When the girl left, I stood alone in the hotel room, listening for a long moment to the whisper of sanitized air through vents. I let my eyes travel the room without moving my neck even a little. Faux colonial furniture. Brass lamps. Prints of watercolors of farmscapes. A big TV. Everything just as you’d expect.
I walked to the window and pulled aside the rubberized curtains by their plastic rods, looking down on the “city” 14 stories below. Cars turned cautious lefts. A dozen people weaved their way past each other in a crosswalk. An old woman tripped over a curb and fell. Beyond a public park, all autumnal oranges and yellows, the afternoon sun glinted off a river whose name I didn't know.
I sat down on the edge of the pleasantly stiff mattress behind me, feeling the warmth of the slanting sunlight on my legs. I rubbed my penis through my slacks until it was semi-erect. I inspected my fingernails. Then I got up a little unsteadily, crossed the room and looked at myself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror on the closet door. I wore a midnight-blue Tom Ford suit, black Prada shoes and belt, a shimmering gold Hedi Slimane tie. My hair was an artful tussle. My skin was fair and clear. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell.
