“I love you, Ted.” She said it so fiercely that it unnerved him, and he was almost beginning to wonder if this was what love was. Maybe she really knew.

“Don’t say that. You don’t know me yet. Let’s get to know each other and find out what this is.” He tried to reason with her, but nothing that was happening made sense.

“This is love,” she whispered in his ear, and he was willing to believe her if it would get him to her bed again. “Let’s go home,” she said as they walked out of the room.

“What about your kids?” He was worried about them. He didn’t want them to become aware of what he was doing with their mother, and it unnerved him knowing they were there. He had forgotten it eventually the night before, but he didn’t want to do that again. It didn’t seem right to him.

“They’re with their dad tonight,” Pattie said with a girlish grin, and Ted looked at her and smiled. “He picked them up at school. They’ll be with him for two days.” It was good news to both of them, and she and Ted walked home to her place at an ever-quickening pace and raced up the stairs to her apartment. He was already slamming her against the door as she unlocked it, then kicked it closed, and they both flew into the living room and fell on each other on the couch. The night they spent together was even wilder than the one before. And the next day, neither of them went to school. They both called in sick and made love night and day. Pattie commented that you had to be Ted’s age to make love as often as that, but she was there with him every time. As their bodies writhed and joined and blended together, neither of them thought or cared about their age. All Ted wanted now was her.

When Pattie’s children came back from their father’s, Ted went to his apartment for the first time in three days. The nights he had just spent with her felt like a tidal wave, and he had been washed up on the shore. He looked like he’d been on a three-week drunk when he finally got home. He was grateful that none of his roommates were in. He hadn’t been to school in three days. Pattie had promised to give him an A in her class no matter what he did, but that didn’t feel right to him. He had to get back to school. She had finally gone back to work that afternoon.

She called him an hour after he got home. He was lying with his eyes closed on his bed.

“I can’t stand it. I have to see you.” Pattie’s voice sounded ragged on the phone, and he smiled, thinking of her.

“We may have to go everywhere like Siamese twins.” The day before he had actually carried her to her kitchen, still deeply plunged into her. He fed her grapes and strawberries, sat her on the kitchen counter, and finished it there. There was nothing they hadn’t tried in the past three days. Thanks to Pattie, his sexual education was now complete, or maybe it was just beginning.

“Can I come over?” She sounded desperate.

“Where are the kids?” He always worried about them. He didn’t want them to be upset in any way because of his wild affair with her.

“I can leave them with Mrs. Pacheco downstairs for a couple of hours. What are you doing?”

“Lying on my bed. My roommates should be home soon, but you can come over if you want.” He had his own room, although the walls were paper thin. It didn’t even occur to him that they might be startled by her age. He had stopped thinking about the difference in their ages the first night. Sex had leveled the playing field between them.

She was there half an hour later, after dropping the kids off and taking a cab to his place. She got there before his roommates, and they made love frantically for two hours before she had to leave. They had never left his bed or his room. They hardly talked to each other, except when they were too exhausted to make love again, but Pattie said they were kindred spirits, and he believed her. What other explanation could there be for this? He could think of no other.

“See you tomorrow,” she said dreamily as she left, and he kissed her. He was so exhausted that five minutes later he was sound asleep, and he never got to all the studying he had to do and had promised himself he would do that night. He’d have to make up for it the next day. He had so much catching up to do now.

Ted caught up on some of his work for the next two days, and they were both miserable. But she had papers to correct too. She wanted to come over for a couple of hours, and he wouldn’t let her. He knew they wouldn’t be able to tear themselves away again, and he had to study for final exams in a couple of weeks. He had promised to take her to dinner at the Waverly Inn on Friday, and they were both looking forward to it. He wanted to spend a normal evening with her, talk to her across a dinner table and get to know her, not just have wild abandoned sex wherever they could on every surface in her apartment. He wanted to have a relationship with her and try to figure out what this was. Was it just an animal attraction they couldn’t control, or was it what Pattie kept saying, that it was love? Ted wanted to find out, and he wanted to take her to dinner and act like a civilized adult with her, not just a sex maniac on a rampage. Pattie was touched that he wanted to take her out, and the kids were back at their father’s for the weekend. With their joint custody arrangement, the children went back and forth every couple of days, which gave Ted and Pattie time to be together, and a little breather in between.

Their dinner at the Waverly Inn started out perfectly, with a nice table and a good dinner. Ted ordered wine for them. He was showing off a little and wanted to demonstrate how sophisticated he was, but Pattie didn’t care. She never took her eyes off him all evening, and they were both aching to go home long before dessert.

“Maybe we’re just not ready to go out yet,” Ted said, as they hurried home. The idea had been good, but practically they couldn’t keep their clothes on, stay out of bed, and keep their bodies away from each other long enough to have a decent meal or get to know each other. Ted locked the front door behind them, and they never made it a step farther. He spun her around, gently laid her down on the carpet, and shoved her skirt up. She was begging for him as he took her right there, and then carried her to the bedroom with their clothes strewn across the floor. They didn’t leave the apartment again after that for two days, until her kids came home. Ted left five minutes before Pattie’s ex-husband dropped them off, and he went back to his own apartment, exhausted and happy and missing her.

Annie called Ted several times over the weekend, but his phone always went to voice mail. She finally called Liz and Kate, who was out with friends.

“Have you heard from your brother?” she asked them both the same question. He usually checked in with her every few days, and this week he hadn’t, and she thought it was strange. “I hope he’s okay.” Maybe he was sick. But he was never too busy to call her, and she hadn’t heard a word from him since the Sunday after Thanksgiving when he’d left. Kate said he hadn’t called her, and Liz said the same and that she’d had a busy week herself. They all had, and things were going to be even busier before Christmas and over the holidays.

“I’m sure he’s fine,” Liz reassured her. “He’s probably just busy with school. He was complaining about it the other day. Law school is really tough.”

“Maybe he has a new girlfriend,” Annie suggested, sounding pensive, and Lizzie laughed.

“I don’t think so. After he broke up with Meg, he’s been pretty careful not to get too involved with anyone. I think it’s just school.”

“I guess you’re right.” The two women chatted for a few minutes, and Liz said that Jean-Louis was going back to Paris over the weekend. She was flying over to meet him the day after Christmas, spend a week with him, and then she had to work. She was trying to get him assigned to her shoot. It would be fun working with him if she could. “Is this getting serious?” Annie asked, and Liz just laughed at her.

“I don’t know what you’d call it. Neither of us goes out with anyone else, so it’s exclusive, but we’re not making plans for the future or anything. We’re too young for that.” Annie wasn’t so sure. Some women were ready to settle down at twenty-eight. Others weren’t. Lizzie wasn’t. And Jean-Louis didn’t seem to want to settle down either. They were having too much fun in their own lives. And Jean-Louis had apparently not felt too young to have a son, since he had a five-year-old at twenty-nine. It made Annie nervous to realize that he had been Ted’s age when he had a child. She couldn’t even imagine it. Ted still seemed like a kid to her. And so did Kate at twenty-one. And Annie couldn’t see Liz with Jean-Louis long term. He just didn’t seem like the right man to her. He was no better or worse than the others Lizzie had gone out with. She always went out with someone who, like her, wanted no commitment. Annie had other dreams for her, like a serious man who would take care of her. And Annie couldn’t imagine Jean-Louis as anyone’s father, nor as the husband Lizzie deserved. And at twenty-eight it wasn’t unreasonable to be thinking about her future. Annie didn’t want her to end up alone like her. It worked for her, but she wanted something more for Liz. Jean-Louis wasn’t it. Ted and Kate were far too young to worry about long-term partners yet. They were still just kids, and still in school, but Liz was an adult.

Annie finally reached Ted on Sunday night, when he got back to his apartment, and she was relieved to hear him, although he sounded a little sick.

“Are you okay? Do you have a cold?”

“I’m fine.” He smiled at her concern. He couldn’t help wondering how she would react to Pattie, but he wasn’t ready to share the news of her arrival in his life yet, so he kept it to himself. “I’m just tired. I’ve been working really hard all week.” He certainly had, but not in the way Annie thought.