“Will you always call me ‘Ziggy’?”

“Probably. Does it bother you?”

She shrugged, swiveling on her stool to face me again. “A little maybe? I mean, it doesn’t really fit me anymore. Only my family calls me that. Not, like, friends.”

“I don’t think you’re a kid, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

“No, that isn’t what I’m worried about. Everyone grows up being a kid, and learns how to be a grown-up. I feel like I’ve always known how to be a grown-up, and am just learning how to be a kid. Maybe Ziggy was my grown-up name. Maybe I want to let loose a little.”

I tweaked her ear, and she squealed, pulling away. “So you start to let loose by watching  p**n ?”

“Exactly.” She studied the side of my face. “Can I ask you some personal things?”

“You need my permission now?”

She giggled, shoving my shoulder. “I’m serious.”

I slid my empty pint glass down the bar a little and turned to meet her eyes. “You can ask me anything you want if you buy me another beer.”

She raised her hand, catching the bartender’s attention immediately. Pointing, she said, “Another Guinness,” before turning back to me. “Are you ready?”

I shrugged.

Leaning forward, she asked, “Guys really like the anal, don’t they?”

I closed my eyes for a beat, holding in a laugh. “It’s just called anal. Not the anal.”

“Don’t they?” she repeated.

Sighing, I rubbed my face. Did I even want to go there with her? “I guess? I mean, yeah.”

“So you’ve done it?”

“Seriously, Ziggy?”

“And you don’t think about how you’re in—”

I held up a hand. “No.”

“You don’t even know what I was going to say!”

“I do. I know you, Ziggs. I know exactly what you were going to say.”

She made a face, turning back to the television above the bar, where the Knicks were killing the Heat. “Guys can just turn off their brains. I don’t even get that.”

“Then you haven’t had sex worth turning off your brain for.”

“I think you turn your brain off even for mediocre sex.”

Laughing, I admitted, “Probably. I mean, you had mussels for dinner. That’s like . . . sinewy, chewy sea shit. But still, you could give me a blow job and I wouldn’t be thinking about how you just swallowed mussels.”

I detected a hint of a blush beneath her cheeks. “You’d be thinking about my awesome blow job skills.”

I stared at her. “I . . . what?”

She started laughing, shaking her head at me. “See? You’re already speechless and I haven’t even done anything yet. Men are so easy.”

“It’s true. Guys would f**k every orifice they could.”

“Every f**kable orifice.”

Turning on my seat to face her, I asked, “What?”

“Well, not every orifice is f**kable. Like a nose. Or an ear.”

“You obviously haven’t heard ‘The Man from Nantucket.’?”

“No.” She wrinkled her nose, and I glanced at her freckles. Tonight her lips seemed especially red, but I could tell she wasn’t wearing makeup. They were just . . . flushed.

“Everyone has heard this. It’s a dirty limerick.”

“With me?” She pointed to her chest, and I struggled to not look down. “This doesn’t increase the odds.”

“?‘There once was a man from Nantucket. Whose dick was so long he could suck it. He said with a grin with some come on his chin, if my ear was a cunt I could f**k it.’?”

She regarded me steadily. “That’s . . . kind of gross.”

I loved that this was her first reaction. “Which part? The come on his chin or the ear f**king?”

Ignoring that, she asked, “Would you suck your own dick if you could?”

I started to say there is no way in hell, but then reconsidered. If it was even possible, I probably would at least once, just out of curiosity. “I guess . . .”

“Would you swallow?”

“Jesus, Ziggs, you’re really making me think here.”

“You have to think about it?”

“I mean, I would sound like an ass**le if I said there is no way I would swallow, but there is really no way I would swallow. We’re talking about a hypothetical situation where I’m sucking my own dick, and I like it when girls swallow.”