You are sitting naked, letting the pacific breeze blow in through the open window and dry the sweat on your skin, the sweat soaking your hair. It's warm and smells like salt, like a body should. Your back is to the wall and you are leaning against the headboard, while your eyes focus on the black lace of the bra that seems to occupy an unproportional section of your hotel bed, which is otherwise very white and tangled.

The undergarment's owner is just down the hall, walking toward the elevator; reaching for the down arrow; fiddling with the buttons on her red silk shirt. She rides the elevator twenty-four floors down to the lobby alone, staring straight ahead, immobile except for her fingers combing tangles of knotted brown hair away from her flushed face.

You could stop her if you wanted - if the thought announced itself more loudly - but instead remain leaning against the wall, running a hand from your thigh, over that scar, and down your leg. You're thinking about her breasts swaying as she strides through the lobby and into the salt-orange mist of the streetlights and the waterfront. You're thinking about nipples against a silk red shirt and a girlfriend you had in high school. An hour after leaving your basement-darkened couch she called you to say her nipples were still excited - those are the words she used - and you still remember that moment exactly, in precise detail. Except, what was on TV?

Too predictable, monotonous, endless: this rush into mini-barred hotels. Different names, but few variations in presentation. You miss high school. Being a teenager. Having a sense of wonder. When you had to introduce yourself, and girls revealed themselves over weeks and months, and not minutes. But what was on TV?

You can see the flickering glow of the hotel TV leaking from within the cabinet, the doors of which she closed, probably to get your attention. Yes, you remember her swinging the cabinet doors closed; unbuttoning her shirt. You thought very seriously, and very briefly, about asking her to wait a minute. You have money on the Mets game.

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Day 31 | Kelly Home | Day 2