Ftrain, by Paul Ford

I went to lunch with a beautiful woman who employs me on a freelance basis. She is brightly attractive, smart, and good at her job. She deeply loves her husband. She came back after lunch to check out my office and look at the view over the Upper West Side. After she left, a nosy sales guy asked how I knew her. I told him she was my psychic counselor, examining the Chi energy of the company. It pissed him off.

It sounds like I’m sexually attracted to her, doesn’t it? The truth is different: I’m impressed. I say, “My God! I hope I meet a person like her, some day, when I’m ready and grown up and taking good care of myself.” Which, at the current rate, will take slightly less than 45 years.

Disregarding the lonely future, it was pleasant. After lunch my lungs still breathed the in-the-company-of-someone-lovely feeling. You don’t get that often, and there it was.