We’d had a couple of dates. After the last one we’d kissed goodnight. I replayed the kiss over and over in my mind. But the next day, when I called her to ask about our next date, she was hesitant. “You’re kind of an old-fashioned guy,” she said. “I think I’m a more modern sort of girl.”

“I can be modern,” I said. “I’ll take you to the museum, the Museum of Modern Art.”

She laughed. “You know most of the stuff in there is over a hundred years old.”

“Then how about the zoo? Unless all the good animals are extinct.”

“Okay,” she said. “We’ll look at some bad animals and see what happens.”

On Sunday afternoon we met at the zoo. It was cold and gray out, but sometimes the sun shone through, and I thought we were having a pretty good time. We held hands and strolled along the wide sidewalks, not much caring about the cages and compounds we passed.

“Mostly divorced fathers and their little girls go to zoos these days,” she observed.

“The divorced mothers go to MOMA,” I said.

She laughed. She kissed me. “You’d make a good father,” she said. She kissed me again. “I can picture you walking your little girl ‘round and ‘round the sea lion pool.”

“You can?”

She nodded. “Clockwise.”

I smiled. “But you don’t see me as a good husband?”

She looked at me a long moment. “I have to pee,” she said. “Wait here.”

She disappeared around the corner.

I waited. The day being so cold, there were few people. The cage to my right contained a very large bird. A condor. The cage was immense, but not big enough for flight. The bird hopped around the base of the cage, then hopped up to the branch of an artificial tree. He sat there.

I waited and watched. Then I called. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to answer, but she did.

“Hi,” she said.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah.”

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Oh. Well, are you still in the bathroom?”

“What do you think?”

“I don’t know what to think.”

“Use your imagination.”

“Okay. Um, I imagine you’re still in the bathroom.”

“You do?”

“Yes. You’re sitting on the toilet.”

“I am? Wow, that’s a long pee.”

“You’re not peeing.”

“No? What am I doing?”

“You’re ... You’re masturbating.”

“Ah.”

“Yes. You’re touching yourself while thinking of me.”

“Hm.”

“Your finger is going ‘round and ‘round your clit.”

“‘Round and ‘round, huh?”

“Yeah, clockwise.”

“Ha!”

“And your clit is all stiff and suckable.”

“Mmm, tell me more.”

“You’re close to coming. Very close. A few more circles should do it.”

“Or if I pushed my fingers into my cunt.”

“Yes, Ava. Push your fingers in.”

“I’m so slippery, Colin. So tight and hot and slippery.”

“Does it feel good?”

“Mm-hm.”

“Fuck yourself with your fingers, Ava. Make yourself come.”

“Mm-yeah.”

“Are you coming?”

“Mmmm.”

“You are?”

“Mmmm.”

“I want to see. Take a picture.”

“A picture? A picture of what?”

“Anything.”

“Okay. But I can’t talk and take the picture at the same time.”

She hung up.

I tried to imagine it.

I took a deep breath. I’d never done anything like that before. The condor was still on the branch. He looked cold.

I thought I’d gone too far, but then a minute or so later, my phone chirped. A message: “Sorry. All my cunt scent down the drain.”

Yup, I’d gone too far. I waited a few more minutes, just in case, but it was obvious she wasn’t coming back. What I ought to do, I thought, was go into the men’s room and make a video of me masturbating into the sink and send that to her, but instead I took a picture of the condor.