I came into the house and Jeni was lying on our leather sofa. When my eyes fully adjusted to the indoors, I noticed her toenails were painted watermelon pink.

“Nice bag,” she said.

“Thanks.” I set the leather attache on an old expensive chair. “Lydia made fun of me when I carried a backpack. She said it made me look like a nontrad communications major.”

Jeni laughed softly. “That’s specific.”

The house was dead quiet. Usually the television was blaring in the den. “Where are the kiddos?”

Jeni shifted onto her back, which caused her tank top to pull taut against her breasts. “Next door watching movies. I told my dad I’d come over so you wouldn’t be walking into an empty house.”

“That’s thoughtful of you,” I said. I felt naked around this girl in even the smallest sliver of silence. “Did Lydia pay you for the whole week? I can grab some cash—”

“Can you talk with me for a minute?”

My nerves hadn’t settled completely, even after taking care of business in the car. My heart was beating fast, like I had parked and sprinted the last several blocks home.

“Of course,” I said. When I sat and pulled on the lever to recline, the foot rest hit the coffee table and rattled an opened can of ginger ale next to a glass with ice cubes in it. The liquid inside the can fizzed, as if angry. Lydia thought a reclining leather couch was trashy. It was one of the few arguments I ever won with her. She said as long as I didn’t recline around company, it would be fine. I don’t think Jeni was the kind of company she was talking about.

Jeni slid her bare feet behind my lower back. She shoved her hands deep into her pockets. Jeni’s midriff was wider than my hand. She was either wearing underwear lower on her hips than she wore her bikini (which was much lower than any father might care for—at least on his daughter) or she wasn’t wearing any at all.

Jeni asked me if I wouldn’t mind having a serious conversation.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“You talk to students, right? Like, as an advisor?”

“Well, not an advisor-advisor. People on campus are paid to do that full-time. If I had to grade 120 first drafts and talk to a bunch of kids about course selection and credit load, I’d lose my fucking mind.”

Jeni laughed. She moved her feet; her little toe caught on my belt. I had to think about televised professional bowling to stop myself—

“Do you promise not to lose your fucking mind talking to me?” Jeni said.

“I’ll do my best,” I said. The pins were being reset and the voices of the bowling commentators were dry and sad. The champ’s bowling ball came shooting out of the hole and he used a towel to clean the ball and he stuck his fingers in—

“I cheated on my boyfriend four times this semester,” Jeni said. She pulled her hands out of her pockets and wrapped her arms around her stomach. “He said he loved me, for the first time, and I didn’t say anything back. He said it was fine if I needed time to sort through my feelings. He’s an amazing person and I’m a… coward.”

“You shouldn’t talk that way about yourself.”

“Okay. What should I say? I’m a real catch. A fucking gem. Why not ask my sociology professor. I probably shot right to the top of his list when I let him eat my ass.”

I didn’t know what to say, so I let her continue to vent.

“It’s so easy for me. It’s like pumping quarters into a Coke machine. Actually, it’s easier than that. I just have to look at the machine a certain way and it starts shooting cans of soda at me.”

“Some of us are born with certain advantages. I’m good at mental math. You’re very, very pretty. If people were clambering to get in my pants because I know my multiplication tables, I would probably become extremely addicted to the attention.”

“But it’s worse than that,” Jeni said. “It gets to the point where the only way I don’t feel empty is when I do something really messed up. Like fuck some random guy and go take a nap with my boyfriend wearing the guy’s boxers under my sweatpants. Does that make me a psychopath? I’m sure it means something.”

“I’m an English teacher, not a psychologist. But I do know terms like psychopath and sociopath are thrown around way too loosely. Everyone’s so eager to diagnose each other, they don’t take into consideration any finer details.”

Jeni pulled her right leg from behind my back and gently laid her foot on my crotch.

“The details that explain me are so fine,” Jeni said, “I can’t even recognize them anymore.”

In two swift moves, she was straddling me. Years of gymnastics and dance. She kissed me and bit my lip, trying to draw blood. Instead of wincing, I grasped her with both hands, just below the ribcage, pressed hard, and slid my palms over her muffin tops, trying to squeeze toothpaste from the tube, knowing it would cause a sexy amount of pain.

The front door slammed and Jeni was off me and on the other side of the couch before I realized what had happened.

My kids were past the age, thank God, where they felt obligated to run up and give me a hug whenever they saw me. I put a throw pillow on my lap. My daughter ran straight into the den and my son stood at a distance, observing his father and his babysitter.

“When’s mom getting back?” he said.

“Four more days,” I said. “Why? Do you need anything?”

“No,” he said, and went into the kitchen.

Jeni stood up and put her thumbs in her belt loops. “Were you saying something about a per dium, earlier?”

“Uh,” I reached for my wallet and pulled out sixty dollars.

“Thanks, Ethan,” she said. “I’ll leave a note for you in your mailbox. Look for it when you go to work in the morning.”