They stood in the cool air gazing at each other. She was leaning against him; he didn’t feel self-conscious about his breath because hers was just as foul. He would remember the thin stripes of gray on her cheeks and her shimmering eyes. She whispered, “Please, take me back to my hotel. I feel safe with you.”

He couldn’t answer her. She said after minutes of silence, “I want you to kiss me.”

Christopher’s mind wouldn’t conquer the disquieting laziness. As much as he wished he could, he couldn’t think of a reason to kiss her. In a week, he would forget the way her skin felt. He would try to remember, but he would just know it had been fantastic, and he would create an image from that. They walked slowly back to the tram stop across the street from the one they had arrived at.

“It’s just one stop, right?” He was starting to awaken and regret that he hadn’t kissed her.

“I think so.” She smiled at him and he wished she would have frowned. The tram arrived before he could untangle the knot in his mind that had been slowly winding itself around the memory of her standing in front of the tram doors when he first saw her, getting tighter with each shot of vodka and each pulse of music.

The tram came. She got on. The doors closed. She went back to her hotel, and he went back to the club. He sat down across the alley in the shadow of the closed clothing shop. A mannequin in the store’s display was wearing an out-of-season skirt and tube top. The clothes were slipping and Christopher wished he could have gone inside to rearrange it. Instead, he sat with his head against the cold glass and let the music from the club beat down his weak thoughts.

Justin, Paula, and her friends found him on their way back to the tram stop, still sitting and staring off above the club’s roof. They took him back to his hotel and put him into his bed fully clothed. Christopher lay on his back and wished his pain was for her instead of for himself.