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The girl was twenty-three, maybe younger. Her lipstick was sometimes hard red, sometimes smeared. Her skin was always milk white, cocaine white. Sweet and tough. She didn't seem to know how to brush her hair but left it to hang dark and thick and matted in back, loose around her face, tangled in hoop earrings.

She lived in an apartment in the back of somebody else's big house, where the house crouched at the edge of a park. When the man knocked on her door, it was night. Her lights were out, but she opened the door. She was home, awake. The man said, "Maybe you want to take a walk?"

She knew him from around. They rode the same city bus. He ordered sandwiches where she worked. Once they'd sat side by side on a bench while he had his lunch break, and she had her federally mandated afternoon fifteen minutes. His voice was soft. His shoulders were broad, his skin like butter. She blew out a candle on an end table, then went outside. Night air brushed against her warm as breath. Her door clicked, locked, behind her.

They walked uphill on an uneven sidewalk. She said, "Where you going?"

He said, "Just came from a movie," and he pointed over his shoulder. Blocks away, there was a theater. Art films. He said, "Café Flesh." He looked at her sideways, out of the corner of his eye, and smiled. It was a confession: Café Flesh. Vintage art porn. She let it sink in.

"Never seen it," she said, virginal as she could muster.

He tugged at her long hair. She smiled back, almost laughed. He was sexy. Yes, it was a booty call. Anything wrong with that?

They were on a dark side street lined with houses, not the main street, where bars were, where people were. Then another man's voice called from somewhere. The voice said, "Brautigan!" It was sharp, like an accusation. It was a man in the shadows, hunched like a crow, walking toward them. When he yelled the name a second time, the man at her side waved hello. Turns out, that was his last name: Brautigan. She hadn't known before.

He gave a nod. His friend, closer now, said, "Haven't seen you around."

Brautigan smiled, looked away and back. "I'm still here." His teeth flashed, damp and gleaming as they caught the street light.

There was something sheepish in his smile. Shy maybe.

The other man was short, with a bowl haircut. He said, "Keeping busy, right?" like he'd heard it before. "Who's your new friend?"

Brautigan said, "Look, I'll call you. I will."

"Right," the other guy said. "I'm sittin' by the phone already."

When Brautigan and the girl started to walk, the man stepped in front of them. He stepped close. It was only a gesture, one second, almost invisible, but too close. His mouth opened, ready to say something. He ran his tongue over his lower lip.

Brautigan and the girl ducked around him, kept walking in the dark, into air thick with jasmine and exhaust. After they'd gained distance, the guy on the corner yelled, "I'll see you again, Brautigan! I'll call you, right?" Half threat, half plea.

"What was that?" the girl whispered.

Brautigan shrugged, and gave a glance over his shoulder. "A guy I know."

"It's hot in here," she said. She kicked off her sandals. The apartment was heavy with trapped heat: summer sun and the body heat of so many drunks below rising up off a dance floor, a jukebox clunking its way from one forgotten song to the next.

The man, Brautigan, brought two bottles of beer from the kitchen. They kept the lights off, but enough street light seeped in to make the room blue and pink in patches, dark in the corners.

He took his shoes off and lay on the bed, his back against the wall. His feet weren't bad, for a man's feet. They were callused, but his nails were clipped, not curled. She stretched out beside him. A line of sweat sneaked down her front, between her boobs, and trickled over her flat stomach. She pressed the beer to the side of her face. "How do you sleep in this heat?" she said.

His smile was sweet and boyish. "Not at all." With one hand he pushed the strap of her halter top down over her shoulder. It was an assertive move, a hint of aggression, but gentle really. She took a slow sip of beer. He reached for the other side, pushed that strap down too. Her shoulders were round and white.

He put his mouth to her shoulder. His tongue touched her skin. His hands were big, his fingers long, and he pushed her halter top down lower, halfway down, a little further, until it marked a line across her nipples, then lower again, until her breasts were out, free, pale and round in the dark room.