I recently went on a date with a man I met in the subway. It was my second subway date of the last four months, but this time it was not with a strange New Zealander given to inadvertent Flight of the Conchords quotations. The newest SS (“Subway Stranger”) shares my fondness for screenwriting, my obsession with Woody Allen, and my college career path.

“Yalie-E-Train-Subway-guy” hosted me at his apartment for a home-cooked meal of spicy chili and his custom ginger-molasses ice cream. He brought me a pair of airplane socks to keep my feet warm while we watched Woody Allen’s Shadows and Fog. The evening was PG-pre-Halloween hominess, not at all what I would assume to come out of picking up dates on the E train.

However, that evening I was in for a dark twist. While walking back to my maid’s quarters from the E train, I passed the St. Regis Hotel and stopped in for a glass of champagne as a glamorous change of pace. I quietly sipped rosé at the King Cole bar, mulling over the plot of my novel, when a well-dressed older man approached me with a quick and simple proposition whispered in my ear: “1535, a grand, for fifteen minutes.” Translation: he was staying in suite 1535 and offering me $1,000 for 15 minutes of sex work. Manhattan is full of indecorous surprises in the most elegant of environments (and decorous ones in the bowels of the E train). I suppose I found my WW (“Wanker of the Week”) after all.

P.S. The above photo is NOT the St. Regis Hotel but the Home Delivery exhibition at the MOMA.

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