A man visits a woman for ten days. In total, the travel ticket, hotel, and food cost about one thousand dollars. They have sex every day for about two or three hours each time, so the man figures that the whole affair must cost about $33 to $50 per hour. But they spend almost every waking hour together, talking, touching, laughing, singing, kissing. About sixteen hours of constant intimacy—constant love—every day, so the affair costs closer to $6 per hour, which is a much better rate. Then the man realizes that he dreams about her, too. Her beauty, her softness, her understanding and complexity.  When they talk, he sometimes doesn't understand her. She asks a question (Do you think I’m fat?) and he gives an answer (I love you just the way you are), heartfelt but somehow wrong, and he can tell she is a little angry with him. This collection of minor miscommunications mounts in his mind, and he thinks about her for a long time after the hotel stay ends. So the real cost is about $3 per hour. Then, he has to add in the heartbreak. They don't have any big blowouts, but there is one sucker-punch: the time he tells her he loves her. She returns the sentiment, but she sounds like she doesn't mean it. Then there is the day he left. She kisses him with abandon, but he still has to go. If those messy feelings are tallied and priced in the ledger of their love, the affair costs almost nothing. Pennies. Priceless. He spent so much on this woman—hundreds of dollars, sure, but so much more in love and hurt. The man wonders why he would do it again for her, and why he would do it anew for someone else.