9...

Sitting quietly in his room, phone on his lap, head in his history, Frank realized that thinking about Alexis was giving him a bit of a chub. This was a girl who was not afraid to bring leather into the bedroom, a girl who had taught Frank not to be afraid of leather in a bedroom. He could remember with a twinge in his stomach how she had managed to remove any kind of fear from sex and had infused an absolute abandon into him, making him a daredevil gymnast who gladly fell off the edge, mangling his memories into flickering super 8 snippets and bleary photographs so that he was forced to ask himself if he had really done those things. She managed to make sex feel like the beginnings of a bad habit; dashing, dangerous and feeling so fucking good, something that you knew full well may just end up tearing you apart. Sometimes the barely remembered moments of incredible sexual liberty was enough to make you change your life.
Frank lit another cigarette and watched the clouds float towards the cracked ceiling. He thought about going out and telling Bryan about Alexis disappearing. He hadn’t known her, but had heard lascivious stories about her. Plus he was a sucker for what could be a mystery. Frank listened for signs that Bryan was still up. He could hear a Tones On Tail album seeping in from the other bedroom, a little dark and narcotic.
He realized that he wanted a little time to himself, a little time to sit in hazy memory. Something lurched in his head, a malignant thought that detached itself from the history flow and attempted to surface. Frank shivered in spite of himself and catching the reflection of his pale face in the bedroom window closed his eyes.