Amy thought of the way he left her, without remorse, about the unreturned text messages, as if she had not only never even mattered to him, but never even existed. About the affair with Cassandra, and all those horrible tabloids, and then of the last two and a half months in bed. Her blood  ...

But in two months of invalidism, she had grown to feel an intense compassion and understanding for Leanne. She knew Leanne didn’t even like to be so hard around the edges, as she herself called it, but she had built up a wall of armor over years of doing battle with a lifetime of loss.

She and Monica used to go after work if they didn’t go to a movie premiere, rock show, or store launch. They’d flirt with the moody rockabilly bartender and get free vodka sodas and take home fledgling rock stars, who looked at them with moons in their eyes, like Amy or Monica -- either one,  ...

Amy smiled weakly, but she was still thinking about what Leanne had said; she’d spent a sleepless night in the dark with those words, looking at the emptiness, taking responsibility for it. And thinking about changing, about how badly she wanted to.

The unfinished books she had begun to collect; the Power of Now, collections of Rumi and Hafiz, Leanne’s borrowed books on the Goddesses, Awakening Shakti and Dancing in the Flames, sat now like dogs at her feet waiting to be touched. She had nothing else to do now, but to receive the wisdom.

She had never heard anyone sound so passionate in her life, it lit something deep within her. Her heart swelled with the crescendo.

Then he scanned her eyes, like he was recognizing something of him in her. She kept his gaze. She was high as a kite, so she didn’t know how long they looked at each other -- it could have been only two seconds, or it could have been two minutes.

And she was suddenly so embarrassed. Even as he undressed the rest of her body, it seemed he didn’t really want to know her soul, and for a moment she felt she should stop him, before she gave absolutely everything to him. Even though her body wanted it, something was saying No.

She applied concealer, mascara, blush and some light lipliner. Then she scoured the bottom of the makeup bag, but she had run through all its tricks. She looked in the mirror at the face that stared back at her. She still only partially recognized herself. But it would have to do. She would  ...

He rubbed his lower belly with his large dirt-caked paw and his thin grey t-shirt rode up to reveal the marble carvings of his hip bones. She breathed in through her nose and her eyes got stuck right above his soft leather belt for a moment. But he seemed to like watching her watch him.