It was a date. For me. For her — a trip to the mall and a micro-walk through the park, slotted between two other things.

Forty-three kilograms. Highlights in her hair. Works at a gym, sells clothes for men and women, experienced, says nice things. She was writing me: "Your charisma is so sexy." "You're already starting to flirt with me." "Kissing is the next level of our relationship." In the same window, she was scrolling other profiles, looking for more.

I knew. I bit anyway.

For eight years, the main event of my day had been the revolving front door of my building — I counted how many times it spun. Eight years without a woman's lips, without a woman's body, without anyone's hand in mine. Sometimes you breathe in deeper and deeper, just to keep from going crazy. And resorting to a purely commercial exchange of bodies — that's a loss. That's the ledger I kept.

And here she was. Trained to bring a man real pleasure.

I trimmed myself down there.

The fathers of my mind blessed me — wished my future date well. I was paralyzed. I just wanted to spill everything out.

I told her she could pick the place. She chose the garden. "You'll like it," she promised. She even used the verb tense correctly.

Got dressed. Cologne. The night before, I'd found a hotel near the meeting spot. Thirty minutes and decent sex. The woman selling flowers laughed in my face. She could feel I was going on a date with someone who was going to fuck me over. I told her honestly that I already had a whole greenhouse at home. She teased — now I'd have to give each flower a name and talk to them.

Dark mall parking lot. My tension. The bouquet. The best version of myself.

She came out from a far corner. Smiling. As if she had floated out of a chorus line of folk dancers. Slim, trained, hair with highlights, a hypnotic scent. I kissed her hair. She didn't notice the flowers. "Wait, I'll just run into the store," she said.

I sat there on the parking lot like an idiot. Maybe she's buying birth control, I thought.

She came back out. Took the bouquet: "Are these for me?"

We went upstairs. God, how I wanted her. A girl who'd be one of many in any audience had transformed, in my eyes, into a queen — given a thousand-percent booster. A girl from the Far North, here to conquer the capital, has every man who was born here. In this field of sex, money, and availability, the rules of the game are different.

We bought coffee. Stood waiting in different spots for a long time. I could feel: she's available to men — including the ones from her gym — and probably often. But she was conservatively reciting the script:

— I just want friendship. I want a creative exchange.

Christ, what a buzzkill.

The park, which on any normal day would have been a canvas worthy of Rembrandt's brush, had collapsed into a single grey backdrop. Even the flowers smelled less than she did.

— I never used to notice the smell of flowers. Now I'm just obsessed with them, — she said, hammering the first nail into the lid of my coffin.

She seemed to come here every day. Her usual route — meeting friends, walking the dogs, with various possible storylines.

To my left and right, multimillion-dollar high-rises were taking aim at me. Gangsters, managers, clerks, courtesans — all of them eat the energy of these places, millimeter by millimeter, and pack it away under their shells. How far behind I'd fallen.

Out in the open air, my libido flared higher. Pensioners, children, dogs were walking around us. A backdrop I no longer noticed. Just give me access. Now.

She led me to the fountain at the center of the park. The whole time, I was carrying both coffees — hers and mine, both paid for by me. She stayed standing, as if undecided about sitting down. Flexible, slim, magnetic. More than anything in the world, I wanted to put her on my forty-year-old knees — the staging allowed it. I wanted to disregard the conventions and start touching her right there, in front of all that respectable public.

But she had set up a mental wall between us. Or I had simply been out of practice for too long. God, what a humiliation.

— This is exactly how I imagined you. New encounters, for me, are an energy charge. I was on my way here picturing how it would be.

From sheer arousal, I spilled coffee on my carefully ironed dark jeans.

The stain spread.

But other streams of moisture were already running through there — I could barely tell the difference.

— I had such a wonderful husband. We divorced a few years ago. He was a financial analyst. With him I felt like I was behind a stone wall. Now I'm free. But no one will ever replace him.

I tried to hint at the body:

— I've been through a loss, working too long, exhausted, I want out.

— But you like it that way.

She had an internal perimeter wrapped in barbed wire.

I must have looked so visibly lost that people were turning to stare. I must have been devouring her with my eyes — that small, neat chest, the thin ankles — because she suggested we walk.

— What's wrong, why so down? Don't worry. Look how beautiful nature is.

That's how an executioner speaks to his victim. Or an investigator in an interrogation room.

— There's this idea that everyone on dating apps is just there for sex. But there's also the concept of friendship.

I felt the enveloping sexual energy beside me. But she had already tagged a label onto my finger and laid me out in the morgue. My vape died. I pulled out a new one — she winced at the smoke. Apparently I had become unconditionally repulsive.

For the entire hour, she had asked nothing personal. It was her monologue, with me nodding along. My remarks about the beauty of the landscape, the church nearby, the details of my trips — all of it sounded thin and was ignored. She came alive only when the conversation was about her.

— You have such an interesting energy — powerful, — I said, just to keep something going.

— Yeah? Like what?

In the surrounding terrain, I noticed alcoves and recesses where I would have happily taken her for an exchange of caresses. But the place was crowded. The location had not been chosen by accident.

— After the divorce I experimented with men a lot. But that period is over. Now I need something bigger.

She poured a whole jerrycan of gasoline onto the already burning fire.

While I stupidly photographed flowers, she waited patiently, glancing at her watch. My sarcastic jokes had stopped landing.

— For a first meeting, I think this is enough. We weren't planning anything more today, were we?

Fucking hell.

It would have been the perfect date for my body. I wanted her, I leaned toward her. For her, it was a friendly walk where her body was incidentally nearby — companionably.

She kept talking — nothing about me, everything about everything else:

— You can come here too. Buy yourself a coffee. Take walks.

She bared her beautiful navel and her toned stomach. The kill shot to the head of an already cooling corpse.

Not once that evening did she call me by my name. To her, I remained no one. Another foot soldier among the thousands she'd seen.

In closing, we took turns in the bathroom. As we said goodbye, she held out her hand. I kissed her hair. One more time. The last one.

— You'll owe me, — she said.

To meet her as a friend — while someone else, at night, would be pulling her underwear down. Some friendship.

Someone is going to get lucky this weekend.

The head I'd just stuck out of the dugout was driven back inside by the rolling treads of this woman. My pillow smells of her perfume. My face hasn't cooled from her yet.

— To gain freedom, you have to leave your comfort zone, — she said. — I've discovered, in recent years, that I'm very strong. And I like that about myself.

I wonder how this story will drift, one day, like a thin meaning over my grave.

A few more dates like this and my wallet will be empty.

She, meanwhile, can keep walking along those high-rise towers.