You sat down hard on the wooden chair because the second one across the table was empty. Marko was twenty minutes late. The waiter came and you ordered the iced coffee with the cream on top, and then, after a pause that surprised you, the frappe too. Both for one man. The cobblestones threw heat back up at your knees. You felt the stiff collar of your shirt against the back of your neck where you'd shaved that morning.
The first sip went down wrong. You set the glass back on the blue tabletop and your hand looked smaller doing it. Not weak. Smaller. You pressed your thumb against the cold rim and watched the knuckle. The skin there was tight in a way it hadn't been a minute ago. Your shoulders pulled in toward each other under the shirt, sliding the fabric forward off the bones.
Your chest pushed outward against the fabric. The table seemed to narrow between your knees. A skirt billowed up where your trousers had been. You licked your lips and your tongue found something fuller. Hair fell across your cheek, longer than yours had ever been. You smelled the sunscreen the woman two tables over had rubbed into her shoulders an hour ago.
The man across the aisle had been watching since before the change started. He set his espresso down. "Miss," he said. "Are you alright?" You weren't. You stood. Your knees pressed together on their own. He took your elbow. He smelled like cedar and warm cotton. He paid for both your drinks and walked you off the terrace, past the fountain, into a doorway across the street.
Three flights up. You watched your skirt move against the back of your knees on every step. His apartment was one room with the balcony door propped open. He pushed the straps from your shoulders and the dress puddled at your hips. He knelt. The rug was thick. He kissed the inside of your knee, then higher. You arched off the mattress when his tongue touched you. You hadn't known a body could do that. You gripped the duvet because there was nothing else to grip.
He undressed without speaking. He pressed into you and you felt yourself stretch around him for the first time. You bit the inside of your cheek and tasted iron. The mattress squeaked. The ceiling fan kept turning. You came with your eyes open, looking past his shoulder at the sky outside. Afterward you lay on your side and watched a moth bump against the glass of the bedside lamp.