“Let’s get personal,” one of the men said to one of the women. “How many partners have you had?”

“Me?”

“Well?”

“You mean in the past year?”

“Or lifetime. You decide.”

“If I’m going to answer a question like that,” she said, “I think we definitely need another round of drinks.”

The drinks came, and the conversation slid into a game of Truth, though it seemed to Jennifer — these people knew her as Jennifer, a name she seemed to have picked up again, after having left it behind months ago in New York — it seemed to her that the actual veracity of the responses was moot.

And then it was her turn.

“Well, Jen? How many?”

Would she ever see any of these people again? Probably not. Kansas City was all right, but she was about ready for a change of venue. So it really didn’t matter what she said.

And what she said was, “Well, it depends. How do you decide what counts?”

“What do you mean? Like blow jobs don’t count?”

“Isn’t that what Clinton said?”

“As far as I’m concerned, blow jobs count.”

“And hand jobs?”

“They don’t count,” one man said, and there seemed to be general agreement on that point. “Not that there’s anything wrong with them,” he added.

“So what’s your criterion here, exactly? Something has to be inside of something?”

“As far as the nature of the act,” one man said, “I think it has to be subjective. It counts if you think it counts. So, Jen? What’s your count?”

“Suppose you passed out, and you know something happened, but you don’t remember any of it?”

“Same answer. It counts if you think it counts.”