It took me approximately two hours to get ready for my date, a fact that the cop in me found more than a little mortifying. I told myself it was because I didn’t know what the date entailed. I mean, “ready for action” could be interpreted so many different ways. I hadn’t been this excited about a date in a very long time, which actually made the situation even more appalling. After all, this wasn’t even a real date, and in my head I knew that...

Unfortunately, everything from the neck down felt conflicted on the matter. The sad fact was Lorenzo Polonco, despite his sketchy lineage, was kind of a catch, and even though I’d led him to believe I was a down-and-out stripper, he seemed to feel the same way about me. I hated to admit it, but it made me feel good, a deep-down solid good. Perhaps it wouldn’t be the biggest disaster in history if I let myself enjoy a bit of harmless physical stuff, as long as my heart didn’t get involved. The heart had terrible instincts.

Left untethered, it would follow the vagina to the brink of disaster, like a rudderless boat caught up in a riptide.

I shook my head and chuckled. I was getting ahead of myself. Things hadn’t progressed that far, and for all I knew, maybe they never would. Anyway, I was a big girl and perfectly capable of steering my flailing heart away from the abyss.