Not long before my dad’s stroke, Aaron had told me he wanted to slow the open relationship way down—I was hooking up with too many people for his liking, he explained, and he wanted to be able to catch up to me. Again, I thought that was crap, but I suspected that if I said what I really wanted, we would have to break up, and breaking up brought on those familiar fears of lonely, regretful singledom. So I said okay. Once I was plunged into the post-stroke chaos, though, I began flirting with guys in bars and on apps behind Aaron’s back, seeking a space that was all my own. Eventually I made a date with Rob, a guy from Kentucky with a boring office job, an artsy streak, and a nonmonogamous relationship of his own. He was a good texter, a little older than me, demure and self-possessed. I remember being impressed that he, too, had read The Other Hollywood, a moderately obscure oral history of 1970s porn.