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Amber lived in an apartment a few blocks away from the bar. He
knocked at the door, and when she opened it she was wearing
nothing beneath the sheet she had wrapped around her. He kissed
her and carried her to the bedroom and felt her fingers
unbuttoning his shirt. He placed her on the bed and undressed
and turned out the light because he didn’t want to be reminded
that he was cheating on his wife. Adultery was a sin and now that
he was here he didn’t want to have sex with her, but he’d been
drinking and the world appeared smudged and she’d been
wearing nothing except a sheet and it was all so confusing.
She wasn’t like Erin. Her body was different, her shape was
different, and her scent was different. She smelled spicy, animallike
almost, and her hands moved too much, and everything with
Amber was new and he didn’t like it but he couldn’t stop, either.
He heard her calling out his name and saying dirty things and he
wanted to tell her to shut up so he could think about Erin, but it
was hard to concentrate because everything was so confusing.
He squeezed her arms and heard her gasp and say, “Not so hard,”
and he loosened his grip, but then he squeezed her arms again
because he wanted to. This time she said nothing. He thought
about Erin and where she was and whether she was okay and
thought again how much he missed her.
He shouldn’t have hit Erin because she was sweet and kind and
gentle and she didn’t deserve to be punched or kicked. It was his
fault she was gone. He’d driven her away, even though he loved
her. He’d searched for her and hadn’t been able to find her and
he’d been to Philadelphia and now he was with a woman named
Amber who didn’t know what to do with her hands and made
strange noises and it felt all wrong.
When they were done, he didn’t want to stay. Instead, he got out
of bed and started to get dressed. She turned on the lamp and sat
up in bed. The sight of her reminded him that she wasn’t Erin and