“I think I’m going to call you ‘Upper West Side’ from now on,” she tells me with a grin.

“But ‘God’ is much more accurate.”

She moves to the bookcase. “These are great pictures.” She’s looking at one I took of Mackenzie last year, blowing a kiss at the camera. The lighting brought out the brilliance of her baby blues.

“That’s Mackenzie,” I explain. “The niece I told you about Wednesday night . . . who’s technically not.” I point to another picture beside it. “And that’s my parents.” It’s a black and white—my mother looks blissfully clueless, my father grumpily oblivious; their everyday expressions.

I pull out my camera bag, making sure I have extra film, checking the lenses.

“Do you have a darkroom?” she asks.

“I do, actually.”

A look appears in her eyes that I’m beginning to grow familiar with—one that says she’s turned on. “Will you show it to me?”

I put the camera down and raise my arm. “Right this way.”

Officially, it’s a walk-in closet, but windowless and large enough for a shelf of chemicals and a table with a row of developing trays. The lighting is low of course, with a sepia-tinted hue. I close the door behind us, as Delores looks around. And that feeling of playing seven minutes in heaven when I was thirteen washes over me. But heaven, back then, was never this beautiful.

Dee’s eyes rake over me from head to toe. “Do you have any idea how sexy this is, Matthew?”

“A little bit,” I admit.

She presses up against me and my back hits the closed door. Dee kisses my chin, then scrapes it with her teeth. “Will you take my picture sometime?” She bends her knees and slides down my torso, her warm hands leaving a trail of heat as they skim my chest and stomach.

I swallow hard. “I will definitely be taking your picture.”

She peppers my stomach with soft kisses. “We’ll be like a modern day Jack and Rose from Titanic.”

Breathing heavy now, I say, “Jack was a pu**y. If I were him, I would’ve tied Rose up, gagged her, and tossed her ass in a life boat. Then I would’ve gotten in after her.” I’d like to point out that if Rose had just done what the hell Jack told her to, they both would’ve survived.

Dee wets her lips with her tongue and slides my jeans down over my hips, freeing my already aching dick. She wraps her small hand around the base, pumping slowly. “Until you take those photographs of me, and develop them here, I want you to think about this the next time you’re in this room.”

Still stroking the base, she covers the tip with her lips, sucking gently and flicking it with her tongue. I lean more weight against the door—my knees going weak. She removes her mouth, peels the foreskin back, and takes me fully in.

And I can’t help but moan. “Fuuuck.”

Her mouth is hot and wet and so tight, bright dots appear in the darkness of my closed lids. Slowly she increases the suction of her mouth, the speed of her rubbing palm—my hand buries in her hair and tightens.

Dee hums around me, and I beg, “Faster . . .” She grants my request and her head bobs quicker, dragging me closer with every pass of her mouth. I pant. “Dee . . . yes . . . gonna come . . .” She sucks me even tighter, and then I’m coming, groaning raggedly, gripping her hair in my fist—trying not to pull. As soon as she releases me, I sink all the way to the floor, breathing like I completed the New York marathon.

I reach for Delores—pull her up against my chest. I kiss her nose, both cheeks, and finally her mouth, thoroughly. “I’ll remember that for a long, long time.”

“Mission accomplished.”

“You’re kidding me, right?”

I take my helmet off and lock it onto my motorcycle. “No, I’m serious.”

Dee hasn’t gotten off the bike. “I’ll wait out here, if it’s all the same to you.”

“Come on—it’s halfway over already—I just have to drop off my envelope.”

“Have you never heard the saying, ‘As nervous as a whore in Church’?”

“Knock it off with the self-deprecating comments. If that’s the standard, I should be sweating bullets. Let’s go.”

“Do I have to drink blood?”

“Only if you’re baptized.”

If you haven’t figured it out yet, we’re at St. Mary’s church. It’s Sunday—and on Sunday, I go to church, even if it’s only for the tail-end of the mass. I have a deeply held belief that something terrible will happen if I don’t.

Twelve years of Catholic school will do that to you.

I drag Dee into the vestibule. She steps carefully, like she’s walking into a haunted house.

A suited, gray-haired gentleman comes through the double doors carrying a brimming collection basket. Perfect timing. I slip my envelope in and bow my head as the priest’s voice echoes through the speakers from the main chamber, working up to the final blessing. Dee watches, copying my stance as she stands beside me. Before the priest is finished, a commotion of clattering feet coming up the stairs from the basement draws my attention. Through the side door, Sister Beatrice Dugan steps into the antechamber with a dozen Sunday school students in two lines behind her.

Sister B was my first sexual experience. Well . . . my first self-sexual experience. She was all of our firsts—the closest Drew and I have ever come to a three-way.

Wait, that last part is gross, forget I said that.

Anyway, puberty is a confusing time for a boy. Having a f**k-hot teacher who happens to be a nun made it more confusing. I got carried away when I first discovered the joys of mast***ation. Unfortunately, I didn’t just “choke the chicken”—I literally strangled the sucker. That’s how, at thirteen years old, I ended up diagnosed with CPS—Chafed Penis Syndrome. I don’t need to elaborate on that do I?

My mother may have bought into the doctor’s explanation that my CPS was caused by keeping a wet bathing suit on too long, but my father sure as hell didn’t. In one of our more tender conversations, he told me spanking the monkey was nothing to be ashamed of, that it was like electricity—God wouldn’t have given it to us if he didn’t want us to use it. But, like all things, moderation was key. I calmed down after that chat, and was able to engage in regular self-pleasure, without inflicting injury.

Sister B quiets the giggling kids with a look. Then with an Irish lilt that time hasn’t diminished, she says, “Matthew—how are you, m’boy?”