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There was one piece left of the first box of pizza when Moira came out wearing denim shorts with the cuffs rolled up as high as was humanly possible, and what looked like a black sports bra. She was not well-endowed and I suspected she had put her socks in the bra. If so, she had sprayed them with a scent that smelled like a candy shop.

She put her smallish backpack on the dresser and checked the battery percentage on the phone. Then she bent one leg under her and sat on the edge of the bed across from me, close enough to set an ankle on the armrest, leaning sideways on one hand and twining her damp hair with the other. I offered her the pizza. She grabbed it and immediately took a huge bite.

"Where's Josie headed?" I asked, rolling a smoke after twisting off a beer cap. Her chewing went from appetite-driven to a means of stalling. She noticed my patient but expectant gaze. "Josie has relatives in Tennessee," she said in a dubious tone, as if she was guessing. I said: "Would you like me to give you a ride to Tennessee?" At that she smiled appreciatively but made no verbal commitment. I then asked how long she had been away from home. "Not very long," she said with a frown.

A girl who knew about motel vouchers would also know where to go for free clothes and toiletries, so I didn't ask her why she travelled so lightly. "Are you broke?" I repeated the question twice before she shrugged nonchalantly. That was all I would get out of her for now. I handed her a plastic cup of soda.

We talked about what we wanted to watch on TV. She and I both hoped for a good escapist movie, something with sweaty nudity and spurting blood. I was impressed by her utter lack of prudishness. It reminded me that her generation had been weaned on sex and violence in the media. Psychotic scenes layered with gore were no more disturbing to her than a Betty Crocker commercial, excepting the degree of arousal in the former. That being settled, and her stomach full, it was time to visit the pool.

It was located at the end of the north wing, the pool shaped something like a square C. For most of the guests this was the dinner hour; so except for a young woman seated on the steps at one end, laughingly addressing a little boy with orange water-wings on his upper arms, we had the place to ourselves.

We stayed at the deep end, which had a depth of only five feet. Moira waded in circles with the water up to her nose so that she had to sort of bounce on her toes to breathe, her arms bent at her sides, splashing at me with cupped hands and spitting chlorine when she laughed. I swam underwater around and between her legs, gratified by her unexpectedly happy mood. It was like nothing at all was the matter with her.

When we were lounging half-submerged on the steps I asked her how it was that she was enjoying the pool so much. Her smile was radiant. She said, "I remembered, that's how." I asked, as casually as I could, "Remembered what?" But she just said, "Never mind," and holding her nose sank under the surface.

The movie we watched in bed was 'The Terminator,' the most recent sequel. I haven't seen it since and don't recall much of it, just that Moira would laugh at all the most intense scenes, an arm across my bare chest and her gauzy blouse, the only thing she wore, warmed by her breasts and midriff.  I could hardly keep my mind on the plot. She discovered early on that my throttle was revved, and made a point of commenting about it whenever she 'accidentally' encountered it. Although we wrestled around during the lackluster scenes we didn't kiss or pet. We just roughed each other up, as if each regarded the other as a serious nuisance.

It was shortly into the next movie, 'Open Range,' that we hooked up, and our passion was a muted film score leading to the orgasms of gun battles and the drifting smoke of a blissful exhaustion wherein a line from the movie struck me as fitting to the circumstances: "I don't care how old you are."

The TV stayed on all night. I turned down the volume just before we fell asleep. When I got up to piss a few hours later the movie playing was an old black-and-white flick about a man who caught a mermaid while his wife was away. I watched him carry the smiling mermaid into the bathroom and deposit her in the tub. I was astounded by the coincidental symbolism.