Her body, in the early afternoon light streaming through the hotel window, looks to him like something hewn from alabaster: pure and luminescent and exquisitely crafted. She has already slipped off her dress and thrown it over the back of one of those hard anonymous chairs. She slips her finger under one of the shoulder straps of her merlot-red bra and tilts her face quizzically toward his.
He shakes his head, holding her away with his fingertips resting gently on her elbows. Tasting her with his eyes. He considers in this moment the distance between clothed and naked, how easily it is crossed; how momentous.
She, tired of watching him watch her, grabs his hand and pulls him to the bed behind her. She clambers to her knees and reaches behind her to unzip his pants and wriggle them over his hips. Then she falls forward, bracing herself doggy-style on her hands.
He lingers vertical on his knees for a moment, contemplating her marble-smooth thighs, the backs of which are studded with deep purple bruises.
“Jesus,” he says, gingerly prodding one with his index finger. “What happened to you? Did someone … hit you or something?”
“Oh, those,” she smiles back over her shoulder. “Don’t mind those. You can leave a few of your own, if you’d like.”
