Memory...

She bends down to pick her clothes off the floor of a cheap motel room in the city's downtown area. With a hurried sense of purpose and an aimless sense of direction, she covers the distance from item to item. Cross-legged from the bed, inward facing, his attention is caught by the sudden appearance of her reflection in the full-length mirror on the opposite wall, and he can see 360 degrees around a body that once had no concept of it's own nakedness but which subsequently learned to both fear and celebrate itself. Guiltily, he steals one last glance at that nakedness and his pupils dilate as his brain tries to imprint on itself every ray of light that bounces from her, so that it can keep their intimacy forever. This is the last thing he will ever take from her.

She catches his reflection in the mirror and she pushes a hard stare into his eyes for a fraction of a second before dropping her jeans on the floor and pulling her t-shirt over her head. She picks up the jeans and pulls them on, turning around to face him as she purposefully and mercilessly buttons the fly. She pushes the end of her belt through the buckle and pulls it tight. The muscles in her left forearm are taught as she pushes the prong into one of the fastening holes, and finally she pushes the loose end through the belt loop of her jeans, like she's securing the end of a good hitch. She fixes his gaze with shark-like eyes. That moment that he had tried to keep forever will leave here with her. It will walk out of the room and leave nothing but the empty haze of a memory. It will not keep him warm, it will not make him laugh and it will not want him or need him or love him or fuck him. And this is the last thing she will ever take from him.