“You know it’s strange, but I can’t seem to remember anything at all.”

Robert heard the door shut behind him, and he stood in the entryway looking lost.

“Is that so?” said a voice from farther in the room.

“Yes,” Robert said, with brow furrowed. “In fact, when I said that, I couldn’t even remember my own name, believe it or not.”

Charlotte looked around the corner, raising an eyebrow at him. “I hope you haven’t forgotten mine.”

“Charlotte! Of course,” Robert laughed under his breath. “Now that you mention it, it almost feels like I didn’t know it at first. And…damndest thing, but I can’t remember where we are.”

“My hotel room,” Charlotte said, leading him in by the wrist.

Robert looked at the cream-colored carpet, wide bed, and heavy curtains pulled tight over large windows.

“So it is. Odd that I should forget right after coming in here. Actually, it wasn’t even like forgetting, it was like I never knew it in the first place. Imagine that, to all of a sudden find yourself somewhere and not know where it is, or why you’re there, or who you are.”

Charlotte took a bottle of wine out of the mini fridge. “It’s traditional to begin a story in medias res.”

“’In media res’?”

“Yes, in the middle of things, so that the reader will be drawn in by questions about the things they don’t at first know.” She handed him a glass.

“But how can the reader find out what’s happened before the story began?” He had no idea why she was bringing this up, but the sound of her throaty voice made him ready to talk about anything just as long as she would talk back.

“It has to be communicated through exposition,” she said. “For example, if I were to say that we just met in the hotel bar an hour ago, and that I’d picked up on you because you weren’t confident enough to approach me first, and that it was all my idea to come up here to my room.”

“I guess that does fill in the blanks a bit.” Robert frowned. Something about this conversation seemed very odd to him. “Something about this conversation seems very odd to me.” He blinked. “I don’t know why I just said that. I mean, it’s true, but the exact way I said it, it feels…stilted? Artificial? As though they weren’t really my words at all, but ones that someone else picked for me. Such a strange thing to say…”

Robert swallowed half his wine at once, feeling self-conscious.

“It’s such a lovely night,” he said. “Do you…do you hear something?”

Charlotte had her back turned to him, looking at nothing in particular. “Hear what?”

“A kind of clicking noise?”

“Like a tapping?”

“Yes!”

“No, I don’t,” she said.

Robert looked around. “I’m hearing it all the time, but I can’t tell where it’s coming from. No, actually, it’s not all the time, it’s only when one of us says something, or does something. If we stay very still and don’t say a word-”







“It stops, until we do something again.”







“Like that!” he said.

“I can’t even imagine what you mean,” Charlotte said, setting her glass down and moving to the bed. She was tall, with wide hips, small breasts, and long black hair. Her red dress fit the curves of her body like a second skin.

“Have you ever noticed how a story will sometimes describe the secondary characters but not the main one?” she said as she took her gloves off and flung them to the floor.

“No, I hadn’t,” Robert said.

Charlotte kicked her shoes off. Robert set his glass down next to hers and crossed the room to the bed, loosening his tie as he did.

“Well, I guess that means-” he stopped. “Would it sound crazy if I said that I didn’t even notice I was wearing a tie until I just loosened it?”

“Incidental objects don’t usually enter a story until an action needs to be performed with them. You left your briefcase by the door.”

Robert looked back. “So I did.”

“A seemingly trivial detail that’s singled out early on may become important later. Tell me, do you still hear that clicking noise?”

“All the while you talked, actually.” Robert frowned. “And when I did.”

“It’s probably not important. Like your briefcase. Are you going to take all night to kiss me?” She pouted her red lips.

Robert leaned in, putting one hand on her hip, brushing his lips over hers once, then leaning in a bit more, kissing deeper.

“Mmm. You know a first kiss can be the most important part of an erotic story.”

“What do stories have to do with-“

She kissed him again, wine-stained lips panting hot breaths on his open mouth.

Charlotte turned and unzipped the red dress, letting it fall down her shoulders and hips and then stepping out of it. “Black is the most common color for women’s underwear in fiction,” she said, turning to show off her black bra and panties combo.

She took hold of his tie, pulled him to the bed by it, then pulled it off entirely and tossed it across the room. She ran her hands down his chest, opening each of the buttons on his shirt in one swift motion.

He kisses her neck as she stripped the shirt off his back, running her lacquered nails over his shoulders. She pushed him to the bed, pinning him, then swung one leg over his body and settled down to straddle him between her thighs.

“I guess I’m meant to be the dominant character in this scenario,” she said, sounding bored.

“You say the strangest things.”

“That’s because I’m breaking the fourth wall,” she replied. Charlotte unhooked her bra, tossing it aside without paying attention to where it landed.

She licked the ends of her fingers and swirled them around her large, puffy nipples, flicking the tips as they stood erect, then guiding his hands to her breasts. He massaged them in a circle, savoring the feel of the soft, hot flesh.

“Pinch harder please.