The thought unnerved her, and she slid back into the dream from the night before.

She is naked on her bed … legs apart … and he’s outside, watching her through the window, his belly wet with sweat. She shuts her legs. Sits up. Draws up the sheet. Wraps her arms around her knees. “Get away,” she screams. “Go … or I’ll call the police.” He grabs her with a stare. “Show me,” he says with ragga sangfroid. And she obeys … surrenders—not to the words but to the attitude—the arrogance distilled to the flavor of meekness. She unfolds herself slowly, like the answer to an ancient riddle, sliding her palms over her thighs and hips, into the mouth of her essence, where her fingers coax the pouting lips to flash a vampy smile.

“Nice,” he says, sweating more now. “I want to come inside.”

“No,” she says. “Only through the window … you’ll fuck me if you come in here … and I don’t want that.”

“Why?”

“Because when men fuck you they have power over you.”

“So what? You fuck your man or your man fuck you?”

“We make love …”

“Nutten wrong if you let a man fuck you, baby … as long as he’s the right man.”

“No, I don’t want that,” she says. “But we could play though …”

His shoulders begin to hunch now.

She opens the window and a soft breeze fills her mouth with the remembrance of sea foam and cane juice.

“Come,” she says. “Come here.”

He plants his palm on the window frame and leans in toward her face, bearing in his pores the memory of lemon-grass and orange blossoms.

Then a sudden wind slams the window shut.

“Hold it,” she says, as she rattles the latch. “Don’t waste it.”

“You want it?” he asks. He is caught in the sweep of a powerful tide. “If you really, really want it then mash the glass.” She covers her face and breaks it, cowering as it clatters like a bag of marbles.

When she opens her eyes, though, he is gone. She looks through the window and he has disappeared. She steps out on the fire escape. The wind wipes kisses on her naked ass. Where is he? She peers into the backyard, behind the cherry tree. Then as she lowers her head in disappointment she sees it—a shard of glass in her navel and blood, blood, blood.

“Help,” she cries.

But no one hears her.

“Someone help me … please …”

“Sylvia. Are you okay?”

It was Diego calling her. As she tried to answer him she was asking herself, Is that it? Could I really just want to suck him off? She thought of all the cocks she’d sucked. The number was small—but certainly too many to own. Had she ever wanted to just gulp someone like that? No. And why not? She didn’t know. There had been people that she wanted to screw, though … but she’d never pursued the impulse … at least not all the way. Could I just want to suck him off? She began to consider it now … saw herself in the kitchen at Claire’s, lips flared out, cheeks sucked in, jawbone trembling beneath the weight.