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hallway. She was convinced each of her neighbors had an ear pressed against his or her door. She whispered to Jason, “Can we take this discussion inside?”
    Jason shook his head. “You barely know me. Besides that, you’re not making this very interesting for me.”
    “Should I run down the hall so you can chase me?” she asked.
    A couple of her neighbors had blatantly opened their doors a crack. Jason said, “If you want to go on a date, fine. But I’m not coming inside now. I’d feel used and I wouldn’t respect you in the morning. There’d be no future if we did this now.”
    He wanted a relationship; she wanted sex. How often did this happen? “Didn’t Charlie tell you I’m wearing crotchless panties?” she asked.
    “He did.”
    “And?”
    “That doesn’t sound very sanitary.”
    She was sure she heard giggles up and down the hall. Feeling the early pinch of a headache — a big one — Stacy stared at Jason: tall, handsome, furry, nervous, emasculated by her aggression. Avoiding revirgination might be tougher than she’d thought. Tough, but not impossible. She could make a list of prospects. There had to be dozens of men who would be thrilled to perform this small service to ensure her cardiac health and lower her cholesterol. In fact, making a detailed list of her candidates was what she would do. Right away.
    But first, Stacy smiled what used to be her irresistible sweetheart smile, and said, “If that’s how you feel, then I’ll say good night, Jason.” She opened her apartment door.
    He said, “Good night, Stacy.”
    As he walked down the hall, she said, “Good night, everyone.”
    Softly, from behind closed doors, her neighbors’ voices chorused, “Good night, Stacy.”

Chapter Three

     
    Tuesday morning
    I n her three-year relationship with Brian Gourd (albeit a union of convenience and habit more than consuming passion), Stacy had grown accustomed to getting her minimum weekly requirements. For the first year and a half their sex had been hot. She thought about him — it — constantly. Stacy would wake up from a daydream about him and realize that an hour had gone by. At the end, when Brian wouldn’t stop complaining and Stacy found herself bored by his face, the centerpiece of her erotic fantasies had shifted from cock to stock.
    This was around the time she’d started at thongs.com — pre-IPO, post-options package. She relished the prospect of millions — not even what those dollars could buy, just the idea of being fabulously wealthy. In the summer and fall of 1998, theoretical riches were far more exciting than actual dear, sweet, never - hurt - anyone - on - purpose Brian. Thongs.com was a seductive lover. The romance of 12-hour workdays, stock options, larger-than-life bosses, silky props, good press (in mid-1998, thongs.com was named Dot Com.er of the Year by the
New York Post
Business Section) all served to intensify her obsession. After a good workday, Stacy floated home on a cloud of pride and elation. She couldn’t remember a single day in her relationship with Brian that made her feel as shamelessly smug. The breakup was inevitable. She was sure she’d made the right choice between her man and her job. (If she still felt as passionately about thongs.com, she might not be in a panic about the absence of romance with a person in her life now.)
    She’d never wanted to marry Brian. Stacy wasn’t exactly sure how she’d ended up in a long-term relationship with him in the first place; it was a weekend fling that had lasted three years. She’d constantly asked herself if it was an important relationship, knowing all the while that it wasn’t. But the possibility of amassing wealth — that was important. Stacy’s father, Sol Temple, a hedge fund manager at Smith Barney, believed that “you are what you earn”; her mother, Belinda Temple, an interior decorator, was more of an “you are what you eat” fat-phobic semiprofessional anorexic. They were still married,