I didn’t have time to grab my purse when I left and I have no money on me. I walk around for a while because I don’t want to show up at Max’s at the crack of dawn. After killing a few hours in a coffee shop that allows me to pay with an app on my phone, I Uber out to Max's house. I've actually been out to his country house one other time, so I kind of know where it is. I'm not sure about the exact address, but I know I can give the guy directions once we're on our way.  

Usually, whenever I saw Max for my appointments, we met in his office downtown. I started seeing him when they threatened to expel me from school after I set off the fire alarm. Five weeks in a row. That, plus some other issues I’d had with teachers at school, led them to believe I was troubled and needed professional help. I was pissed at first. I couldn’t believe they were making me see a psychiatrist, but after the first visit, I was more than fine with going back every week.

The sessions with him would always start out pretty normal, but the conversation would always wind up turning to sex about fifteen minutes in; what I had done with other boys, what I fantasized about.

Once he even asked me to tell him what I wanted a man to do to me, word for word, and he wrote it all down. I actually glanced over a few times and watched him, and he didn’t seem to care. When I would stop talking, he would look up and stare at me until I continued. It was a little weird, but it also turned me on big time. He always made me feel like an adult, when all any other man ever did was treat me like a kid.  

But this one time, Max invited me to his house out in the country. He told me it was for a special weekend session, a way we could really get at all my problems. But I knew what he really wanted, and I was ready for it. But after we'd been there for about an hour, he got a call about an emergency and the entire weekend was canceled.

He drove me home that day and I haven't been back to his house since. I saw him at his office one more time, but when my parents died, the insurance was canceled, so I couldn’t make appointments to see him anymore.

But I figure now’s my chance. I’ll go out there and see if he wants me to stay this time. And I’ll finally get to have an experience with an older man. I’ve dreamt about Evan for so long. I’ve always thought he would know exactly how to touch me. I’ve wanted to know what it would feel like to come when I was with a man for as long as I can remember.

None of the boys I’ve been with have had a clue what to do. They’re all idiots. I know what I need is a real man. And if Evan doesn’t want me, I’m pretty sure Max will. 

"Zoe," Max says when he opens the front door to his massive country estate. "What are you doing here?" 

"I didn't know where else to go," I say to him while I look down and twist my foot into the ground. "I really need someone to talk to and I was kind of hoping we could do that weekend session like we planned." I move my eyes up to meet his without moving my head. I know that kind of thing makes men crazy. And right now, my plan is to drive him to the brink of insanity with lust for me. I need to feel a man's arms around me. Right now. “But if you're busy …" 

"No … no, Zoe,” he says. He looks a bit startled, but his eyes say he’s interested. “I happen to be free this weekend. This is quite a surprise, but I’d love to have you stay. Please, come in." Max steps back and gestures for me to enter. 

"Is everything okay, Zoe," Max asks as I drift past him into a vast entryway with hints of the antique décor that fills the rest of the house.   

I turn and look at him. “Yes, why?" 

He looks me up and down with a crooked smile on his face. "Well, you look like you're wearing your pajamas and you're not carrying a bag or a purse. Did you escape from somewhere?” 

I can feel my face getting hot as I look down at my t-shirt and yoga pants and laugh nervously. "Oh, yeah, well, I guess I was in a little bit of a hurry. I was with a … friend … or whatever he is." At first I almost say his name. I’ve mentioned Evan to Max many times, so he knows how I feel about him. But right now I want Max’s full attention. I want his mind to be on me alone.

“What friend is that?” he asks.

I guess I’m not getting out of it that easy. I should have known I couldn’t get anything past Max.

“Well, actually … I was with Evan. I didn’t feel like being around him, though, so I took off.”

“In a hurry, it looks like,” he says with another crooked smile.

“Yeah, I guess.”

Max closes the door and ushers me into a large sitting room. This is as far as I made it into his house the last time I was here, but this time around I'm going to do everything I can to make sure I wind up in his bed.  

"And how was that? Seeing Evan again?"  

I watch him pour two drinks out of some fancy glass bottles. I love the way Max is around me. I don't have to say a thing and he treats me like I'm any other adult. Evan on the other hand …  

"The usual. He's always so controlling. He acts like I'm still in high school. Now he wants me to go somewhere with him and he won't tell me where or why." 

Max crosses the room and hands me a drink. I take a sip and immediately love it. It's sweet and tangy and is the color of emeralds. "Mmmm, this is good." 

"I thought you might like it. It's called a Midori Sour." 

"There's alcohol in here?" 

"There is. It's not very strong, but it's a nice brunch beverage," he says with a smile as he raises his glass. "I think we're safe having Midori Sours this early if we say it’s for brunch." 

I bring my glass up to his and get a little thrill when they clink together. I would never say this to him or anyone, but I feel so fancy sitting here with him, having a drink before noon. I doubt that Evan would ever be this liberal with letting me have a drink. I’m sure he’d wait until the minute I turned twenty-one before he handed me a glass with alcohol in it.

But as I stare into Max's eyes, I can't stop thinking about him. About how much I wish it was Evan sitting in front of me. How much I wish it was Evan’s eyes that I was staring into right now.  

"You look sad, Zoe. Is there anything you want to tell me?"  

I watch the green liquid slosh around and listen to the ice cubes that hit the sides of the glass as Max swirls his drink in his hand. Somehow the sounds around me seem to be getting further away. I feel a little sleepy, but I make an effort to focus. I remind myself that this is my chance. "I'm okay," I say, my eyes feeling heavy. "I just wish …" 

I pause for a moment, trying to collect my thoughts. I want to be a sexy vixen for Max, but all I can think about is how much I miss Evan. And the longer I sit there, the foggier my head becomes.

"What do you wish, Zoe?" 

"I wish that Evan wanted to be around me as much as I want to be around him." I’m surprised by the words that come out of my mouth, but I don't seem to be able to stop them. I keep reminding myself that I came here to seduce Max. So why am I talking about Evan? "I just feel like he hates me or something." 

"I doubt that very much. Maybe it's a lot for him to suddenly have someone to take care of." 

"But that's the thing," I say, taking another drink of the sweet liquid. "He doesn't have to take care of me. I never asked him to do that. I'm an adult now and I don't need him to …" Then right in the middle of my sentence I lose my train of thought. My entire body is starting to feel funny and my muscles have become weak. I can barely lift the glass to my mouth and I can’t remember anything I wanted to say to Max.

All I can think of is how much I want to be with Evan right now. That I wish I’d never left. I know I've been acting really childishly around him. I’m painfully aware of it. I’ve been throwing ridiculous tantrums and it seems like I’m constantly running away. And all just to get his attention.

But I haven’t been getting the kind of attention I want from him at all. I'm making him hate me and feel like he has to deal with me, when really what I want is to feel his arms around me. I want Evan to take care of me, but not the way you'd take care of a kid. The way a man takes care of a woman that he’s in love with.  

I say all these things to Max, but only in my head. My lips feel numb and when I try to speak, nothing sounds right.

In that moment, as I’m going on and on in my head about how amazing Evan is, as I’m explaining in detail all the ways I know he would be perfect for me, I realize what a total idiot I’ve been and how badly I’ve treated him.  

I want to get up and go back to him, but I'm having a really hard time keeping my eyes open.  

"You look tired, Zoe. Let me help you into bed," Max says with his hand stretched out to me.  

"Are you taking me to your bedroom?" I ask, my words sounding like they're coming from the other end of a tunnel. "I've been wanting to see it for a while now. But I don't know … I think maybe I just want to go back to Evan.” The words sound right in my head, but when they come out of my mouth they just sound like a string of noises that all blend together. As Max helps me stand up I wonder if he can understand what I'm saying better than I can. 

"I'm not taking you to my bedroom, Zoe. I'm taking you to another room. I think you'll be very comfortable down there.” 

I stumble down a short set of stairs and lean up against a wall while Max unlocks a door. The cool stone feels nice on my forehead and I don't want to move. I slide down the wall and laugh when I hit the ground. I can feel how strong Max is when he grabs me around the waist.

"Come on, Zoe," Max says as he pulls me up and through a doorway. "Go ahead and lie down. I'll bring you some food a little later." 

"Okay," I say, then sink into a soft bed. The last thing I remember as I’m drifting off is the hollow, far away sound of a lock clicking in the pitch-black darkness.