I managed to get out a quick “Tamara, wait…” before I felt the interior doorknob of my SoHo apartment jab into the small of my back. Tamara ground against me like she was trying to make her body occupy the same space as mine—and I certainly wasn’t complaining. Our mouths locked, the sweet taste of whatever umbrellaed concoction she’d been drinking mixing with the Corona flavor of mine. It was a surprisingly good combination.

“Simon, shhh…” she whispered, pushing me even farther into the apartment. She fell toward me with a sudden “Ow!” It was dark, but I could still see her hopping about on one leg. She had been trying to strip off my brown suede coat and the GABBA GABBA HEY Ramones T-shirt I was wearing, but now she clutched her knee.

“You okay?” I asked, finding the switch from horn-dog to concerned a difficult one to make.

“Yeah,” she said, and hissed out a long, slow sigh of pain. “What did I hit?”

“Just a packing crate,” I said, reaching out and steadying her. I contemplated turning on the lights to check on her, but hesitated, debating whether or not the other two dozen packing crates around my living room might scare her off. It wasn’t that I was a slob, but given my workload at the Department of Extraordinary Affairs, my personal antiques acquisitions had become backlogged. They were spread out across my dangerously darkened living room like little landmines from the Ghost of Bruises Yet to Come.

Luckily, a little knee pain wasn’t enough to stop Tamara. We resumed our lip lock while I weaved us safely past the labyrinth of crates and down the hall to my bedroom. If she was still hurt, she hid it well. I guessed that the promise of sexual healing was helping her tough through any damage to her knee.