I was almost 22, and he was from Budapest.

Zoltan spoke five languages and played piano like a virtuoso. He was attractive. He was well-educated. He was a doctor. Yet I sensed there was something about him that was not quite right. He was older than my father. Somehow I suspected he was a creep.

Zoltan had a Cadillac and owned an airplane. He bought his suits in Milan and invested in original art. But he was stingy – He never brought me flowers, or anything else. He never opened a door for me or asked what I was thinking. And he would pick his teeth in public. And belch. And fart. He was disgusting. And sexy.

Somehow, I was repulsed yet attracted to this Hungarian doctor who gave me pelvic exams, for free.

My parents were not keen on the idea that I was dating a doctor twice my age. Dad told me I was shortchanging myself. Mom said the alter kocker was out for only one thing. I did what any normal almost 22 year old would do: I moved in with him. On Mondays and Tuesdays and Wednesdays. And Thursdays, sometimes.

Zoltan was an obesity specialist. He provided me with tiny candy colored pills that killed my appetite, for food anyway, which was fortunate. His refrigerator was devoid of food, but it was loaded with jumbo bags of M&M’s. To work off the candy, he did chin-ups in the nude while I used the shower.

There was not a hair on his body above the waist, except for his thick mane and bushy underarms. His powerful muscular thighs were covered with curly black hair and made him look like a sexy satyr from Fantasia. Zoltan’s aroma was a blend of Old Spice and Old Goat.

He called me picas, a Hungarian word, he told me, that doesn’t translate to English, but assured me it was a great compliment. He liked to use that word when we hit the sheets, which we did a lot of, often, almost all the time. Picsa became my pet name, and his. When I was a little girl, my father called me his peach, so I felt sure the similarly pronounced Hungarian term of endearment was equally tender and loving.

On weeknights we dined at restaurants listed in his Discount Entertainment Booklet. My menu choices were limited to the Early Bird Specials. Zoltan always left the same tip: a one dollar bill attached to the Two-For-One coupon.

For special occasions, he took me to a Hungarian restaurant that didn’t take coupons. Zoltan wolfed down everything at lightning speed, plus one or two desserts. He flirted with all the waitresses, in Hungarian, and always left them a generous tip. In spite of the heavy meal, he was never too full to give me my pelvic exam, for free.

Sometimes at night we’d go to Van Nuys Airport and take his Cessna up for a spin. There were no coupons in Zoltan’s entertainment booklet to fill up the plane’s gas tanks, so he would reluctantly give the Chevron lineman a crisp $100 bill.

My first time up, Zoltan handed me the controls while he searched for M&M’s in the rear of the plane. I screamed for him to come back. My fear aroused his passion and Zoltan was back in a flash. He moaned pisca, pisca in my ear, cupping my breast with one hand and fishing under my skirt with the other. I was not in the mood – imminent death by fiery crash was not a turn-on.

Once he took me to see “The Magic Cupboard,” a three hour opera by Hungarian composer Ferenc Farkas – performed in Hungarian. During the second intermission, he chatted with other Hungarians, in Hungarian. I felt invisible – so I called out to him, in Hungarian, “Oh Picsa…PISCA…”

Zoltan looked horrified and stopped talking immediately. Then he grabbed my arm and took me outside. I was mortified, and apologized for interrupting him. He forgave me, whispered pisca in my ear, and said he wanted to leave early and take me home.

I never saw Zoltan on weekends. They were reserved for his children, 12 year-old twin boys who lived with his ex-wife in Palos Verdes. He picked them up Friday night, and returned them Sunday morning. Then he went to his office, he said, to catch up on dictation and return calls to his patients.

One Sunday afternoon I drove over to Zoltan’s by myself, to leave him a special birthday surprise -- an enormous, wholesale bag of M&M’s. I opened the front door with the key he gave me, and went up the stairs hoisting 35 pounds of M&M’s in my arms. I kicked open the bedroom door, as gently as I could – and saw Zoltan – giving a pelvic exam to a woman – I could clearly see was not a natural blonde.

I never saw Zoltan again.

Last summer, while poling through a garage sale, I noticed a book titled, Dictionary of Hungarian Slang. Then, for the first time in years, I thought of Zoltan, and my last sight of him – in bed with that blonde, flailing under a 35 pound bag of M&M’s.

So I paid a quarter for the book, trying to remember the word he used to call me.

When I got home, I opened the ragged little book to look for words that sounded like peach. Then, I found it!

“Pisca … ”

so I read

“…pic^a: noun, fem. Cunt. Can only be used as an insult of a woman, suggesting that she is a bad person. The connotation is that the woman has bad moral qualities and/or is DUMB.”

I felt such rage, first at myself for getting involved with the creep. Then for Zoltan, who hadn’t been sweet-talking me after all. He hadn’t just been calling me cunt – no, that wasn’t good enough, or bad enough. He’d been calling me Dumb Cunt.

I wanted to kill him. I wanted to hurt him in a place where the sun never shines. For the first time in decades, I wanted to know where he was.

So I googled Zoltan – but came up empty. Next I checked the American Medical Association. Nothing. Then the website of the California State Medical Licensing Board.

Finally, I learned that Zoltan had died. Five years ago.

Last known address: Folsom State Penitentiary, where I can only hope, he became everyone’s pisca.