He wakes up mid afternoon, owing mostly to the electricity..rather lack of. The sunlight is barely visible behind the thick velvet curtains and the room is suffocating because of the summer heat they have trapped in; the room smells of stale smoke, whiskey and sex. This is why he hates spending the night at her place. The curtains make the room feel like a steel box in the middle of a desert.
However, the sex here is just so much better. She's like a wild animal in here; the room is her terrain and she works it beautifully, and with it him.
She stirs next to him, half covered by the thin blanket, in her pink snoopy shirt and black shorts, beads of sweat rolling down her collarbone. She never sleeps naked. He asked her about it once, expecting some complicated answer like she usually gives. "If I die in my sleep, I don't want people to find me naked." Quite simple really.
She shifts and faces him, placing her hands between her thighs. Fuck. She doesn't even let her defenses down in her sleep. Most girls change positions just so they can subtly put their arms around the guy.
He stares at her intently, studying her, as though trying to see into her dreams. Her eyes flash open and she stares back, but says nothing. He isn't even sure if she is awake, but he breathes easy when she smiles her groggy, morning smile; frowning, tiny twitch of the lips and a wrinkling of the nose. She lies on her back and stares into space. "Thinking about him again?" he asks, the irritation in his voice evident. She smiles without looking at him, throws her blanket off and goes to brush her teeth. This was another one of her little habits; she never spoke in the morning unless her breath smelt she'd swallowed a whole mint bush; "Common courtesy," she said.
She comes out and kisses him lightly on his forehead, He hated that; it felt more like an act of condescension than one of love. Sitting on the couch, she lights up a Dunhill. "You can open the curtains if you want."
And he knows she had dreamed about him. She hated sunlight. The curtains were her way of apologizing. She felt guilty for the dream.
"I don't understand women."
"Let's not have this conversation."
"Why always the bad boys? Why always the damaged ones and your need to save them?"
She smiles again, flicking the ash on the carpet.
"Who said anything about saving them?"
"Well then, what else can it be? She looks at him for a moment as she inhales and sighs.
"Because they appeal to our sense of impending doom," she answers, crushing the half smoked cigarette on the table, her signal that the conversation was now over.
