It’s the first time she’s been inside this particular room. They’ve been to this building before, and to half a dozen just like it nearby. It’s the sort of establishment that rents rooms by the half-day, sometimes by the hour, and there are almost always vacancies to be had, no matter how late the day gets. It’s not an establishment that features tourists or business executives amongst its clientele. That’s part of the attraction: the decadent allure of sleaze. Over the months, their meetings – their “assignations”, as he sometimes calls them – have taken on an increasingly noir aesthetic. Sometimes, while they lie nude together amongst the damp, crumpled sheets, the breath still rasping in their throats, she’ll look up at the stained ceiling through a thin plume of cigarette smoke and imagine them as the stars of their own hard-boiled drama: him as the jaded, cynical professional, she in the role of femme fatale – turning her back on the saccharine staidness of love to embrace naked passion and sweat-slicked lust...