Riven. Unstable. Spastic flashes of electric light shivered and skidded across the walls of my room. I lay there, coming out of sleep, my fingers idling in the dried juices of lovemaking on my belly and pubes, trying to remember if it really happened, despite this physical evidence. It was unbearably hot in here. I got up, wincing at the twinge of muscles I'd forgotten how to use, and, rubbing my wrists, shuffled over to the window. The glass was opaque with condensation. Bursts of radio static from outside. Car doors slamming. Not good at any time of day, and certainly not now, at a couple of minutes shy of four in the morning. I wondered how long it would be before I slept through till dawn. I opened the window and it was as if the words were waiting just beyond the frame for a chance to slip through and assault me. I think she was trying to find her way home. A police voice. Impersonal, male, tired. Who wouldn't be, doing this thankless job? Bodies in winter. I thought of Ruth and the guy who had raped her.
