year.

I’m standing and laughing.

My cock’s caked in blood.