The Rehearsal

I typed the text at 7:14 a.m. as the taxi wound up the switchbacks toward the airport, the phone screen glowing in the pale dawn light. *Did you make it back to London okay?* It was a polite, hollow thing, the kind of message you send to a stranger who has slept in your bed and now belongs to the past. I stared at the blinking cursor, waiting for the familiar rush of relief that comes with a job done, but it didn’t come. Instead, I saw his hands on the dashboard of the rental car from last night, the dark skin contrasting with the white leather, and the way he had looked at me over the steering wheel, not with the charming smile he wore for the world, but with a quiet, terrifying focus that made my knees feel like water. I deleted the message. I didn’t want to be polite. I wanted to know if he remembered the taste of my skin.