The William Trevor Reader: “Kinkies”

A young woman who works at an apparel company is invited to her boss’s (the wonderfully named Mr. Belhatchet) apartment to look at designs. He makes her drinks, they go to dinner, and afterward, while they’re working, he surreptitiously doses their drinks with acid. They trip extremely hard together, during which time he tells her about his dead mother, with whom he’s obsessed. She leaves the apartment and passes out on the street, and she’s discovered by a policeman who