We left the bar and meandered toward Grand Central. When the big brick building loomed in front of us, I said, “I guess this is it,” and immediately thought it sounded like a cheesy movie line.

We continued to the platform of Tyler’s train, and he turned slowly toward me. “I’ll e-mail you when I get to the office tomorrow,” he said. I smiled, and he leaned toward me. Our lips met softly, his goatee tickling my lips, and while I wanted to melt in his arms, Tyler pulled away after just a few seconds. He held my gaze, and I knew he wanted more, too.

I stepped back, waved, and turned to go.

“Can I start you out with some drinks?” She dropped coasters on the table in front of us.

“Please!” I said. “I’ll take a glass of pinot grigio.”

She turned to Tyler.

“Red Death, please.”

“We don’t serve those,” she said, then pointed toward the wall where it met the table. “Our specialty drink menu’s over there. Want me to come back in a few minutes?”

“No,” Tyler fidgeted with the coaster. “I’ll have the same thing.”

After a couple glasses of wine, we had both finally loosened up enough to at least resemble the people we were in e-mail. Tyler alluded to my photo gallery on the web site again, and I teased him about being a computer geek.

He looked at his watch—a little too obviously, I thought, but I got the hint. He had to get home to his wife.

I gripped my bag and slid out of the booth. “I’ll go pay at the bar.”

“No, no. You’re not paying,” Tyler shot back. “That’s what I’m here for.” He pulled a credit card out of his wallet and waived it at the server’s station. When she came over with the check, Tyler hesitated, then pulled cash out of his wallet to place with the bill.

Once back in his street clothes, Tyler look slight and timid again. He shyly looked at me among the other students as we all left class together. I could see his bag bulging with his gee, rumpled after he’d worn it, but he carried what must have been his conference binder separately. In the street, the group of students broke up into pairs and small groups as we went our separate directions.

“Tyler.” I nudged his elbow to get his attention and pointed down a side street. “There’s a great bar down here. Come on.”

The Old Town Bar was fairly small, but it was dimly lit and had elevated, high-backed booths along the walls. And I knew this was a place Mouse would never come. His image had snuck into my head again, and I realized he would react with rage if he saw me with another man, even though I knew he was most likely with another woman.

I led Tyler to a booth near the back. He stepped up and slid in one side, setting his binder on the edge of the table. I rushed to slide in the other side, but caught my foot on the step, so I flung my hand out to stabilize myself with the edge of the table. Instead, I caught hold of Tyler’s binder, sending it flying halfway across the room while I ungracefully fell forward into the booth. The padded seat let out a poof with the weight of my body landing hard on it. Tyler’s business papers fluttered to the floor five feet away, but he didn’t say anything. Oh, please, I thought, even calling me a klutz would be better than silence.

“I’m so sorry.” I tried to pull myself back out of the booth to help him pick up the mess, but he started laughing.

“Oh, sit down,” he said. “It’s not a big deal. It’s fine.” He knelt down but kept talking. “I shouldn’t have kept all these conference papers anyway. It’s not as though my job’s going anywhere.” He laughed harder now. “Imagine fifty accountants in a conference room chattering about numbers. There honestly can’t be any good paperwork that would come of that!”

I had loosened up enough to laugh with him by then. Finally, he stood up with his binder back in tact when the server came to the table.

Jessica partnered with Master H, and Tyler approached me. “You ready to wrestle?” he said, smiling. I got so swept up in his confidence that I forgot about his crooked teeth and shy demeanor that had preoccupied me earlier in the evening.

We bowed to each other and began to circle slightly, each waiting for the other to attack first. When Tyler didn’t make a move, I stepped forward to deliver a right-handed punch. Tyler swept it to his right, turning my back to him, and wrapped his left bicep and forearm around my neck. I felt his muscular body behind me but tried not to think about it. I tensed to elbow him in the solar plexus, but my elbow met with solid stomach muscles, not even fazing him. By that point, I felt myself gasping for air, my throat constricting, and I gripped his forearm with both hands. I summoned my body for strength to fight him off, but my knees felt weak. From far away, I heard Master H call, “Kalyeo,” again, and I was grateful.

After thirty minutes of line drills and form practice, Tyler released us to spar. I paired up with Jessica first, a short, butch-style woman who regularly pursued conversations about femalemuscle.com with me.

Tyler sparred with a large Jamaican man not far from Jessica and me. Their kicks and punches were much louder than any other pair’s, and I found myself distracted by Tyler’s grunts. Jessica snuck in a couple kicks to my stomach and several punches to my face. Every time I tried to take the offensive, she skillfully blocked my moves. I focused harder and blocked a punch from Jessica, then pulled her in to deliver a kick to her lower back.

Just then, a louder-than-normal grunt came from Tyler’s direction, and his partner went airborne. Jessica and I both paused to watch the man land on the hardwood floor and skid several feet before coming to a stop. Tyler stood where he was, breathing deeply with his head lowered toward his partner, who was now gingerly picking himself up off the floor.

“Kalyeo,” Master H called out.

Tyler took his cue and helped the Jamaican man up. “Switch partners and continue sparring,” he said to the rest of the students.

When we arrived at Master’s H’s building, there was an awkward pause as Tyler reached for the door.

“You better go up first,” I said. “I’ll just hang out down here and come up in a few minutes.”

“Right,” he said tersely and disappeared inside.

After several minutes, I went inside and headed straight for the locker room. I changed slowly but still felt as though everyone would know Tyler and I had arrived together. I entered the studio and bowed toward the front of the room, following martial arts etiquette. Other students were milling around, waiting for class to begin. Master H caught my gaze, and I smiled nonchalantly.

“Good to see you, Lori,” he said before turning to Tyler, probably to discuss what forms the class was working on.

I couldn’t help but notice again how different Tyler looked in his gee than in his street clothes. The crisp, white fabric contrasted with his dark hair and eyes. His chest muscles filled the front of his gee, and he had a more confident stance. He stood up straight with his shoulders pulled back, unlike his seemingly self-conscious slouch at the Crowne Plaza.

Other students filtered into the room as well. I preoccupied myself with stretching so I wouldn’t have to talk to anyone, and I hoped no one would notice how often I stole glances at Tyler. Finally, Tyler called the class together and told everyone to get into rows. He called out, “Hana, dul, set…” counting as we moved across the studio doing ap cha gi, front kicks. Tyler’s gee made a snap sound every time his foot extended and retreated back to the floor. “Dwi uro dorah,” Tyler said, and we all turned around. “Bahro chirugi,” straight punches. “Hana, dul, set…”

When Tyler opened the door for me, the mixed aromas of fruits, vanilla, and flowers wafted out. I picked up a purple candle from one of the front tables and breathed in the scent.

“Mmmm, passion flower,” I said.

“Let me smell.” Tyler tilted his head forward, and I held the candle up. “You like candles?” he asked.

“Love them.” I made my way to the next table filled with candy cane and poinsettia candles. “They smell so good, and they have this…” I paused, looking for the right word. I didn’t want to say romantic.
“—calming effect with their flames. I can’t help but buy some every time I see them.” I laughed at myself.

“Me, too!” Tyler said as if he had just learned that we knew each other in a former life. “My wife thinks I’m crazy, but I just love them. I always…” He didn’t finish his sentence.

My hand had frozen in mid-reach for a pink night-blooming jasmine candle when he said the word wife, and now the silence reminded me to try to act casual about it. I knew he was married. Why was this such a big deal?

I tried to laugh, but it came out high pitched and fake. “I know what you mean.” I flitted to the next table. “My ex told me all the time that I was too frivolous, that candles just stunk up the apartment.”

When I glanced back at Tyler, he was nodding his head slightly, as if he were talking to himself but no words were coming out, just nods.

“Well, I’m going to buy these,” I said, holding up a set of pine, poinsettia, and tea candles. “Then we better get to class.”

“That’s incredible. You could really cause some pain with a knife like that.” Tyler glanced at me out of the corner of his eye.

A small shiver shot up my spine, but I shook it off. My hand brushed against a basket on the counter, and I looked down to find it full of lens-less glasses with light bulbs on the outside of the earpieces. When I opened the glasses, the bulbs lit up.

I put them on and shone the lights at Tyler’s head. With my hands in the air, I said, “Look, Mom, no hands!”

Tyler turned, and we both laughed. The counter attendant rushed toward us and said, “Those aren’t toys.” I laughed harder. Tyler stifled his laughter but whisked the glasses off my face, threw them back in the basket, and led the way to the door. Outside, we leaned against the building to laugh. Passersby peered at us as though we were strange creatures, which made me laugh harder. The cool concrete of the wall pressed through my jacket sleeve, and I took deep breaths of the crisp winter air to try to ease my giggles.

“Oh, god,” I breathed out with a sigh. “Ok, let’s go over there.” I pointed to a Bath & Body Works across Fifth Avenue.

Tyler raised his eyebrows at me.

“What? We went in a guy store. Now we get to go in a girl store,” I retorted.

“Hey.” I grabbed his arm a little too suddenly and he looked startled. I drew away quickly. “There’s Restoration Hardware. Let’s go in there.” He looked hesitant. “Oh, come on!” This tension was driving me crazy. “You’ll like it. They have old-fashioned gadgets and stuff. It’s a total guy store.” I wanted to loop my arm through his, pull my body close, and steer him toward the door, but after his reaction to my touch on his elbow, I resisted the urge. Instead, I tilted my head toward the door as if to say Let’s not take all night.

Once inside, Tyler went straight to the pocket knife counter. “Hey.” He waved me over to the counter. “I had one of those when I was a kid,” he said, pointing through the glass at a Swiss Army knife complete with spoon and fork extensions.

“Wow, you really are a country boy,” I teased.

He laughed. Finally, I thought.

Something on the wall behind the counter caught his eye. I followed his gaze to a knife with a curved blade about eight inches long, adorned with a handle made out of something like a deer horn. But what did I know? The closest thing I’d seen to a deer was an antelope or something at the zoo.

“Are you ready to tour the city?” I asked.

“I guess.” Tyler picked up a black rectangular bag—made of synthetic fabric, not quite a briefcase—and smiled again. His smile was shy, though, and I noticed his gapped and crooked teeth for the first time. This couldn’t be the same man who had e-mailed me persistently over the past few weeks, confidently making sexual allusions and making me feel like a little girl with a crush.

“Did you fit your gee in there?” I pointed to his bag.

“Yeah, it’s on the bottom. I didn’t want to bring a big bag to walk around the city.” He shrugged.

I took Tyler through the Flat Iron District, walking slowly and window shopping. I felt as though my movements were stiff—looking at him out of the corners of my eyes, laughing a little too loudly sometimes and smiling only half-heartedly at other times, and I didn’t know what to do with my hands. I resolved to keep them in my jacket pockets; the cold, dry breeze burned at them anyway. But then whenever I wanted to point something out to Tyler—the holiday wreaths hanging from the streetlamps or the occasional businesspeople who rushed down the street with briefcases ridiculously the size of suitcases—I could never get my hand out in time. By then, the moment had always passed and Tyler was looking at something else.