Me: That’s—

I don’t know what to type after that. Ridiculous? Thoughtful? Outrageous? All of the above?

He texts again before I can reply.

Him: Don’t stress over it. See you tonight.

I can’t let it go, so I call him.

“Natalie,” he answers.

God, I love the way he says my name. It sounds so seductive rolling off his smooth tongue.

“Is it because you think I’m not ready? Because I’m ready,” I tell him. “I can open the door or if not the door, at least the curtains.”

Thankfully no one is here to call me a liar.

“I know you can and I want you to open the door, sweetheart. I have plenty of ideas about the things that we could do once we are face-to-face. But there is no hurry. So no door. No curtains. No stress tonight.”

My entire body tingles at Jake’s words. Apparently I’m not the only one who has an active imagination. “You sound like Dr. Terrance,” I grumble, but inwardly I’m so relieved.

“As reluctant as I am to push advice on you from someone that you don’t like very much, I have to agree. I know you want to get out there and do stuff, but there isn’t any hurry. There is no time line by which everyone should be recovered from a trauma they’ve experienced.”

“You don’t think three years is too long a time?” I say in a small voice. Dr. Terrance has said the same to me for years, but I never believed him, not really. Hearing Jake say that is balm on a wound in my soul, one that I didn’t even realize was so painful and exposed until now.

“No, I don’t. I think the more that you press yourself, the harder it is to push past it because then your anxiety builds on your anxiety. That’s like a girl who can’t come. Every guy that she’s with becomes a new test for her, but because she puts so much pressure on herself, she can’t relax and enjoy the moment.”

His reference to other women and orgasms makes me scowl. “You sound like you have a lot of experience with women who’ve never had orgasms.”

“I was talking about hypothetical women. As far as you know, I’m a virgin.”

I nearly swallow my tongue in shock. “Wait, are you a virgin?”

He bursts out laughing. “No. I’m not. I’m sorry if I’ve disappointed you.”

“Well, I’m not either. Is that a disappointment?”

“No. Pushing past that particular barrier has never been a fetish of mine.”

“So you have fetishes?” I can’t help myself.

He chokes. “Hold on a minute.” I hear a rustle and then a door closing. “I’m in my office and I don’t know if I should be talking to you with the door open. Someone might come in at the wrong moment. I don’t know if I have fetishes. I’m pretty sex agnostic, if there is such a thing. Do you have fetishes?

“I don’t know. While I’m not a virgin, I don’t have a lot of experience.” I shrug, but since he can’t see it, I tell him, “Adam, my ex, wasn’t anything to write home about.”

He makes a tsk sound. “I don’t know whether to be glad that Adam was so inept in bed or whether I should find him and punish him for being such a poor representative of the male gender. Your sex life should be fucking spectacular, sweetheart.”

It occurs to me that I’ve never asked him about a wife or girlfriend or anything. I’ve just assumed he is single, but now that seems spectacularly dumb. “When’s the last time you were horizontal with someone, and was it spectacular?”

“I broke it off when it stopped being spectacular.”

I don’t like the kind of sex talk where he admits to having great sex with some other woman.

“Is this your hypothetical woman or some piece you’re currently banging?” I ask, and I can’t keep the snideness out.

“And I don’t love hearing about your past sex life either,” he growls back immediately.

A silence so long that two moon cycles could have taken place passed before either of us says another word.

“I’m afraid,” I finally admit.

“Of what, sweetheart?” He’s no longer growly. Instead he sounds relieved.

“Of everything. You know that. I’m afraid to open the door. I’m afraid of being outside. I’m afraid of talking about your past sex life because I don’t think I could please a man like you.”

He snorts. “What kind of man do you think I am?”

“A really wonderful one,” I say, getting tearful again.

This time the quiet that settles makes me feel prickly and hot.

“I want you,” he says with calmness. “Think about that and forget the rest. I’ll call you when I get to your place tonight.”

I want you.

Those three words ping-pong around my head all afternoon. I manage to pound out a few words on a page, but they look like gibberish and I end up deleting everything.

I ignore the inbox that contains three emails from Daphne, each of them wondering where my next chapter is. I wish I knew. The medications that Dr. Terrance has prescribed sit in a precise row on the edge of my desk. I’m tempted to push them over, right into the wastebasket.

I hate not feeling. It’s almost worse than being anxious. Daphne says my writing is completely toneless when I’m on the drugs, and I end up having to do major revisions on those pages that I do write.

From the middle drawer, I dig out my journal. Even though I didn’t agree with Dr. Terrance’s therapy direction, the small, red, leather-bound notebook has been more helpful than all of the prescriptions and breathing techniques.

It holds the history of the times I’ve left the apartment and how far I got. It took me 108 tries during the first year to open the door and then 74 tries to push the elevator button. That process took about a year and a half. After that, each step took fewer tries, with a lot less time in between each step. I remember the days I spent sitting in the lobby like a statue, getting up and looking out the glass doors and then returning to sit on the chairs.

The doorman at the time was Chris Murphy, a young man who was taking night classes at SUNY. He helped support his mother and his teenaged sister. Chris is now the night doorman. He takes classes during the day because of a new building scholarship. He doesn’t know that the scholarship was made up by Oliver and me.

I trust Chris, but not the new daytime doorman, who always looks at me like I’m a crazy person and makes the winding gesture next to his head when he thinks I’m not looking.

Those glass doors are like mirrors! How can he miss that? But I guess he’s prettier than he is smart.

With the leather journal in hand, I walk back to the door. So it took me 108 tries before. I’m going to beat that this time.

By five o’clock, I’m a sweaty mess, but I feel triumphant. I didn’t get the door opened, but I had my hand on the knob, and I’m going to count that as a success. Dr. Terrance says to celebrate every victory, even the small ones.

While I’m not supposed to open the door for Jake, I still won’t feel attractive or wonderful unless I shower, do my hair, and put on something sexy. Although he can’t see me through the curtains he’s instructed me not to open, I’m going to do everything I can to make this a real date. Because it is. It is a goddamn real date. We’re just not sitting across from each other.

It’s like he’s deployed and we’re having a Skype chat. Maybe later we’ll do something naughty together. A girl can hope.

At precisely fifteen minutes to six o’clock, Jake rings. “I’m on my way.”

“You are so punctual,” I tease.

“I don’t want to keep you waiting,” he says in his warm, honeyed voice.