I do that now and then. She was someone I’d found while dropping into my local for a double scotch to put me to sleep before wandering up to my apartment. There’s an odd moment that passes between perfect strangers sometimes when, without words, their eyes meet and both have a look on their faces that says how lonely they are, despite the vague successes of their lives, despite their manufactured identities. All I’d had to say was, “Let’s get the fuck out of here.” In the morning I wasn’t lonely anymore and I don’t think she was either. We were snapped awake by my mobile phone. I knew who it was and ignored it. It was five and still dark. The girl groaned at the noise, her sharp toenails carving lines of protest down my shins. The phone stopped ringing and seconds later there was a pounding knock at the front door. I grabbed the blanket and pulled it up over our heads, pushing the girl over and gripping her around the middle so she wouldn’t go, addicted to the heat of her body in the bed.
