Gemma crosses South Railway and gazes up at the tower of Ava’s building. When did they build this thing?

She enters to silence and cool air, waits between glass doors. The glass layers a faint triplicate of her image in front of her. She’s in a belted black cloth coat with a red dress underneath. Her hair is in pigtail buns, her eyeliner heavy and winged. She turns with her hands in the pockets of her coat, examining herself from each angle. A flattening gust of wind passes the building outside. Thank God it stopped raining. The whole ride down, Gemma had worried she’d get soaked. She wants to look perfect; she wants Ava to open the door and see a dream of a woman looking back at her.

The elevator dings. There she is: fox-faced and gorgeous, standing three miles high in a cream scoop neck blouse and a pleather skirt with zippers. She strides through the lobby with a warm smile.

I forgot what you looked like, Gemma thinks idly. I forgot the shape of your face.

“You’re here,” Ava says. They hug, Gemma’s face in her chest.

“Look at your fucking house!” says Gemma. Her voice is raspy and sweet. A thunderclap sounds outside. She really got lucky with the rain.

“It’s bonkers, hey? Oh my God, you actually made it, you’re here! Let’s head up?”

“Nah, let’s fuck here in the lobby.”

“Gemma!”

“There’s that cute little blush I remember.” They get in the elevator. The doors close and Gemma tilts up her chin. “Hey.”

Ava leans down and they kiss. Gemma lifts her hand to Ava’s hair, gently wraps her fingers in it, then wrenches it back. “I missed you, you fucking slut.”

Ava strains at her. “I—”

Gemma pulls harder. “Shut up.”

Ava shakes and Gemma’s clit pulses. Ava’s brown eyes are convulsing pools. Gemma holds Ava like this for a long time. Ava lives on the thirty-eighth floor.

The building’s hallway is musty and clean. Like a newly finished basement of a very old house. Ava beckons Gemma into her apartment. Gemma enters and removes her shoes; when she looks up, she finds herself facing a clacking curtain of red beads. Ava’s body undulates on the other side.

Ava says, “Gemma? Baby?”

Baby.

“Come in,” Ava adds. Her quiet, breathy voice drifts over Gemma, settles in her lungs, drips down the inside of her clothes. I forgot what you sound like, Gemma thinks. I forgot that, too.

The apartment is lit with floor lamps. Light rain patters on the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the shades are all lowered. Taped to the shades are pictures and postcards. In the centre of the room sit a corduroy recliner and a leather couch that is bottle green.

“Nice place,” Gemma says absent-mindedly. “When was this built?”

“Hold on.” Ava fiddles with some speakers, and then vocal music plays, dissonant and melodic at the same time. It sounds like liquid silver. It’s beautiful.