(This is a repost of one of my stories from some months ago).
True story, this. Names have been changed. It really was just several weeks ago.
Several weeks ago, on a cold April day in Chicago, I left campus at grad school, where I would soon be finishing classes, took the train to Lincoln Park and arrived at the back entrance of her apartment building.
Let’s call her Katie. She lived alone in a 7th floor studio apartment and worked in marketing. She was new to the city and I got the impression she felt lonely here. As had I. We had met on the Internet. The first time we’d met had been the week before. She had sent me a picture of herself via text message before we even met, without me asking. No, it wasn’t a nude picture; yes, I knew when I saw it that I would be seeing her naked in short order. Something about the photo–the way she was posing in a doorway wearing a cotton blouse and silk black pants, her height, her smile–made it clear that I would be able to make her mine by the end of the first date. That this was what she wanted.