It was so hot that summer, you know? Her apartment didn't have air conditioning. It was advertised as "converted warehouse," but there had been no conversion I could see. Just a big, hot room.

We'd sleep most of the day and wake up around six or so, just in time to catch a few hours of daylight. We'd fuck on the hard mattress and box springs she had laying in the middle of the room, the sunlight slanting in on us through the big west windows, making the room orange and hot.

We'd fuck, and then she'd go to the bathroom. I knew she was doing heroin in there, but she never said anything and neither did I. Frankie was a tidy girl; she'd swab the spot on the inside of her elbow before and after shooting up, and then put a tiny round bandage over the hole. Her arms were never ragged with track-marks, like some of the people I knew then.

She'd come back from the bathroom and stretch out on the bed, sprawling, her head hanging off the mattress and nearly touching the floor, her long, dark hair curling away from her. As it got darker (but no cooler) I'd take a spray bottle - she used it to water her plants, sometimes - and mist water up and down her naked body (naked but for that bandage, of course). The water would bead on her skin like condensation on an icy glass, thousands of droplets shimmering and running on her stomach and her thighs. Sometimes, usually before it rained, a breeze would come through the windows and run the length of the building. When the moving air hit her she would shiver and gasp and stretch, lost in whatever combination of pleasure the smack and natural evaporation gave her. Her nipples would contract to hard little points then; sometimes I would lean over and cover them with my mouth, tasting the sweat of her skin and the plastic of the spray bottle.

Other times I would simply watch her writhe; either way she was happy.

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