“Undress me,” she commands, her elocution soft but firm. A dim halo cast by lamp backlighting wraps her seated silhouette. Her sprightly frame is perched, open, at the end of her bed. Her sheets are pastel pink.

At the door, Leonard hesitates. He stands rigid as she tilts down her chin, looks more fervently, impatiently, into his eyes. He enters.

The room is tidy and almost adolescent, inhabited by stuffed penguins, photos of friends, and little notes. Her powder pink mouth is glossy from saliva, but there’s something hard in how she closes her lips. Leonard thinks she’s glaring at him. Suddenly, she starts at his neck. Plush kisses with wet tongue grazes interspersed. Her movements have an almost automated cadence.

He thinks, “it’s finally happening,” but there’s a subconscious ellipses and question mark at the end of that thought. Leonard had fantasized about this very scene for months, and “fantasize” is not a hyperbole. When she’d first entered the Starbucks he works at, he was certain she would be another one of life’s fleeting gifts, a consummate vision meant only to kindle “what ifs” that he didn’t have the right to act on. Then she returned the next day, and the next. She’d come in three times a week, order a cappuccino, and sit with her book, an angel lit by natural sunlight. Over the course of two months, Leonard had fallen in love. He’d have rhapsodic dreams of her and wake up with morning wood. He’d reimagine the lyrics of every song into a narrative of their epic shared story. He’d stare at her, envisioning her body draped comfortably over his alongside the vast ocean, when all they had exchanged were “hellos.” Now here he was, her tongue against his neck.

“What did you think of the movie?” he asks, trying to facilitate rapport.

“Hm?” she pauses. “It was fine.”

“I thought it was great. Christopher Nolan did it again. The cinematography was so impactful. And the twist ending–”

“To be honest, I don’t like movies.”

“What? How can you say that about an entire art form?”

“Never mind.” She leans in again.

Leonard pulls away. “No. I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like movies,” he remarks, intrigued and charmed. “What don’t you like about them?”

A short sigh, a hint of aggravation, escapes. “Movies are about shock value and entertainment, and that’s it. Like, all this effort and money goes into creating a make-believe version of reality. Why? Our actual realities so pathetic that we’ll willingly pay to waste two hours of our time watching crappy fake mirrors of ourselves?”

“So, you’re saying, you feel there’s more value in reality. And that’s what we should focus on.”

“No. I’m just saying that movies don’t have value.” She kisses behind his ear and runs a hand up his thigh. Leonard gets hard, reluctantly.

The entire act lasts around five minutes. At one point, he smiled up at her, in disbelief that he was inside of his dream girl. “You’re beautiful,” he told her. “Mmm,” she said, trying to focus. Shortly after, they lie in bed beside each other. She picks up her phone and starts scrolling through her feed. She laughs.

“What is it?” he turns his body so that he faces her.

“Just a meme my friend sent.”

“What was the meme?”

She waves her hand, “It’s this ongoing joke, you wouldn’t get it,” and continues to scroll.

He watches her. Then furrows his brow.

“Do you like, want me to leave or something?” he asks.

She shrugs. “I mean, you can chill here, but I need to meet my friend in twenty minutes.”

“Are you serious?”

She didn’t expect that tone from him. “Um. Yeah, I’m supposed to meet her at nine.”

“Was the sex bad or something?” Leonard asks, completely baffled.

“What?”

“I just mean,” he continues, reddening, “like, why did you even ask me to come over then?”

She looks at him, clearly uncomfortable. “I thought you wanted to come.”

“I mean I did, but…” He tries to find his words. “Like, I like you, right? I’d been having short conversations with you, trying to talk to you, trying to get to know you a bit, for months. And then I ask you out on a date, and then, I don’t know. Like, we have sex, and you’re not really interested in having any more conversations?”

She tries to make sense of what he’s saying. “I mean, we can still have conversations. I’ll probably see you again at Starbucks.”

He looks at her, shocked. “Wow.” He gets up and pulls on his pants. “I was not expecting this, especially not from you.” He shakes his head, muttering, “What a waste of my time.”

“Excuse me, don’t be rude.” She asserts. “I fucking patronize your workplace every day. I spend like, twenty dollars on mediocre cappuccinos a week. You’re welcome for that. I go in there, and every day, you’re staring at me while I’m trying to read. I can see you in my peripheral, dude. It’s distracting. I thought about complaining to your manager. One day you come up to me, forcing a thirty minute conversation, and I can tell that you freaking like me, and you seem like a nice person, so I go on a date with you. Then I’m kind enough to invite you into my home, into my bedroom after you’ve been ogling me for months. And now you’re pissed? Because I didn’t plan on spending an entire twelve hours with you?”

“You are not a nice girl,” Leonard decrees with a verbal gavel.

“I never told you I was!”

“You’re a slut.”

“So are you, homie. Now get out of my apartment.” She’s unruffled.

Leonard walks off. He lingers at the doorway and turns back to take one last look at her. “You know,” he says slowly. “It’s not even that you’re a bitch… I feel like, you’re just an asshole.”

“What. The. Fuck.” She enunciates.

Those are the last words Leonard will ever hear from her.