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I put my glass down and rubbed my face.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Genuinely. I’ve been treating this like a meeting because I’m terrified, and that isn’t fair on you. Can we start again? From the door?”
Vivienne studied me. Then she stood up, walked to the door, opened it, stepped outside and closed it.
Knock knock.
I opened it. She stood there in her camel coat, smiling. “Hello,” she said. “I’m Vivienne.”
“Graham. Come in. Would you like a drink? I promise not to read you a list.”
She laughed and came in, and this time I took her coat, and this time I asked what she liked before I said a word about me. She liked being kissed on the neck. She liked hot water, a lot of it. She liked men who said please.
“Please,” I said, “can I kiss you?”
“Yes.”
I kissed her neck. She sighed and leaned back against the wall. My hands found the zip of her dress and she nodded, and it pooled on the floor, and she stood there in black lace and nothing else, smiling at me like I’d passed an exam.
“The bath in this suite,” she murmured against my ear, “is ridiculous. I noticed it on the way in.”
Then she pulled back. “Or tell me something you actually want. Not a list. One real thing.”