Liza and Troy

Icy fingers easily find their wet way down the backs of our necks and proceed to reach further in attempt to claw their way under nice, warm flesh. Every shiver reminds me of the way Liza's breath against my ear trips a tremulous thrill along my spine, and I concentrate harder on matching her skipping pace, holding this morning’s Sun Times over her head, since we had ignored its forecast for rain, anyway.

Liza laughs when she tries to leap a puddle and ends up splashing street grime all up my leg, and I can't help but laugh too. She's infectious.

"When we get home, I can show you how to smoke correctly," she offers in half a shout because the sleet it threatening to destroy our newspaper now.

"What the hell is wrong with how I smoke?" I struggle to keep up when the lights of The Industrial finally come into view: the blackened penthouse looms eerily over the colored windows every other floor sports. It's as if the residents there are shouting an affirmation of life by the colors they paint their window glass and the patterns of chintz they drape over the building's vast eyes.

She waited in the doorway while I fumbled with her keys, trying to open that damned vestibule door.

"You smoke that an actor pretending to smoke, sweetie. You ought to do it like you mean it." Her voice was languid but not bored as she explained. It somehow promised patience in the coming lessons.

Yet, even Liza's patience has limits for soon she reached past my hand full of jingling keys and merely gave the entry handle a good swift shove. The door ground its way open under her expert touch and she slipped in under my arm.

But then she froze.

A sound nothing like anything I'd ever known before was tumbling down the concrete staircase. It was the moan of weariness and a growl of hunger all at once, and it ebbed and flowed in a primal rhythm.

Liza stood glued to the tiles of the vestibule, and I could see her reflection in the mirror over the mailboxes; she was transfixed in a type of hypnosis of allure.

The hunger she heard made her hungry, and the primal insistence of the music made her clench her fists and bite her lips in need.

I slammed the door, but not even the noise meant to break her captor's spell had any effect.

I took a deep breath and tugged gently on her elbow. "Liza. Liza, Liza, smoke with me."

Her shining eyes blinked and swiveled to focus on me while she patronized me with half of one of her delicious smiles.

"I have a wonderful ashtray in my room," she said.

I gave half a smile back to her and took her hand. I wondered if two half smiles equaled one whole, or were we both just mocking our own faces?

In her room, Liza kicked off her shoes and picked up a tee-shirt off her floor to dry her feet. I hung my coat on the back of her door and fished my cigarettes out of the pocket, trying not to wonder whose tee-shirt that was.

"Isn't it nice?" she asked. "Scandinavian stone," she held the grayish, dirty ash tray up for me to admire, even though it just looked like a pile of ask that had compounded upon itself for centuries.

"Nice," I said, wishing that closing her door could have closed out that music; if anything, the insidious noise now echoed through my sternum now that I was closer to it. Liza's eyes were bright, and I could tell she felt it, too. She fed on it.

"You make me so happy," Liza sighed.

"I don't make you happy. I make you smile. There's a big difference."