I had already told them that I was seeing a married man thirty years my senior. To an addict, not one of the boys or girls approved. Despite the messes they had made of their own adolescence, they believed that I had made an even worse choice. The girls in particular found the idea of having an old man kiss them icky.

“You’re not creeped out when he touches you?”

“Does he get boners?”

“Are you ever worried he’s going to have a heart attack or a stroke or something when he’s balling you?”

I wasn’t, until she said that.

I didn’t yet know how to explain to the group that his age was my aphrodisiac, that I needed to be desired by someone older and important so that I could feel special. The fact that he was old enough to be my father was what elevated me above the line of wallflowers, girls who had to wait for boys their own age to ask them to dance.