Aftertaste

She’s on her knees again. Dirty concrete. November wind. The city sprawled out fourteen floors below like it doesn’t know or care what’s happening up here. Her lipstick’s already smeared and you haven’t even touched her yet.

This is the third week of whatever this arrangement is.

Six o'clock, every day. She shows up. You’re already waiting. Third cigarette of the session burning between your fingers, sun bleeding out slow across the skyline, painting everything gold and orange before the cold blue of evening takes over.

She walks like someone who knows she’s being watched, even when no one’s looking. Deliberate. Precise.

“You’re early,” she says.

“You’re late.”

“I’m fashionably—”

“Delayed. Yeah. You’ve used that one.”

She makes a sound that’s almost a laugh, and then she’s beside you, leaning against the railing, close enough that her shoulder brushes yours. She’s in work clothes today—pencil skirt that probably cost more than your monthly rent, silk blouse in some shade of cream that makes her skin glow, hair pinned up in that style she wears for board meetings. The armored version of her.

You’ve started to recognize her versions. There’s board meeting Rei, all sharp edges and controlled composure. There’s post-meeting Rei, when the mask slips and the exhaustion shows through. There’s rooftop Rei, who kneels on dirty concrete and begs and doesn’t care who she’s supposed to be.

You like rooftop Rei best. Not that you’d tell her that.

“Bad day?” you ask.

“They’re all bad days. It’s giving corporate purgatory.” She steals your cigarette right out of your fingers—a habit now, she does it every time—takes a drag, grimaces. “These are still disgusting, by the way. Like, genuinely offensive to my lungs.”

“And yet.”

“And yet.” She hands it back, her fingers brushing yours. “I have a thing tonight. Dinner.”

You don’t ask what kind. Just take a drag and wait.

She’s quiet for a moment. You can feel her wanting you to ask—that particular tension she gets when she wants something and won’t say it directly. It’s one of her tells. You’ve learned a few of them by now: the way she touches her earlobe when she’s nervous, the way her voice goes flat when she’s talking about things she can’t control, the way she looks at you sometimes like she’s trying to figure out a puzzle she didn’t know existed.

You still don’t ask.

“It’s a family thing,” she says finally. Can’t help herself. “With my father. And some… other people.”

“Okay.”

“You’re not curious?”

“Should I be?”

She looks at you, and there’s something complicated in her expression. Frustration, maybe. Or something else—something that looks almost like disappointment, which doesn’t make sense. She knows who you are by now. She knows you don’t do curiosity, or concern, or any of the things normal people do when they’re fucking someone regularly.

“No,” she says. “I guess not.”

She kisses you, and that’s the end of the conversation.

The sex is quick today. Efficient. She rides you against the wall with her skirt hiked up and her blouse still buttoned, like she’s got somewhere to be—which she does. You let her set the pace, let her take what she needs, and when she comes she bites her lip hard enough to bruise.

Afterward, she fixes herself with practiced efficiency. Smooths her skirt, checks her hair in her phone camera, reapplies lipstick she keeps in her coat pocket. The transformation takes maybe ninety seconds. When she’s done, she looks exactly like she did when she arrived—polished, professional, untouched.

Nobody would ever know.

“Same time tomorrow?” she asks.

“If you want.”

“Of course.” She starts toward the door, then pauses. Looks back at you over her shoulder. “The dinner tonight. It’s an engagement party.”

You raise an eyebrow. “Someone you know?”

Her mouth does something complicated. “Something like that.”

Then she’s gone, heels clicking down the stairwell, and you’re alone with your cigarettes and the city sprawled out below.

You finish your smoke. Light another. Think about nothing in particular.

Three days later, she tells you.

It’s after, when you’re both still catching your breath. The sun has almost completely set, leaving the rooftop in that blue-grey twilight that makes everything feel unreal. She’s lying on the concrete with her head on your thigh—she does that sometimes now, uses you like furniture, like you’re just another part of the rooftop—and she’s smoking one of her fancy cigarettes, staring up at the emerging stars.

There’s a bruise forming on her hip where you gripped too hard. She hasn’t mentioned it. Probably won’t.

“I’m getting married,” she says.

The words hang in the air between you, suspended like smoke.

You take a drag of your Marlboro. “Okay.”

Silence. You can feel her waiting. The weight of her expectation pressing against you like a physical thing. She does this sometimes—drops information like a grenade and then waits to see if you’ll flinch.

You never flinch. She should know that by now.

“That’s it?” she says finally. “That’s your entire reaction? Not even a ‘damn, that’s crazy’?”

“What do you want me to say?”

She sits up, turns to look at you. Her hair is a mess—you did that, pulled it loose from its pins earlier—and her lipstick is smeared across her chin, her blouse untucked and half-unbuttoned. She looks wrecked in a way that her fiancé—whoever he is—has probably never seen. Will probably never see.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Something. Anything. 'Congratulations.’ 'That’s sudden.’ 'Who’s the lucky guy.’ Like, basic human responses when someone tells you they’re engaged.”

“Congratulations,” you say flatly. “That’s sudden. Who’s the lucky guy.”

“You’re such an asshole.”

“You knew that already.”