When I was twenty five, I began what was to be one of the more infamous chapters of my narrative, though I didn't realize it at the time. It began the way anything else did: with smiles that existed more in the eyes than in the mouth; with the gentle graze of fingers against a hand; with a flush on her cheeks that tormented me long after she was gone. There is no reason I can articulate, even with the benefit of hindsight, why she would have been exceptional. I had been with many women before her; I had been with married women before her. I had been with pretty women, innocent women, charming women. But something about her ignited something in me which made it difficult to keep away from her, even later in our affair when it was obviously advantageous to keep caution at the forefront. In fact, the longer we saw each other the less possible it seemed to hold in mind anything else that might have been important, save us two — but I get ahead of the narrative here.

I met her, I wooed her, I loved her. There was a hunger in her that I longed to satisfy. It was as though she possessed a conspicuous absence in her life, a gap that I might swell to fill. By my loving her I might become more than myself; I had a greater potential when I was with her, because of what she saw in me. It was more intoxicating than any drug.

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