She starts for a cigarette, the room all moving in chat and business, forgetting her empty wine glass. Glasses. She stops, retrieves, tops them up; the bottle splashing off the rim and wetting a rug she probably doesn’t recognise. She pauses in pouring, before more for good measure and then more again because she really wants to drink.
As she leaves the room and the party and a few sideways glances I’ve only got a memory; of her cardigan falling open and of her skirt slipping off of the sheets and of my hands pushing for space and of a sound in my ear something deeper than a gasp and of the cramp-ache in my calf where her heel dug hard. I remember in the morning I found her skirt beside an almost empty carton, toppled juices seeping through my shirt and into the rug.
I push past her on my way way to the kitchen, and unsuccessfully try to avoid eye contact.
