Rhiannon went up to the roof; she needed to be close to the sky and the roof was the closest, even though she wasn’t supposed to be up there. The super would have a shit fit. He was always on her for smoking up there even though she never left her butts and was careful to do it at night when no small children would see her. Tonight there was no one to see her. She sat down and let the cat crawl into her lap. She felt the heat of his small body melt into her skin, carried there by the rumble of his purr. It was hot and the stars melted a little, pulling apart, falling down into her eyes.

It was easier to think about Carl. Up here, away from all the responsibilities of the ground. She smelled his skin subdued by the hospital and shivered with the memory. She wept and the tears went unnoticed, coaxed away from her cheeks by the desert’s eternal greed.

I’m so tired. She propped her back against the central air unit and wished for a bottle. She wished for a hard drunk, wished for someone to share it with, wanted a meteor streaking across the sky. She wanted it to be green. She wanted it to be Molly falling back down to earth on the flaming wings of Huitzilopochtli. She touched the red spot on her throat and willed it full of blood. She willed it into bloom and packed it full of sweet-scented memories. For the first time in many years she longed for the soothing presence of her mother. Mirage abandoned her. He went to a spot near the stairwell and craned his neck around to lick at his tail. She closed her eyes and the night wind came, touching the side of her face. It brushed the raw pink places on her lips. Her breath stirred to life.

Rhiannon unzipped her jeans and put her hand inside her panties. The ghosts of those long-ago chains came and settled themselves around her wrists, pulled her fingers deeper until she couldn’t untangle herself from thoughts of Rossi, of his mouth, of the strange love hummed by Carl’s skin up through the blade of the scalpel. The desert burrowed through the denim but could not steal the oasis hidden there. At orgasm she broke down, hard and fierce, the tears flowing down her face, the waters squeezing out of her cunt. The dry air kissed away the moisture. Rhiannon opened her eyes and the sky picked up its starry skirt, whirling it around. Traffic noise clung the tops of the palms.

She touched herself and gasped back to life.