“This is what you want, isn’t it?” she said, tugging my hand down the front of her skirt and pressing it home into the hollow of her crotch. The material was thin; there was nothing beneath her linen skirt.
The sound of drunken conversation leaked out into the humid air. The shadows lay heavy across her face, turning her features to monochromatic stone, but the erosion was there, at the corner of her eye, where the light lay like a brand over her left cheek.

“How pissed are you?”
I shrugged. “Not very. Not at all, really.”
“Is that going to be a problem then? Will you get squeamish and develop a conscience?”
It was a challenge I didn’t bother to answer. Instead, I slipped my hand out from under hers, crooked a finger, and brought it up to brush along the line of illuminated skin. She had a light sheen of sweat on her upper lip. “What’s the hurry?”
“I misread you. My mistake.” she said. The words were clipped, angry. Shouldering her purse, she turned to go.
I caught her by the wrist. “You didn’t misread me.”
It was the truth. In the bar, I’d been interested. When she knocked back the shooter of tequila, I’d been interested. As she gathered her hair up off her sweat-damp neck while talking, and pulled it crossly into a ponytail. There was a tension to almost everything she did. As if every word and act were ejected with disdain. Now, as she responded to what she thought was a rejection, there was a barely contained violence to her. I liked it. And very few men are totally immune to a woman who wears no panties.
She tried to tug free – not with any determination – but I held on to her arm. When she turned to speak, I could see, even in the dim light of the streetlamp, she was crying.

so?

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