“Got it,” Nell said, turning her alert attention to a commotion that had broken out below.

“Look at that. So typical. So sad.” She pointed down to a pair of suits at one of the tables near the stage, each vying to take the singer home.

“Why?”

“Two bankers fighting over a blonde.”

The bouncers stepped in to break them apart, but the violence spoiled my high, and I slipped out a side door into the fresh night air to smoke a cigarette.

Outside I took out my phone, fingering it like a worry stone, as I thought of texting Devi, until I remembered she had deleted her number. That should have been enough to stop me, but it was not. I sent her an e-mail as I finished my smoke, before slipping the phone back in my pocket. As the phone reached the bottom of my pocket, it pulsed with what turned out to be a message from Nell.

“Where did you go?” she wrote.

“Having a smoke. May go home.”

“Come back upstairs,” she insisted. “The party’s just getting started.” She told me Davidson had finally arrived, along with some others I knew.

I stubbed out my cigarette, and gathered myself to go back inside, as the phone glowed brightly again in the shadow of the street. Devi had sent an e-mail, which I opened, drunkenly hoping she might be willing to come out. “I’m in Jersey,” she wrote. “Painting the house with my new fiancé.”

I headed back inside for what I still hoped to be a jubilant night.

Upstairs I found Nell and the others engaged in deep conversation. She sensed my approach, however, and took me by the elbow, leading me into the circle, where Davidson was holding court. As we all stood there laughing I felt a hand brush against mine, I took it with firm confidence of what I was doing.

“Anna,” I said, “I was afraid you’d gone.”

“I’m right here.” She laced her fingers through mine, moving closer, so I could hear her over the pulsating music. “Let’s go,” she whispered.

I saw Nell smile knowingly, as she repositioned herself in the circle so that I had to move closer toward Anna. I was struck again by the sweet brightness of her face, brimming with an easy American confidence. Even as she told of how frantic her first weeks in the city had been, it was with an upbeat demeanor that seemed honest and light and made me take to her.

The balcony was packed, and as our group continued to expand we were pushed near the wall, where we pressed against each other, and her body felt full in my arms, and her eyes twinkled mischievously with possibility that told me to take her home and feel someone’s arms around me.

Her bare leg brushed against mine as a voluptuous breeze streamed through the taxi window, suffusing us with expectation as we sped along the West Side Highway.

Someone had invited her to an after party in Harlem, which she insisted we go to before calling it a night. It seemed too far away to be worthwhile, but our flirtation had advanced far enough that I went along with her.

We exited the cab and walked up five flights to a rooftop, where all the lights of Manhattan fanned out before us, like a deck of illuminated playing cards. The person who had invited her was not there, and the party was uninteresting, but she seemed to enjoy herself, so I bided my time and took in the view, as she sang along with a rap song I had never heard before.

“Do you think it’s wrong,” she asked, seeing the look on my face as I registered the words of the song, “for white people to say ‘nigger’? Even when they’re quoting black people saying nigger?”

“We can express whatever we wish,” I said, realizing I was wasting my time, “as long as we understand what we are expressing.”

“I agree,” she said, missing the nuance of what I had said, and continued singing.

I excused myself to go downstairs, telling her I was tired and ready to leave. “We can share a cab back downtown if you like. But why don’t you stay if you’re having fun?”

She nodded, her face finally registering the situation. Before I descended the stairs I saw her start to dance with a thugged-out guy, who looked like he had just been released from Rikers that morning. I sighed with relief to be free of her and headed downstairs, stopping in the bathroom before leaving.

When I came out of the bathroom she was standing near the door, waiting.

“I’m sorry.” Her pretty face looked up at me. “I hope I didn’t upset you.”

“Everything is fine,” I told her. “It’s late.”

“You’re a real gentleman,” she said, “I like that.” She pressed her sweaty body against me and wrapped her arms around my neck. “I like you.”

Upstairs we could hear the thump of feet on the terrace, dancing to Biggie Smalls. Downstairs our mouths had closed upon each other’s, and she trembled in my arms, letting loose a yelp of startling, primal ferocity, as the kiss grew in intensity.

We were both drunk by then and rode back to my place together, making out in the cab, where her cries of passion intensified, her entire body purring beneath me, like a crouching predator. She freed her breasts, which were full in the warm air, stoking the hunger that had throbbed between us all night.

“Take me,” she commanded, when we reached my apartment. “Do whatever you want.”

Seeing her in the context of my apartment made me realize what a mistake I had made. She was bland, with nothing special about her I could discern, because there was nothing special about her that she had discovered. She was simply part of a certain group at a certain moment, a way of speaking and dressing and looking at the world that was expensively purchased, but less than it wished to seem. Brands and references instead of personality. I did not want to be the kind of person who used other people for their bodies. Her skin crawled with sex, though, and the dull desire I’d felt when I first saw her renewed itself. I was not entirely reconciled to the idea of taking her to bed, and was even vaguely ashamed of knowing what I did and wanting to fuck her anyway. As I tried to decide what to do she coiled herself around me, and I smelled her truffled perfume and salted sweetness, my mind revving until I was sober again with the sudden thought that I did not want her. It was the bone of her hips that when I touched them flooded me with the overwhelming sense she was not my woman. My lust fled.

Her presence in my apartment began to fill me with sadness, and I could not adequately explain to myself how she had come to be there, as I searched for a decent way to bring the matter to a close.

“Take me,” she commanded again.

“We should not.”

“I thought you wanted me.”

“I did. I do.”

“Fuck me in the ass,” she breathed.

I had no rational objection to what any two consenting adults did with one another, and believed firmly in the universal right to introduce any direct object in any prepositional relation to whatever indirect object so desired. I simply did not want her, and cringed at myself for trying to steal a handful of passion with someone I did not love. Take me. Do what you want. I do not care who you are, I just want to get off. Not: Take me. I am yours. Do what you want. Just be careful what you do to me. I am yours.

As she reached for me in the billowing darkness we started making out again, the booze and loneliness telling me to be satisfied with the woman in my bed. The voice inside telling me there is no broken blessing like when who is in your arms is not in your heart, and the better part of disgrace too.

“Let’s stop.” I pulled away.

“Why not just enjoy ourselves?” she asked.

I did not know what to tell her without sounding like a prude. It felt foolish and awkward already, and I issued a limp apology. The bridge of want between us had drawn back completely, as I traced her hips and derrière wistfully beneath the thin fabric of her shorts, knowing what desire there was between us was only the pettiest of lusts; and not the self revealing its true hunger and true generosity that I craved. Not that I was above lust. It was only that if I was to have lust alone I wanted it at least to be the ungovernable lust that would plunge me to the bottom of all wanting.