There I was again, lying nude in the post-orgasmic clutches of a stranger; sexually satisfied, emotionally empty.

The alarm clock spewed digitized fluorescence upon her nightstand. My throat burned arid with the aftertaste of alcohol and sex-game charm, my muscles exhausted in the aftermath of the sexual rhapsody. Trosity City trumpeted outside the 4^th floor window, an urban melody of exhaust manifolds and catalytic converters; expatriated egos entangled in the reckless affairs of the curfew-bereft city.

Lost in drunken dreams, her uncountable curves fitted between my arms. She was illicit, cinnamon scented contraband with curls falling to the small of her back – autumn beautiful, winter deadly. Her protective proclivities were disarmed by the blandishments of my ego’s tongue, charmed, and maybe tricked, yet satisfied, if only for a moment as brief as a traffic light.

I slid out of her grasp, the floor creaking beneath my heels, and I was colored in crimson neon as I replaced the clothes that had been heedlessly removed. I scribbled a fake number on her notepad, nearly illegible and completely on purpose, and placed it on my abandoned side of the bed.

It would not return us to one another, leading her through twists and turns that would never end at my doorstep, but it is better to be remembered in shadows of passion than in the light of disappointed expectation, a heart without a name.

If it were a perfect world, a perfect time, or anyone else but me, she would have awoken in arms that would never let her go. But the world is not formed with straightedges or perfect circles, and I was a terrible artist.

I kissed her cheek and slid out of the apartment, back into the streets, a nameless memory. She would be mad as hell in the morning.

And my ego would delight.