When Periel Aschenbrand met 70-something literary legend Philip Roth, things got sexy.
After being introduced by a mutual friend at an event in New York, he invited her to sit at his table.
She’d never read anything he’d written. Still, she did her best to impress him, going on and on about French critical theory.
But he wasn’t interested in flirting — he wanted to feed her.
“It was a pretty flirty, sexy evening,” recalls the 37-year-old. “I mean, he fed me a cherry. Philip Roth fed me a cherry — that’s like a big deal! How many people can say that?”
Nothing beyond an erotic fruit sampling happened that night, but when Aschenbrand got home, she began reading Roth’s novels.
“The gravity of it all didn’t really sink in until after I’d read a few of his books — then I was really kicking myself for not trying to sleep with him,” laughs the creative director of online boutique House of Exposure. “It seemed like a Picasso-esque opportunity — sort of once in a lifetime.”
Aschenbrand had just gotten out of a 10-year relationship and hadn’t yet met her husband when she unexpectedly experienced a crazy year of the city single life. “On My Knees,” the author’s second memoir, out Tuesday, chronicles that wild ride.
Her year wasn’t all flirting with literary A-listers. Her journey took her to some dark places — like squatting in her dead grandmother’s Stuyvesant Town apartment.
In the book, she recalls the time she brought a hairy Canadian man back to the place, saying that one-night stand was one of her lowest points.
As soon as they left the dim lighting of the bar and Aschenbrand got a look at her suitor under the harsh lights of a taxi cab, she knew she wasn’t interested. Still, she took him home to hook up on her grandmother’s plastic-covered sofa.
But let it be clear: Aschenbrand is not against one-night stands — she even recommends them. After all, it’s how she met her now-husband, Guy, whom she assumed would just be another one-night stand, too.
They met at her cousin’s wedding in Israel four years ago, and Aschenbrand was only looking for a steamy night with the handsome stranger.
“It caught me very off-guard. I think that’s also probably why it was so easy, because I wasn’t trying to do anything, I wasn’t thinking about anything,” she says. “I didn’t really care what happened. I certainly was never thinking of getting married.”
Still, she warns against jumping into bed before getting some paperwork.
“It’s important for us as women to have our own boundaries,” she says. “In terms of STDs and getting tested, a man should bring the paperwork with him — on a first date, in fact. If you’re going to have sex with somebody without a condom, I f – – king want to see some paperwork from a doctor.”
Aschenbrand also thinks the way young women in this generation are taught to date is misguided. “They give us all these rules, like don’t sleep with a guy until you’ve been out with him five times,” she says. “Those are socially constructed and contrived. If you feel good about what you’re doing, then you’re fine.
“Your most important relationship is the one you have with yourself.”
kstorey@nypost.com