A small, transparent ring appeared on the white wall and slid down over the wooden floor. Claudia knew the circle was inside her eye. She had gone out with a man once who didn’t eat sugar and he told her it was very normal, that those shapes appeared when you were deficient in a certain protein. He’d told her the name of the protein, but she didn’t remember. In any case, she still attributed the phenomenon to a mixture of anxiety and stillness. She got up and walked over to the window. On the outside ledge she found some shells, the first decoration—or the closest thing to a decoration—she had seen there. She toyed with them awhile, wondering what Bruno was doing. Was he looking at her, at her back, or the hem of her dress and her legs? Was he looking down at his fists again? She didn’t want to turn around and find out, and she kept playing with the shells. She felt their rough folds and wished he would come closer, maybe embrace her. But she knew he was not that sort of man, the kind who accompanied you—not to the bathroom or to look out the window.

Suddenly she said, “So . . . that whole deal with the lost little girl . . . Is that how you get women to your apartment?” What a humiliating sentence, another conservative sentiment.

“Sure, that’s our strategy,” he answered, and he winked at her when she turned around.

Claudia walked back over to him and sat down again on the mattress. She took a long sip of wine, set the glass aside, and rested her hands on her bare knees. She looked toward the wall, and she could tell her posture held an air of defeat. He moved closer and laced his fingers with hers, picked up her hand between his, and they turned to face each other. Claudia was uncertain as she looked at him, but he pressed his forehead against hers and smiled.

He took her by the waist and sat her on his knees, facing him. Claudia caressed his shoulders, the dark skin of his arms, following the slight curve of his muscles. He had a lizard tattooed on his forearm. Just the outline in black, but it didn’t seem unfinished. Same as the apartment, it was how it had to be. She traced the line of the drawing with a finger and then tugged on his sparse hairs. They were short and thin, like a child’s.

“Hold on to my neck,” he said.