It's so easy to go in and out of these rooms. To inhabit these familiar places. Like they were always mine. Like they never belonged to anyone else. You put in your key-card, take it out, the re-assuring beep, the green light. For you. Always just for you. You open the door and put your suitcase on the bed and check the fridge for alcohol. And it's easy to feel like nobody ever existed here prior to you. It's easy because all evidence to the contrary has been removed. But if you look closely, you'll see it: The dent in the wall. The broken door jam. The tear in the lumpy couch cushion. The crumpled tissue under the bed.

Honey travels with me. Because of her—and her distrust of elevators—we always stay on the first floor. Once we're in our room, she'll make it hers like any other. So while my nose is in the mini-bar, hers is in the rug. Occasionally, she'll pee on some section of it. She probably does this because somebody or something else left its mark here. I don't like to consider who. Or what.

I've been going in and out of these strange familiar places for weeks now. Looking for the story. And I stay where I find it. And I leave when it's no longer there.

Right now, I'm shaving with a razor that I've used one too many times. It cuts me above my ear as I'm doing my head. Then again on my jaw as I'm working on my face. I should know better than to try to use the same razor this many times. But there aren't any others in my hanging toiletry bag. I began this shaving project without thinking about the razor situation. And I'm in the middle of things now. I can't just leave the job unfinished. I'll buy razors the next time I'm at the store. I'll also buy some of that new instant coffee they sell at The Great Coffee Corporation. This hotel coffee is fucking battery acid. I guess not everything is familiar here. Some comforts you have to arrange yourself.

In the other room, Monica is naked on the bed. When I lean close to the mirror, I can see her in it. She's lying on her back and Honey is beside her in a curl. She pets her with one hand. Her other hand is on her stomach.

She says: "I don't think you enjoy fucking me." She doesn't say it accusingly. Or hurt-like. It's just matter-of-fact. And a little curious. Like this is something novel to her. She turns on her side and rests her head on her arm. The skin on her belly is not tight. It shows her years, and the things she's been through. I find this sexy.

"That's ridiculous," I say. "How could anyone...I mean...not..." I can't quite finish the thought. I'm not sure what the thought even was. I'm speaking at myself in front of the mirror. I watch my lips struggle with these words. Finally, I say: "Of course I like it. Us...together." It sounds awkward and weird and not very tough and I regret it as soon as I say it. I wince.

"You should. You should like it, Papi." She smiles. She rolls on her back and stretches both arms above her head. And she stays like that and she doesn't speak for a while. There is the splashing sound of me dipping my razor in the pool of water in the sink. Then the sandpaper sound of razor scratching against hairs. Then splashing again. She starts to say something. She breathes in. Then nothing. The scratching sound. The splashing. Finally, she says: "You know, I used to smoke?" I raise my eyebrows at myself in the mirror. She says: "Yeah, it was like, ay dios mio, five years ago, I guess. Before I had my son." I say: "Huh." Scratch. Scratch. Splash. She says: "I used to want that first cigarette in the morning so bad. Sometimes I'd even dream about it. When I'd wake up, I would think of it before I thought of anything else." She says: "But you know the funny thing, Papi—all that smoking?—I don't think I did it because I liked it. Tu sabes?"

I stop mid-scratch. I look at her reflection in the mirror. I splash my blade in the water. I make a couple of short pulls of razor on stubbled skin. Scratch. Scratch. As I do this, I make a sideways pucker in the mirror to draw the skin tight. It occurs to me that I've probably been in this place too long.

I stick the blade in the water and say: "Well, I smoke because I like it. You did, too. You're over-thinking it."

She says: "You're probably right."

Then, she says: "Do you like fucking your wife?" It's like she's asking me whether or not I like milk with my coffee.

The question surprises me, but I try not to show it. I say: "This is not about her." Scratch. Splash. I say: "Can we go back to you not speaking English now?"

When we first met, she had pretended not to speak much English because, according to her, guys like me found that sort of thing to be a turn-on. She seemed to know a lot about guys like me.

She smiles. She says: "But I like this. I like talking to you."

I say: "Hmm." Scratch, scratch. I say: "But I like it when you say the dirty things to me in Spanish."

"Papi, I'm sorry to say this, but I've never said dirty things to you in Spanish."

I kiss the air on the opposite side in the mirror. Scratch, scratch. The other cheek. "No?"

"No. I say things like, Later...I'm going to go...get in my car...and I will drive it...and I will go to a place and get my hair cut while it rains outside. Just nonsense, really. But if I draw it out like that. All low and sexy. It works, right? Or, maybe it'll be something like: Yesterday, while I sat and looked at the green grass growing slowly toward the sun, I had a man come and fix my pipes." I listen as she says it in English, then in Spanish. Then she smiles and says: "Okay, maybe that was a little dirty."

I say: "Crap." I say: "Well, now you've ruined it."

She says: "Come on. It's dirty because you want it to be, Papi. There's nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make it any less real."

I say: "If you're not saying real things, it's not real. You're faking it."

Monica makes a tck sound, tongue on roof of mouth. She says: "Ay dios mio, Papi. So dramatic. We're all faking it. You know that." She says: "How about next time I scream for you to fuck me with your fat cock. Quieres eso, Papi? Te gusta?"

There is one final strip of stubble on my neck. I raise my chin, and come up on it with the razor from low to high. Scratch, scratch. I feel the familiar burn of dull razor catching against the skin over my Adam's Apple. I say: "Dammit." I say: "Fucking hell." There is a box of tissues where the box of tissues normally is in these places, and I take one and I put it on the slow swell of dark blood forming on my neck. And I stand there and press the tissue against the cut and look at Monica's reflection looking back at mine in the mirror.

And I say: "Si, mi cosita. Me gusta."

Category: InBetween