Nicki used it two weeks in a row, then skipped two weeks, and then, toward the end of May, she said: “I’d like to go down on you. Would that be okay?”

Wow. This is something I know for certain she never did to Michael.

She started by asking me to remove my clothes and lie down on the bed. Then she held up my tie and said, “With or without? Your choice, David.”

“With.”

“Very well. But this time I want you to loosen it afterward. Do you think you can do that?”

“I’m not sure.”

“If you can’t, no problem. I’ll take care of it. But I’d like you to try.”

“I’ll do my best.”

“Great. As for what I’m about to do, would you rather close your eyes, or watch me?”

“Watch you.”

She propped my head and shoulders on pillows. Then said, “Ready?”

I was.

She tied the knot, positioned the washcloth under the rope, then tightened it and gave me the best—well, obviously it was the best blowjob of my life, but that doesn’t begin to describe what I experienced. More powerful than any drug rush you could imagine, this was a screaming high that scaled the very Olympiad of ecstasy.

I cried.

I literally cried.

And yes, she had to loosen and remove the tie from my neck or I—no doubt in my mind—would have died that day. And I was so grateful she saved me, and so sexually spent, and so emotionally dependent on her affection that I curled up in a ball beside her and cried for joy. And Nicki held me close to her body and placed little kisses on my cheek and neck, and told me how much she loved me. It honestly broke my heart when she said it was time to leave.

“This was a good day,” she said.

As I got dressed and left the hotel it dawned on me that Nicki had been right all along. Her version of sex was worlds better than anything I’d experienced or seen in movies or read about in books. She was guiding me, step-by-step, into a world I never knew existed. One that had always been there, but was never appreciated. Like those contestants on Naked and Afraid XL, where they go to some God-awful place and try to survive for 40 days with little food and water. And when they’re done they get to take a simple shower—you just know they have a deep appreciation for that shower! —and all their senses are engaged, and a common shower becomes a spiritual experience.

Nicki was a spiritual experience in her own right. Add the tie and her incremental approach to giving me more and more of herself with each visit and you’ve got a prescription for paradise. What I interpreted as her craziness or possible insanity during our first date, including the slap, turned out to be a poor judgment on my part. The truth is Nicki has a precise, orderly mind, and when you allow her sexuality to unfold at her pace, and accept and trust her without hesitation, the rewards are infinite. I found myself living for the Tuesday phone call, and needing Friday like a drug addict needs his next fix.

Each visit with Nicki was like a game of chess played at the highest level, where every move brought me closer to taking the Queen. And finally, after many weeks, she allowed me see her completely naked. And that’s when she told me how to unlock “a person’s” phone and delete “a person’s” photos. She also hoped she could trust me not to copy those photos onto my own phone, and of course I promised not to, knowing full well I was going to break that promise, because honestly, how would she ever know?

As I dressed to leave she said, “Promise you won’t get jealous or angry when you see the photos. Try to remember that was a different place and time, and I only did it then so this could happen now.”

“I won’t even look at them.”

“Yes you will. But when you do, take a moment to study my facial expressions and you’ll be able to tell how much I hated doing that. But what helped me get through it was knowing it would keep me in the game long enough to get you interested.”

“I know how hard that was for you, and I’ll take it for the compliment it is, and won’t get jealous.”

“Thanks, David.”

17.

IT’S NOT LIKE Michael disappeared during the seven weeks Nicki and I had been hooking up. He was barely surviving, pouring himself into his work during the week, spending his weekends moping around his apartment or at our house.