Like most boys in Tangier I ran wild in the streets while my mother worked twelve-hour shifts. I swiped fruit from the backs of donkeys on their way into the market and learned to pick pockets from the men with glittering women. Almost a million people live between the city walls, speaking ten languages as commonly as the national Arabic, but for the poor son of a hotel maid, there was only the dust and the clamor and the dry burn of the sun. It was a rough existence, but also a joyful one. I didn’t know anything else.

I knew early not to cry. There was no time with the caregiver with ten babies in the other room. And when I was older, there was always another boy to lash out. And so tears dried before they came out, even when my favorite street dog was run over in front of me, her leg twisted away, held to her only by flesh and tendon, part of her belly exposed. She lay whimpering in my arms until I used my pocket knife to end her suffering. And still I did not cry.

I don’t know what to do with the sobbing young woman on the bed.

My throat feels tight. I’ve made women moan and scream and beg. Never this. “Did I hurt you? Was I too rough? Forgive me, Bea. I never meant to—”

“It wasn’t that.” She shakes her head, glancing at me with tearstained eyes, pleading. She wants me to understand, but I don’t. Somehow my experience is failing me. My charm is failing me. If she wanted me to whisper to her in Italian on the rooftop, I could do that. If she wanted me to lick her pussy until her body went limp, I could do that. What is it she wants from me?

She buries her face in her hands, shoulders shaking, trying to muffle the sounds of her distress. “Just go. I’m okay. You can go.”

There is no way that I can leave her like this. For a moment I stand there, helpless, still fully dressed, my arms outstretched as if to hold her, my cock still uselessly hard in my slacks.

There’s a hard pit in my stomach that reminds me of that hot afternoon with the dog limp in my arms, frozen, frozen, the horror of knowing I could do nothing to help.

Except this isn’t a packed dirt street in Tangier.

And I’m not a powerless little boy.

I lift her body into my arms, hearing her startled little gasp, and climb into the bed. With gentle determination I cradle her body in my arms. After a frozen moment, she buries her face against my chest. Only then can I breathe fully, knowing she’s accepted my comfort, little though it is.

My words are useless now, all I have to offer her is my body. That’s all I ever have, really. I rock her slowly, back and forth, holding her tight as her sobs slow and then stop.

“This isn’t how you usually finish your dates?” she asks, her voice still thick from tears.

My heart squeezes that she’s going for humor, that she’s trying to make this more comfortable for me. “We finish with whatever you need.”

She shudders her way through a sigh. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me. It tears a strip of skin from me when you do.”

Her eyes meet mine, framed by damp lashes. “That makes me want to apologize more.”

From somewhere I find the strength to laugh, a light thing, to let her know this is normal, even though it’s not, it’s not, it’s not. I’ve never made a woman cry. I’ve never been with a virgin before, either. This was a terrible idea. What made me think I could do this? That because I can make a woman come, her body clench and convulse, that I should be trusted with her first time?

“Hey,” she says. “I see you blaming yourself. But it wasn’t you.”

“I’m sure you cry also when room service arrives.”

She gives a huff of laughter. “No, I’m sure that would freak Rene out.”

“Consider me freaked out,” I tell her, even though I’m relieved. Thirty seconds ago, she was bawling her eyes out. But this, a woman in need of laughter and reassurance, I can do.

She bites her lip. “I just didn’t expect it to feel good.”

“You must tell me where you learned these horrible ideas about sex.”

“I mean, I knew about orgasms. I’ve seen them on movies and read about them in books. And I’ve given them to myself. But this was completely different. Like all my life I’ve been seeing water through thick glass and then one day I dive in.”

“It makes you sad, this?”

“Yes,” she whispers. “It makes me sad, thinking of all those days I never dipped a toe in. Because I was too afraid. That’s the only reason.”

“And you wonder what else you’re missing.”

“I know what else I’m missing, but that doesn’t make the fear go away.”

“Then what does?”

Her green eyes meet mine, a little fearful, a little wry. “Apparently, you.”