I was trying to get an erection, but for the life of me I just couldn’t. In a stranger’s chilly bathroom with floor-to-ceiling mirrors and the pressure to perform, the odds were against me.

I didn’t want to disappoint the guy auditioning me. I needed a job, and as a newbie entering the workforce, this was one of the few I felt qualified for. The classified ad in the Village Voice seeking young men to pose for “fine art photography” was right up my alley. I had modeled for painting classes in college and enjoyed the attention.

Sitting next to me on a plush sofa in his swanky Soho loft, he turned the pages of a photo album showing me his work. In every picture, the men had proper erections. I gulped. He hadn’t mentioned nudity during our brief call, but I thought, sure—whatever, I could be up for it as long as he paid me and kept his hands to himself. Middle-aged, bald, plump and wearing a burgundy Adidas tracksuit, he seemed harmless.

“I want you to get the biggest, meanest hard-on you can muster,” he said, pumping his fist like a football coach giving a pep talk. “And I’ll be ready to shoot. Think you can swing it?”

“Will do!”

“Right on!” he said and high-fived me.

In the bathroom, I took my clothes off and got to work. But even with a stack of Penthouses, my fantasies and expert stroking technique, there was no spark to get me aroused.

“You OK in there?” he asked, tapping on the door.

“Yeah,” I said, wiping sweat from my brow. “Be ready in a minute.”

My face flushed, my heart racing, covered in goosebumps, I shut my eyes to avoid my sad reflection and tried to concentrate. But I got distracted recalling the times I’d choked horribly, starting with blanking my lines at a summer camp production of The Ugly Duckling.

When he banged on the door, I thought he was about to condemn me. For what? Failing to achieve a proper erection, naturally, which at that exposed moment struck me as a definitive metric of failing at life.

“Get dressed,” he said. “I have to go put out a fire.”

“You’re a fireman?”

“Volunteer,” he said. “Now hurry up and get dressed.”

He rushed me out the door and ran off. I smelled smoke and looked up and saw a cluster of buildings engulfed in flames. I got closer and basked for a moment in the sweltering heat. But the air was acrid, thick with black soot and ash. I coughed and my eyes stung. Fire engines roared past as I hurried home. Everywhere I turned, the city was burning burning burning.

But this was so long ago that now I wonder if my memory has exaggerated things. Maybe it was just one building on fire. Maybe it was just the searing sensation of failure on my cheeks that made it feel like the whole world was ablaze.