When Asher showed up at my door, I almost slammed it in his face. I couldn’t, since he stuck his foot in the way and that prevented me, but I gave it a good try.

“Just come with me, please?” he asked. “I know that I acted like a total sleaze and a liar and I want to find a way to make it up to you, so, if you could just give me an hour?”

I really didn’t want to. I already wanted to cry just from seeing him again, and I’d done enough crying—and ice cream eating—over the last week. But he looked about as bad as I felt, with circles under his eyes and his hair all disheveled, and well, I was in love with him.

So I said yes.

The drive in his car was silent. I thought that he might try to apologize some more once we got in, but he just drove quietly. After about twenty minutes, he parked the car on a residential street and we climbed out.

“This is where I live”, he said, taking me to one of the apartment buildings. “I haven’t ever taken any of my clients here, but I wanted to show it to you. So that you could get to know me. The real me.”

I didn’t say anything to that. I didn’t know what to say.

Asher led me up the elevator and into his apartment. It was a bit larger than mine, and had a much bigger kitchen, the kind of kitchen that you have when you like to cook and do it frequently.

On the kitchen table was a computer. Asher opened it and turned it so that the screen was facing me.

“I’ve taken it down,” he said, “But I took some screenshots and saved them, so you can take a look.”

It was the Dr. O website. I hadn’t even known that he’d had a website. Maybe I should have taken a look—but no, there were no pictures of him or any other identifying information, so it wasn’t like I would have been able to put the puzzle pieces together sooner.

“I got into the business after I learned from so many female patients that they didn’t understand how to pleasure themselves, or how to ask for pleasure from their partners,” Asher explained.

“I wanted to help people, and when I joked at a party that I should start charging to give women their first orgasms and teach them how to give orgasms to themselves and demand it from their partners, several female guests offered to write me a check that night. So, I started the website and used this to pay off my student loans and my dad’s hospital bills, after the cancer hit. It was supposed to just be a lark, something to do for a time until I could afford to go back to working in a hospital, but then it just…became my life.”

He handed me some photos. They were of a small blond boy, smiling, with a man that looked a lot like a heavy-set version of Asher.

“Me and my dad,” he said. I looked up at him, unsure as to what this meant. “You met my parents,” he explained, “So I’m having you meet mine.”

I thought I started to see what he was getting at. Next, Asher handed me a photo of a beautiful redhead—his mother, apparently, although he didn’t look much like her. There were a lot more pictures of Asher with his father, and Asher patiently explained to me where each one was taken and what they were doing and what he remembered about that day.

“He would have liked you,” he said. “He’d have thought that you were too good for the likes of me.”

That was when I was certain—Asher was apologizing by giving me honesty. He was telling me all about his business as Dr. O, and his childhood with his father, and would probably answer any question that I asked of him right then. He was doing this because I had rightfully accused him of lying to me, and he was making it up to me by telling me the truth.

It made me want to cry, actually.

“Asher,” I said quietly. “This is really sweet.”

“I can give you a tour of the apartment, if you want,” he said. “I haven’t ever brought any clients or anything back here, just to be on the safe side. I always went to their places.”

“Asher,” I said again.

He paused, looking at me, and I could see defeat in his eyes, like he was preparing for me to tell him I wanted to leave and to never speak to me again.

“Jane suggested that I prove to you that I won’t lie to you again and that I was wrong and that I took what you said to heart,” he said, blurting it out in a way that reminded me so much of myself that I had to laugh. Asher paused again. “Sorry, what?”

“Nothing, I’m sorry,” I said. “You really were ready to tell me your entire family story?”

“I knew everything about you and you knew nothing about me, nothing that was real,” he said. “Except for my mom and my dad, that part was real. I’ve actually been more real, and more myself, with you than I have any other client. You’re the only one who knows my real name. You’re the only one I’ve taken out to dinner. And I could have stopped—I should have stopped—after that first time, and I really shouldn’t have lied to you at all, but I kept coming back because I couldn’t help myself.

“At first, I admit it was professional pride, and I felt that you deserved to experience pleasure, and that you could experience it, and I wanted to give that to you so that you wouldn’t feel like there was something wrong or inadequate about you. Because there isn’t. You’re amazing, Jessica, you really are.

“I meant everything that I said to your parents. You’re the hardest worker I’ve ever seen, and you take care of your friends, and you value honesty above all else. You decided that you couldn’t orgasm so you thought about how that would affect your partners, and made it all about them and making them feel special, which just might be the most selfless response to the situation that I’ve ever seen.

“And you’re gorgeous, and I thought you were beautiful when Mary sent me a photo of you, which was why I agreed to do it. Because the second I saw you, I thought, there’s no way that someone this beautiful hasn’t had men treating her right. And when you told me about the boyfriend that broke up with you because of it, because he let his ego get in the way and decided that you weren’t worth the effort, that just—that pissed me off like nothing else.

“I’m not expecting you to take me back, but I just want to make it up to you and prove to you that I’m sorry about what happened, especially the way that it happened. I know that you hate to be the center of attention and I made you into that, and you must hate me for it—and you have every right to. But I hope that you forgave Mary, because she was just trying to look out for you, even if she went about it the wrong way. But anyway. I…

“I love you. And I didn’t realize it until you were gone, but of course I’m in love with you. Because that’s why I did everything that I was doing—because I love you. I’m in love with you. And I just hope that you can forgive me and know that you are worth so much more than you think that you are, and that you deserve someone who’s going to see you as the whole person that you are and not as broken or incomplete, because you’re not. You’re really not.”

I stared at him, and this time, I knew that my jaw was open and I didn’t even try to stop it.

“You’re in love with me?”

Asher nodded. “I know it’s too little too late, but I just wanted to say it, just once.”

“It’s not too little, and it’s not too late,” I told him.

It felt like the world was shifting again, but this time, instead of stopping, it was sliding a little, puzzle pieces falling into place around me. Not that a mystery was solved, not in that kind of way, but in a way where everything was turning out the way it was supposed to be and everything and everyone was how they should be.

“Nobody’s…nobody’s ever told me that they are in love with me before…”

I could feel the tears welling up and I felt so stupid. Asher had just told me that he was in love with me and my response was to cry?

Asher laughed, then grabbed me and pulled me into him, the way that he had at the wedding.

“You’re okay, sweetheart,” he said. “Is it okay if I call you that? Are we okay?”

“We’re getting there,” I told him, my response muffled since my face was buried in his chest.

“Well, if it’ll help my cause, I did promise you my signature risotto,” Asher pointed out, kissing the top of my head. “I love you, Jessica. And that means that I want to be with you, if you’ll have me.”

I thought about it. He had lied, but then, he’d made up for it. He was in love with me, and he’d been a pretty fantastic boyfriend, all things considered. He’d charmed my parents, and given me the best and most considerate sex of my life, and taken me out on fun dates, and golfed with me—even if that part had ended in public sex. He’d been the kind of boyfriend I had always wanted to have.

I’d pictured having a wedding with him. Surely, that meant something. Surely, that hadn’t been just a flight of fancy. And now, he was holding me, and I just felt so safe, and protected, and whole. Like I wasn’t broken or incomplete or an inconvenience. Like I was enough. Me, Jessica Banks, just how I was already.

“I’ll have you,” I told him. “Since you plan on making risotto and all that.”

Asher laughed, kissing the top of my head again.

“You know what I get to do now?”

“What?”

“Touch you as much as I like and not feel guilty about it.”

I pulled back so that I could smile up at him.

“I like that idea.”