That hadn’t happened in a while.

“I must go now,” she said to him. “Meet me at Muir Woods tomorrow at 1 pm. We will have a picnic, yes?”

Prime tried to re-engage his brain to think through the logistics. Logistics could always ruin the most perfect pick up. He fumbled for his cell phone so she could put her number in.

“No, no, no,” she said. “I don’t have a phone. Just meet me tomorrow. You will be there, yes? Tell me.”

“Yes,” he said to her as she backed away from him, his head full of the raw feelings of passion of the last few minutes. “Yes.”

“Good,” she said.

Prime stood there steaming in the moonlight as Anastasia and her family walked away together.

His mind eventually fully kicked in and he remembered that he had students to supervise. Time to go to work.

Work . . . workshop . . . tomorrow . . . shit.

Prime looked at himself in the bathroom mirror the next morning.

Jesus Christ, he thought.

Most of his neck was a bruised mess and where he didn’t have bruises he had scratches.

Anastasia had done a real number on him. How had she done that?

The thing was, he hadn’t had feelings like this for a girl in years. Rationally he knew he was thinking like your average frustrated chump. AFCs put pussy on a pedestal and gave women all the power in relationships, and ironically, while women liked that they did not find it attractive in a man.

Prime checked his watch and decided he didn’t have time to shave properly or do anything about the superhickeys. He didn’t even own a turtleneck.

So be it.

He finished dressing and went downstairs to eat breakfast before the boot camp recommenced at 10 am in the mansion’s living room.

Sage was already there, working on a bowl of Fruit Loops. “Wow, dude! She chewed you up, didn’t she?”

“I guess she did,” he said, smiling, as he went to make some bacon and eggs. “Not an impossible set, just a dangerous one.”

“Yeah, well, I guess so. The crazy chicks, you can have them. You should have at least gotten laid for your trouble.”

“I will,” said Prime.

“No way. You’re going to see a crazy chick like that again?”

Prime cracked a couple of eggs into a pan and started scrambling. “Sure. She’s super hot.”

“She was hot, but she wasn’t that hot. And did you see the guys in that group? I haven’t seen that many monobrows in the same place, ever. You said they were all family. She’s probably got it, too, and plucks daily.”

“So what? You get your chest waxed,” Prime said.

“Touche.”

What was real, what was fake, it all got blurry. Was Sage a hairy-chested man hiding, or a smooth-chested man making himself over to reflect his true self-image? Almost every pick-up artist made themselves over, down to going by names that were really just reworked CB handles. Sage was wise, spicy. Prime was number one. Go by a name for enough time and it becomes part of you.

Prime had been born Jonathan, but hadn’t ever seen himself as a Jonathan. Another artificial label, a name. Animals didn’t give them-selves names. They knew what they were.

Prime carried his food over to the table and joined his friend. “I’m going to have to miss a few hours this afternoon.”

“Got a doctor who will see you on a Saturday?” asked Sage.

“No. I’m going to a picnic.”

Sage noisily crunched on his cereal for a moment. “I don’t think so, Jon. This is a business. These guys aren’t paying for you to screw around with crazy chicks on their time.”

“It isn’t that big a deal. We move my sessions to late afternoon. Move the story telling stuff first.”

“We have it in the order we have it for a reason. The British guy, Nigel, he flew over here from London because he wanted body language lessons from the famous Prime. They pay us thousands of dollars because they want us, the Better Man Program, to give them our undivided attention for a few hours. There are a hundred other guys as good as us, just without the rep, ready to take our place if our graduates leave here without real changes in their lives.”

“I know.”

“So, be professional.”

It was his own damn fault, Prime knew. He’d double booked. He hated making promises he couldn’t keep, and if he hadn’t been so pussy-drunk he wouldn’t have done it in the first place.

“If I skip meeting Anastasia,” said Prime, “I may never see her again. I didn’t get her number.”

“Cripes, Jon. You got oneitis already? Go out and fuck ten other girls and you won’t remember this one at all. There’s always another girl.”

Too true, and that was their code. There’s more fish in the sea. No need to get needy. No need to compromise to score with any one particular girl. No need . . .

Prime took a bite of bacon. This girl had unleashed something inside him in a way no girl ever had. He knew not only what we wanted to do, he knew what his gut insisted that he do.

“There’s a difference between you and me, partner,” Prime said. “You make up your rules and follow them to the letter, like a computer, and I admire that. It makes you successful, and it has helped us develop our boot camps. You’re the brains here, no doubt, and you define professionalism.”

“Thanks, but you’re a professional, too,” said Sage.

“I am, but I’m not perfect. I have to listen to my heart, my gut. That’s who I am. That’s what I have to do.”

Sage finished his bowl, carried it to the kitchen, and tossed it into the sink with loud clanking. He gave Prime a look, but didn’t say anything.

Prime hated the passive aggressive shit. He could read Sage’s thoughts and his friend was just too chicken to voice them.

“I have a case of oneitis,” Prime said. “So what? That’s my problem. The students won’t even miss me. If they do, promise them I’ll give them each a free follow-up coaching call in a couple of weeks, Okay?”

Sage’s posture shifted ever so slightly. That was it. He really wasn’t worried about Prime. He was worried about the business.

“Okay. But just be careful out there and remember that she’s just a girl.”

Prime rubbed at his raw neck. Was she?

Muir Woods not only sported some giant wood, it wasn’t the smallest park in the world. Prime wondered how he was going to find Anastasia. Logistics could kill the best pick-up, and he didn’t even have a phone number for her.

He’d only been wandering around for a few minutes when she found him.

“Jon? I knew you wouldn’t disappoint us.”

Us? He turned and there she was, with her whole entire family.

Well. He only wanted to sleep with her, not the whole pack of them. Still, he had enjoyed their company and if that was how it was going to be, that was how it was going to be.

He walked over to her smiling and gave her a hug and peck on the cheek, then shook her dad’s hand and said hello to everyone else.

Sage was right. The guys did come awfully close to sporting mono-brows. If he and Anastasia had kids, he’d have to worry about that.

Prime stopped himself. Kids? Where were these thoughts coming from? He’d experienced an overwhelming physical attraction and connection with this girl, but that was not the stuff to make a pick-up artist marry. That was just an everyday occurrence in his life these days.

But he knew that the raw, instinctual feelings he’d had the night before ran deep in his hindbrain.

Normally on a day two meeting like this he’d plan to be alone with his girl and build comfort, rapport. The real thing, too. There was nothing fake about this part of pick-up. The artist just knew how to do it fast.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Anastasia said. “They can do without us for a while, don’t you think?”

“Is that all right with you guys?” Prime asked Yuri and Elena.

“Sure,” Yuri said. “You kids have fun.”

“And I’ll take that,” said Elena, reaching for the bottle of wine Prime had brought.

“Thanks,” he said, and off they went.

As soon as they were out of sight of the rest of her family, she jumped him again, and it was all he could do to make her stop.

“I don’t understand,” she said. “Don’t you feel what I feel?”

Oh Lord, how he did. There was a palpable, raw lust arcing between them every time they touched.

“Yes,” he said. The first instant they’d touched again there was no doubt that they’d sleep together the moment the logistics allowed. The thing was he wanted more, some kind of relationship.

Most master pick-up artists managed a small and revolving harem of girls in non-exclusive relationships. There was always a girl available when he wanted, or new ones to hunt. Prime had three women in multiple long-term relationships at the moment. He just couldn’t envision Anastasia as one of these, assuming he could even see her without her extended family tagging along.

He wanted more. He wanted to consume her.