I stopped putting the chain on at all.

By the fifth night the sound of the key in the lock no longer startled me. I would be in the kitchen or sitting on the couch, and the door would open, and Harlan would walk in like the apartment had always been half his. Sometimes he brought nothing. Sometimes he brought food. Every time he looked at me with the same calm certainty, and every time my body reacted before my mind could catch up.

That night I was already in a T-shirt and nothing else when the lock turned. Harlan stepped inside, closed the door, and looked at me standing...