The city had gone quiet. Not the quiet of peace, but the stillness of something paused. A long breath held. At this hour, the streets didn’t whisper or hum. They simply were. No wind. No headlights. Just the dull orange of a flickering streetlamp and the concrete under my white sneakers.

I sat in the Uber, my thumb twitching over my phone screen. I had spent the ride searching questions I never thought I’d need to ask.

My heart beat fast enough to drown the silence. Every bump in the road felt like a warning. Every shadow outside the window like a figure watching. I wiped my palms on my shorts. I kept telling myself I had to do it—just once—so I wouldn’t keep wondering about it. So it wouldn’t sit in the back of my mind, unfinished, unanswered. I told myself it was curiosity. That I wanted the experience. That I wanted to understand people. That I wanted to broaden my perspective. But the words didn’t land anywhere solid. They just echoed inside me, like I was reciting someone else’s reasoning.

I didn’t know what I was doing. I only knew I was doing it.

I stepped out of the Uber and looked up at the building. A narrow tower of concrete, wires, and time. No sign. No concierge. The metal doors had rust at the hinges, the stairwells stained by humidity and cigarette smoke. It didn’t look like danger. It didn’t look like anything. That, somehow, made it more frightening.

I entered.

The lobby had the smell of wet mop and forgotten hours. The elevator stood open, empty, waiting like it knew. I stepped in and pressed 13. The doors closed with a tired sigh.

As the floors ticked upward, I saw myself dimly reflected in the brushed metal: white T-shirt, black shorts, the faint outline of collarbones, jaw tight. My reflection didn’t blink. Just stood there, breathing shallowly. Somewhere far below, the elevator cables hummed—steady, indifferent. I shifted my weight. The silence pressed against my ears like water. The hallway was narrow and smelled faintly of old detergent.

Before I could knock, the door opened.

She was already there.

No greeting. No “hi.” The door cracked open, just wide enough for me to slip through. A hand on the frame. A glimpse of blonde hair, eyes watching without urgency. The door closed behind me. A soft click.

The apartment was almost disturbingly clean.

No music. No scent. Just a fan in the corner clicking rhythmically, rotating. A couch with a folded blanket, a white table with a bottle of Nongfu Spring, and a floor that looked like it had been mopped yesterday.

Then she stepped into the light.

Blonde hair tied back loosely. A faint touch of eyeliner around her eyes, a shimmer on her lips. Her upper lip curved out slightly, involuntarily pouty. Her left arm was inked completely, a sleeve of black and gray shapes that moved like smoke. Two tattoos on her thighs peeked out, symmetrical, precisely centered beneath her shorts.

We stood there in silence.

Then I said the first thing that came to mind. “So… I pay you now, right?”

It came out awkwardly, but it broke the air. She didn’t flinch—just nodded slightly, like this part had been rehearsed hundreds of times.

I pulled out my phone. My thumb hovered, then pressed the last number of my password. The white checkmark appeared. Transaction done. We sat on the couch.

Far apart.

“Can I kiss you?” I asked, voice light, almost cracking, as if I hadn’t rehearsed it in my head a hundred times.

She smiled, like she already knew the script. “No kisses.”

“Not even one?” She laughed, covered her mouth. “Still no.”

“Can’t I change your mind?”

“Nope.”

“I’m not that old, right?”

That made her laugh again—softer now. Not the polished kind of laugh meant to please, but something scrappier, more familiar. Like we were just two kids sneaking out after curfew, trying to act like this was normal.

And just like that, the stiffness in the room eased. I leaned back slightly. Surprised I was talking at all. Surprised I could joke. I had expected this to feel terrifying, but somehow, the moment moved easier than my mind had imagined.

She tilted her head. “Did you shower?”

“Not yet.”

“Go,” she said, motioning toward the bathroom. “You should.”

“But we only have an hour.”

She shrugged. “Still.”

The bathroom was spotless. A white towel hung neatly on a hook. A pink toothbrush rested in a cup beside the sink. Shampoo bottles stood in a perfect line, their labels facing forward. I stepped under the water and let it run hot. Steam rose quickly. I watched it fog the mirror, watched it blur the shape of my own face.

I dried off, pulled my clothes back on piece by piece—shirt clinging to my damp skin, shorts sticking slightly at the waistband. The fabric felt too present, like armor I didn’t know I was still wearing.

I stepped quietly into the bedroom. Empty.

From the corner of my eye, a flicker of movement—
She was in the living room.

Facing away, lifting her shirt. Slow, practiced. The hem rose over the tattoos on her back and shoulders, over skin that caught the warm glow of a standing lamp. She didn’t rush. Her bra slid down her arms, then her shorts folded at her feet like fabric melting. No sound.

I stepped onto the bed a little too carefully. She followed, lying down on her side like she was settling in for a nap.

I lay next to her. She leaned in, softly pressing her chest against my face.

I kissed her skin once. Warm. Clean.

And… nothing.

I waited for something to rise in me, but it didn’t.

I pulled back. My breath stuck in my chest.

“Can we… talk a little?”

She blinked, then nodded, as if it were the most normal thing in the world.

I slid an arm under her and held her close.

She opened her phone and showed me her Tik Toks. In the videos, she was someone else entirely—filtered, smiling, curled hair, glowing cheeks, background music swelling. She posed with fake laughter and practiced flirtation. It was all angles.

“You don’t look like your videos,” I said, half-grinning, the words slipping out before I could think.

She turned her head slowly, lips quirking, not offended. “Didn’t put on full makeup.”

“Oh,” I said, still holding the grin. “So I wasn’t worth the effort?”

She gave a soft huff through her nose, not quite a laugh. “Makeup’s tiring.” Her fingers absentmindedly tugged at a corner of the bedsheet. “You’re fine.”

The fan above hummed gently. A breeze stirred the curtains, brushing faint light across her thighs—inked and pale. Her voice had no edge, no flirtation. We could’ve been talking about missed homework, or a group project.

We lay there, not touching. The kind of silence that forms between two people who know they won’t stay long enough to fill it.

I turned my head toward her, speaking to the ceiling.

“This is my first time doing this.”

“Yeah,” she said, like I’d said the sky was blue.

“Was it that obvious?”

She smiled, just barely, eyes still fixed on the ceiling. “You don’t move like someone who’s done this before.

Then I said it—fumbling, unsure.

“I don’t know why… I just can’t get into it.” The words felt unfamiliar in my mouth, half-formed thoughts I hadn’t meant to say aloud. “I was really turned on earlier—before I got here…” I looked at her, then away. “…but after seeing you—no offense—it just sort of… went away.”

She let out a soft laugh—not mocking, but warm. Like someone easing the tension in the room, not feeding it.

“Yeah,” she said, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear. “That happens. First time out, most people are nervous. Next time, it’ll probably be different.”

I nodded slowly, the silence stretching thin between us. Then, almost to myself, I said, “I don’t think there’ll be a next time.” She looked over, not startled, just quietly attentive. “Why not?” I hesitated. The words felt heavier here, in this small room where the air still smelled faintly of her shampoo.

“I don’t think it’s a good thing.”

She tilted her head slightly. “Why?”

The question wasn’t sharp or defensive—just soft, level. Like someone flipping over a stone to see what was underneath.

I searched for the right words and came up short. “Because…” I exhaled. “It’s like using someone’s body. It feels like… objectifying, I guess.”

The words felt absurd the moment I said them. Strange. Almost embarrassing. Like quoting a textbook out loud at a party. But she just listened, her head resting lightly on her arm.

And that’s when I realized—she hadn’t grown up around conversations like that. Not about ethics. Not about systems or power or feminism. She wasn’t offended. She just hadn’t thought of it.

Then she turned slightly. “It’s fine,” she said.

We kept talking. I told her I studied in the United States and wanted to become a lawyer someday. She nodded, unfazed. Said she dropped out of high school a few years back, like she was talking about the weather. There was no shame in it—if anything, she joked about it, light-hearted and unbothered. She didn’t admire me, didn’t ask questions about law school or America. She just kept talking, like we were equals. And somehow, that felt better than any praise.

She told me about the job. The different kinds of girls: the ones on the street, standing for hours in the cold. The ones in KTVs, smiling through cigarette smoke and fake champagne. And her, not tied to any building, no boss, no manager. Just her, her phone, her rules. She told me she didn’t know much about sex.

“I just do what people ask,” she said. “That’s all.” I was surprised. I’d always assumed someone in her line of work would know everything about sex—more than most people. But she spoke with the uncertainty of someone still figuring it out, like anyone else.

We stayed like that, bodies still, voices soft. It felt oddly easy to talk to her—about things I’d never bring up with anyone else. Maybe because we were already so far outside the ordinary, or maybe because she didn’t seem to judge anything.

Out of the blue, I asked her if size mattered.

She smiled. “Not to me.”

Then she added, grinning like a kid sharing a secret, “But my friend’s different. She’s into weird things. Like dog and master.”

The words hung in the air for a beat—teetering between taboo and comedy—before she gasped and covered her face with both hands.
“Oh my god. I shouldn’t have said that,” she mumbled through her fingers, her shoulders shaking with laughter.

There was something in that laugh—unfiltered, breathy, almost innocent. It wasn’t the laugh of someone performing, or selling. It reminded me of something else entirely—of a girl at a desk beside mine, back in high school. Someone teasing a friend between classes, cheeks flushed for reasons that had nothing to do with money.

Time passed without warning. The light in the room had dimmed, softening the edges of everything. I sat up slowly, unsure if I should say something, unsure what was left to say.
She stayed where she was, on her side, brushing strands of hair behind her ear, the motion absent-minded, gentle. Her profile was turned slightly—blonde hair undone, lips relaxed, eyes neither inviting nor dismissing.

I looked at her.

Not beautiful in the curated way—no filters, no perfect angles. Her makeup was smudged, her tattoos bold and unapologetic, and there was something raw, almost dirty in how undone she was.

But I didn’t feel it. Not at all.

What I felt was something quieter. Something almost gentle. She was so real. Entirely so.

And somehow, that felt more disarming than beauty.

I stared longer than I meant to. Not because I wanted more, but because I didn’t know what to do with the quiet.

Her hair, loosened now, fell slightly across her cheek. The light touched the ink on her arm in places—clouds, branches, smoke maybe, I couldn’t tell. Her face, without the angles of full makeup, looked softer now. Younger. Her lips were still, parted just slightly like she was about to say something, but thought better of it.

“Stop looking at me,” she said, half-laughing, pulling a blanket over her face. “I’ll get shy.”

“Why?”

“I just am,” she said, like it was a fact of nature.

She rose and began to dress—casual, practiced, like brushing her teeth or tying her shoes. I followed, slower, the spell breaking thread by thread.

In the living room, she scrolled on her phone.

I stood near the door.

“Should I go?” I asked.

She nodded. “Yeah. You should.”

The elevator doors were already open, waiting.

Thirteen floors slid down in silence.

Outside, the street was still empty. Still quiet. The street hadn’t changed. But I had. In the car, I didn’t look at my phone. Her scent lingered faintly on my hand. It would fade by morning.

But something else wouldn’t.

I pressed my hand to my face and breathed in. Not perfume. Just warmth. Just skin. The scent was the only physical proof that it had happened at all. I looked down at my clothes. The same white shirt, the same black shorts. I could go back to my life and no one would ever know. She probably already forgot my name.

We were impossibly different. I studied theory in brick buildings; she folded blankets in tiny rented rooms. I wrote essays on justice; she sold time. I told stories with my mouth. She told hers in silence, through touch, ink, routine.

And yet for an hour, we lay in the same bed, our hearts beating across the same few inches of still air. We laughed. We were awkward. We tried to connect. And for some reason I couldn’t explain, I felt a strange tightness in my chest as we parted—not love, not loss, but a kind of gentle ache. Like waking from a dream that had no ending.

I don’t love her. But I missed something. Maybe not her, but the quiet. The strangeness. The fact that we’d shared something so intimate while being so different.

And a part of me felt a little sad. Not because it ended, but because I realized how much I had enjoyed it—and how, perhaps, for her, it had only ever been a job. A transaction. A routine.

When the scent finally faded from my skin, I think that’s when I’ll start to wonder if it ever really happened.

But I know it did.

And I know I won’t forget.