I worked with her brother first. I met him on the job, at that coffee shop that connected me to everything, the place I found myself among an odd group of hard-drinking poets and intellectuals. He tried my name, discarded it with a frown, and renamed me "Freak" almost immediately. She started a month or two later. She looks like her brother: tall, lanky. I learn that she is polyamorous and bisexual. She has a child. She is quick, whip-smart, funny. We have fun at work. We talk about books and chess in the slow afternoon hours. Sometimes her boyfriend comes in and leans on the bar. (I cycle between wonderfully engaging and cripplingly shy; there is no middle ground.) She likes to point out women she finds attractive and I assess them with her. I don't consider myself bisexual but beauty is beauty and I'm not blind. One night she invites me to come over, north of the city, where she lives in the woods. She suggests we get some beer, play some chess, hang out. ...