Yugoslavia. 2001. 

“Don’t you think there’s more to you?” Aleksandr asks. Naked, he curls his knees to his chest and relaxes against the headboard. 

  “You dink dere’s more?” Laila swings around and perches on the edge of the bed. Summer presses on the single-room apartment. Sweat trickles down her bronzed lower back. She leans against his leg and turns to face him. 

  “I do,” he says, brushing her hair off her eyes. 

  She blushes, unused to tenderness. “More to me? Or more to dis?” She pauses, giving him a chance to answer.   He takes a quick inventory of her room: spare bed sheet folded on the dresser, tasselled lampshade, various outfits to suit clients’ tastes hanging in the closet with no door. 

  On the floor, Kayla’s wooden duck sits by Laila’s foot. Laila leans forward and kicks it beneath the bed. He looks at her, surprised. He knows about Kayla; the toy hadn’t bothered him. 

  He shifts, knocking the scrunched brown paper bag off her night table. Three bottles of children’s acetaminophen rattle onto the floor. He’d asked her not to open the bag until he left and looks away from her brimming eyes. 

  “Why you only see me? So manne girl,” she says. Her voice sounds gawky in the silence. He follows her eyes to the clock even though he knows their time is over. 

  She tenderly cups his testicles as if she were holding a pair of fuzzy kiwi in her palm. She runs the edge of her nail along the thin layer of nubile hair to the ridge between the two mounds. She presses her lips on the head of his penis with a gentle peck and then pushes herself off and stands, whispering, “You go now.” She hands him his clothes, re-applies her lipstick, and wiggles into her bra. 

  He hunches at the edge of the bed and stares at Laila. He breathes deeply and then clumsily asks, “Why do you bother to put on a bra? Aren’t you just going to take it off?” 

  She sighs. “Cheppy. It makes them cheppy. To remove it,” she says. “Like thev seduced a woman.” 

  “Time’s up,” Bratislav, the floor guardian, calls from outside. 

  Alek glares at the door, his breathing more pronounced. He never finds a good time to say what he wants; he always leaves things unsaid, hoping the world will eventually separate his intention from inaction.