Glenn was not really a predator. It was more like he was powerless against the attention I, a young person, was giving him. The first time I met him, he was standing in a doorway, backlit, holding a magazine proof that I had to read for an edit test. Something happened in that innocent exchange—the simple placing down of a piece of paper on my desk with a kind word. Something electric, something addicting. I sought him out at every turn. I asked for help where I didn’t need it. I swiveled around his desk, obvious to everyone around me, unable to stop myself. He walked past me and my breath caught. He was not that handsome or interesting. I’m telling you, it made no sense.

But then, too, I could feel my body. I could feel it opening to him, and I saw just how it all worked: evolution, attraction, procreative imperatives. I saw for the first time that I was powerless to these forces. I’d had crushes—I’d even been in love. But nothing as, I don’t know, full-body as this. This was why people wrote poetry. This was why all the songs were about love. I get it now, I thought. I get it. One night, in an elevator, he told me he found me distracting. I told him we should talk about it over dinner. He called his wife in front of me from a pay phone to say he was stuck in the city for a few hours. And that was that.