An old vice

He wanted to tell her about a different kind of desire, the silent one, the one that could so effectively submerge him, yet could slide off her so easily, making her just a little slick with the contact, not less perfect with the momentary friction. It was desire that drove a man to sit for hours in a fire escape, beside rusty garbage cans overflowing with things they both wanted to forget, listening to the lilting poetry of a woman who did not know she spoke that way. It was the kind of desire that made a man reach for a deeper poison, not the kind given by menthols in a paper box, but the smoother ones, the words, ruminations of sweaty bodies in pot-heavy rooms, a recount of a kiss, the remembrance of a well-timed come.

“You give up an old vice, it becomes easier to take on a new one,” she was saying.

[Name] watched her light her thirteenth stick, and his hand itched for her skin.