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    Probably the most humiliating part of all of this was my inability to use the restroom by myself sometimes. This applied to taking baths, as well. Thankfully, I never had to deal with the prospect of a creepy foster dad or brother. There was always a female in the house if I needed help. Still, sometimes I just wanted it all to end.
    I missed a lot of school, but didn’t care because I was the target of much verbal abuse. I lost myself in the world of books and stories. I lived in fantasies because the nightmare of reality was too much to bear.
    By the time I was fifteen, the symptoms began to gradually subside, but every once in a while they’d come back with a vengeance.
    Now, at age 26, I was grateful to be seven years removed from my last debilitating physical…attack. That’s what I called them because that’s what they were. It was like being attacked by my own body.
    No family wanted to deal with this. Some foster kids get lucky. I didn’t. I’ve come to accept the simple fact that sometimes things go your way, but sometimes they don’t. What really matters is how you respond.
    And my response was to live in a state of virtual seclusion. No one could hurt me that way. No one could get close enough so that I’d be crushed by their inevitable departure from my life—something I was convinced would happen over and over again.
    Despite getting better physically, and being able to function like a “normal” human being, I still kept those emotional walls high.
    I built them for a reason. I made sure they were sturdy, impenetrable, and that I would always be safe behind them.
    I never let anyone over those walls. On rare occasions, I might let someone peek over, but that was it. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’d had a handful of very short-lived sexual flings. But the walls always kept them from being anything more.
    Finn was a threat to those walls. He had been from the first couple of weeks we emailed. I knew it and I tried my best to keep him out. I’d succeeded for a while, but my curiosity had been winning out lately, and now it had led me to the lounge of the Hotel Palomar, wearing this classy red dress, sipping a glass of white wine.
    Alone.
    Waiting for Finn.
    Finally.
    Soft piano music provided the ambient background noise as I surveyed the lounge. A few dozen round tables filled the room. Each of them held a glass candle holder in the center. Not the kind with the fake electronic flames, but real candles.
    There were only a few unoccupied tables. Most were taken by groups of men wearing suits and having serious conversations. Every few seconds a group of them would burst into laughter. Some were probably politicians, most were probably lobbyists, lawyers, and other K-Street fat cats. The big money people in a high-priced hotel lounge.
    I remembered Finn telling me the kinds of hotels he took women to. He’d never mentioned anything this expensive or lavish.
    Down the bar, a couple of other lone women were perched on stools like I was. They were stirring drinks with tiny white straws, their eyes scanning the room like mine were. But these two women wore too much makeup. High-priced prostitutes?
    I knew they were all over D.C., swarming the place like gnats, especially when Congress was in session. I had read an article about them, and suddenly remembered that they hung out in places like this when they didn’t have any prearranged dates. They could always find a lobbyist who’d had too much to drink and was carrying a little too much cash in his pocket for his own good.
    Jesus, I must have looked like I could be one of them. What was up with that? Was Finn toying with me? A mind-fuck before the actual fuck?
    I wouldn’t have put it past him. Maybe this was his regular M.O. Maybe he liked to stroll into a room and role-play that he was able to pick the woman of his choice, take her to a room, fuck her and leave forever.
    That very well could have been my destiny for the evening.
    I don’t