She arrived first and chose the last booth, her back to the wall. From here she could see the entrance. A server approached and set down a cocktail menu. She glanced at it then pushed it away.  The two bands on her finger glimmered in the low light . She stared at them for a moment then took them off, dropping them into her jacket pocket.

She recognized him immediately.  He had a pink carnation in his lapel as he told her he would. She watched him scan the room until he saw her. She barely raised her hand. He noticed and approached with a step that was both casual and deliberate.

“May I?” he asked, gesturing to the opposite seat.

She nodded.

Up close he was attractive enough.  Not handsome, but suitable. Greying hair swept back from his face. The ring was missing from the finger on his left hand, but the skin beneath where it had been was pale and indented.  She glanced down and covered her left hand with her right.

“Shall we order drinks?“ He asked as the server returned.

She nodded, not looking at the server. “Water with lemon please.”

“I guess I’ll have an old-fashioned,“ he said, his voice level and affable.  She detected a fatigue in it that she recognized.

He leaned in and spoke in hushed tones. “What would you like me to call you?  I know we’re not using real names here, but maybe something besides ‘Hey Miss’, or, ‘you there’.”

She glanced at a couple closest to them, drinking margaritas and laughing.

“Margaret,” she said slowly, trying it on. She said it again with more conviction. “Margaret.”

“Mind if I call you Maggie?”

“As long as you don’t try to sing that Rod Stewart song.”

He gave a brief laugh at that. 

The server brought their drinks and left.

He looked at her again, trying to decide something.

“I think we’ll stick with Margaret.”

“And how shall I call you?”

“How about George? We can be George and Margaret, like the Washingtons.”

“I believe you mean George and Martha.”

“Do I? Oh well, in that case, call me James.”

“James,” she said evenly, and sipped her water.

“Honestly, I wish the agency would provide us with pseudonyms.” James stirred his drink. “Leaves it open for some real land mines, I think. What if I, you know, choose a name that’s already…” He gestured distractedly with his left hand.

“A name I already know,” she finished.

“Yeah,” he said, stabbing at the maraschino cherry with the straw.

James looked around. “Nice place. It reminds me of Europe.”

“You’ve been to Europe?”

James shook his head. “Only on the Discovery Channel. We always—wanted to go. But life, well, it got in the way.”

“Yes, it does that.”  Margaret shifted in her seat.  “Have you used the service before?”

James nodded slowly, eyes on the tabletop. “Twice. What about you?”

Margaret straightened. “No. This would be a first. A first ever.”

“We can take it slow, if you want.”

“No. We should get to this. I have—obligations.”

James finished his drink and set it on the table. “We both do.” He reached into the pocket of his jacket and pulled out two key cards. He set one on the table and slid it across to Margaret.

“912,” he said.

“Why did you get two cards?”

James shrugged. “I don’t know, two came with the room.  I guess if we each have a key, then we each have an equal part in this.”

Margaret eyed the key card. Picking it up would mean moving forward. It would mean complicity.

She studied James’ face again, deep-set tired eyes that were still kind. The posture of patience born of someone waiting to see what is needed before taking action.

There’s nothing emotional in this, she told herself. She picked the key card up with the tips of her fingers and dropped it into her pocket where it rattled against the rings.

“912,” she said.

They stopped outside the door in a hallway lined with identical doors, differentiated only by the gold plated numbers.  The door was dark wood, almost black. The key lock, an awkward block above the knob, waited, passively, perhaps indifferently.

“This is it,” James said, holding up his key card.

Margaret looked at the key and the door. Each step up to now was retraceable. She could still turn and leave. She could go home to what was safe, secure, and known, abandoning this offshoot trail.

She would be returning to that life one way or another, she knew. This wasn’t escape, it was diversion. Tomorrow she would make breakfast in her kitchen, slide back into her routines. The only difference would be whether she had gone through this door or not.

She nodded without looking at him.

“Let’s go in,” she said.  

He touched the card to the reader and for a moment the LED blinked rapidly red.  Margaret caught her breath. Then the LED flashed green and the lock tumbled open. James pushed the door and flipped a light switch. He stood, half in and half out, looking at her.

“After you,” he said with a small gesture.

She put her hands in her jacket pockets and slipped by him.

The room was cold. The air conditioner rattled and James crossed to turn it down. He adjusted the curtains slightly and turned on the bedside lamp, turning off the other lights.

Margaret walked past the bathroom and surveyed the space. It was like any hotel room; clean, neat, neutral.

“Nice,” Margaret slipped off her jacket, draping it across the chair.

“Yeah,” James said, looking around. “Would you like something?” He indicated the small fridge next to the dresser. Margaret declined and stepped out of her shoes, placing them carefully beside the chair. James took off his shoes and laid his jacket across the top of the dresser. They moved toward each other until they stood at the foot of the bed.

”Well,” Margaret started, unfastening the top button of her blouse.

“Yeah,” James said, watching her fingers fumble with the buttons. He held up his hands, palms out.

“May I?” he asked. She nodded nervously and he gently unfastened her blouse, letting it fall into a satin puddle on the floor. Margaret reached out and undid the buttons of James’s shirt, dragging it loose from his waistband.

He reached around and unzipped her skirt while she unbuckled his belt. Their clothes dropped to the carpet with the others. She stepped closer as he unclasped her bra, covering her breasts.  James drew her in closely, pressing his cheek against hers.

“Not on the lips,“ she whispered.

“I know,“ he responded. 

She put her arms around his neck, pressing against his chest. His fingers nudged beneath the hem of her panties then slid them down.

He eased her onto the bed, hands traveling the length of her body. She touched him with gentle curiosity.  His lips grazed her throat.  He cupped her breasts and softly squeezed, evoking a moan she sought to stifle.  Eyes closed, she reached down tentatively.  He kissed her throat and chest, pressing his hand inside her thigh.  As he moved over her, she guided him, gritting her teeth.

There were no words.  Only gasping, moaning, grunting.  Their clumsy, awkward movements found an anxious rhythm.  She kept her eyes shut until he shifted her position. Her knees dug into the mattress and she gripped the headboard, staring up at the indecipherable abstract painting over it, rendered in neutral creams and soft blues.

Their pace slowed and quickened, then slowed and quickened.  Margaret matched his motion against her.  Sweat from the nape of her neck trickled down around her throat.  Tears dripped unnoticed onto the pillow.  She tried to keep her lips sealed but small cries escaped.  James gripped her hips, fingers digging into her flesh.  Their scent shamed and excited her. She had a disorienting sense of being somewhere else—not here, not now—but she didn’t follow the thought.

They finished with no tender intimacies.  Collapsing onto the bed, the heat of their coupling dissipating and the cold air chilled their nakedness.  Margaret drew back the spread and slipped into the crisp envelope of sheets, on her side, facing the window. 

They lay still, recovering for several minutes.  James stroked Margaret’s back.

“That was… nice,” he said, breathless.

Margaret’s shoulders twitched.  “Yeah.”

She lost track of time.  The room became an isolated capsule.  A moment could stretch into eternity, if she wished.

“I don’t do this sort of thing,” James spoke, unbidden.  Margaret closed her eyes.  “I mean… like this… this way…”

“Casual,”  Margaret spoke in a whisper.  “That’s really the whole point of this… for us both.  Casual.  No attachment.”

“Yeah.  No names.  Numbers and a photo on a profile.”

“A pink carnation on a jacket.”

A small laugh from James.  “That was my idea.  Not the service.  I thought it would be… I don’t know… classy.”

Margaret exhaled slowly, said nothing.

“I have a thing for flowers, I guess,” James faced the ceiling.  “I love lilies.  I even married one.  Lily.  That’s her name.”

“Okay,” Margaret murmured.

“I don’t do this because I don’t love her, you know.”  She sensed him turn towards her.  She squeezed her eyes tightly.

“Please, don’t explain.”

“You’re right—I’m sorry.”  He removed his hand and turned away.  “It’s just… times like this… being here… it’s the only time I’m… when I’m not…”

“When we’re not there,”  Margaret replied tiredly.

James sighed.  “Yeah.”  He was quiet for a moment.

“Europe was something she wanted to do.”

Margaret shifted.  “Oh?” She breathed.

“Yeah.  I didn’t care too much.  But she really wanted to go.  Her whole life.  I promised her we would.  But I put it off. Off and off and off.  I put so many things off.  ‘There’ll be time,’ I’d say.  And then, there wasn’t.”

“What?” Margaret asked.

“Cancer.  In her spine now.  She can’t walk.  Barely able to sit up.  She’s on so many meds… for the pain.”  His voice hitched.  Margaret reached back, her fingers touched his hand.

“I’m sorry.”

“I put everything off.  Kids… Europe… everything else she wanted.  Now I sit with her everyday and we watch shows about France and Spain.  But she sleeps through them… the meds… they have to be really strong now.”  He made a hopeless gesture with his other hand.  “No one thinks there won’t be time.  No one imagines these things happening.  I never did.”

“No one imagines,” Margaret said.

“I regret so much,” his voice strained.  “I postponed our lives.  Even here, now, it feels like I’m stealing the time we have left.  I can barely touch her… the pain.  I can’t hug her, or even hold her hand.  She cries when I have to move her.  She’s not eating anymore.  So… it’s not long now.”

“I’m sorry,” she repeated because there was nothing else to say.

“Yeah,” James sighed again.  “It just… I had an idea of who we were, who we were going to be.”  He paused, long enough that Margaret thought he was finished.  “Now, I wonder who I’ll be without her.  Without being there to take care of her.  With nothing left to put off.”

Silence drew out between them.  His small movements said what he expected of her.  This was not part of the agreement.  Casual… not confessional.  It had been his choice—or his weakness— to reveal.  She needn’t reciprocate.

Still, she longed to share.  To feel relief from the pressure and constraint suffocating her.  She wanted to share with someone who wouldn’t judge her.  That wasn’t possible in her church group therapy, or with her children.  She had to play her role tirelessly until the days merged into rutted routine.

“At least…” her voice trailed off.  The pillow rustled as he turned his head.  

“At least… you can see the end.  You know you’ll have a life to live.”

She wasn’t sure if it was his tension rising or hers.  She raised herself on one elbow, head towards him, but not her eyes.

“I’m not trying to be cruel,” she said.  “I’m not a cruel person.  It’s just—it’s different knowing there will be an end to it.  That something… anything… comes after all of it.”

James touched her hair.  “I understand,” he said quietly.

Margaret gave a flick of her head.  “I don’t think you do.  Not really.  Your Lily got sick.  She struggled, she wasted away.  Now, she’s going to die.  And you will be left with what remains of that.  There’s a finality to it. It’s terrible, but then it’s over.”  She looked down. Her clenched fists made her knuckles white.  She trembled, blew out a long breath.   “I just wish it would end—for me.”

James lay quiet, weighing every word that formed in his head.  He measured out the one he finally chose.

“Who?”

“A husband.”  Margaret wiped the side of her face.  “I… I have a husband.  ALS.  Totally dependent.  Six years.”

“That’s a terrible disease.  How far?”

“No mobility, BiPAP, feeding tube, medications that do nothing.  Maybe they would have, years ago when symptoms began.  But he wouldn’t admit weakness.  He thought—we all thought…”  She pinched the end of her nose.  “Now, he can’t walk or speak.  But he’s in there—intact.  I see it in his eyes.  I see the anger.  The resentment.”  She touched her throat.  “I think he hates me.”

James paused.  “Why on earth would he hate you?”  He touched her back.  She tensed.

“Because he’s dependent on me now.  And because I’m dutiful.  Before I was dependent on him.  I married young—eighteen.  He was older.  The scriptures told me what my duties were, and he enforced them.  He had to, me being a new minister’s wife.  I wanted us to be partners, to be in love.  But he didn’t believe in partners.  He believed in scripture.  We had children, and scriptures told us how to raise them, too.”  Margaret closed her eyes, swallowed hard.

“When he got sick,” she continued.  “He thought he was being tested.  No doctors, no labs.  He prayed.  We all prayed.  Of course it didn’t work.  He was stubborn.  He wouldn’t take the medications or do the therapy.  He dragged us all down into it with him.  I didn’t mind… I was dutiful.  But the kids.”  Margaret opened her eyes wide, so wide she felt her face stretch.  She dropped her hand to her breast and covered it.

“Every day, medication and tubes and pumps and bathing and wiping.  Bending his legs and arms.  Rolling him side to side.  He used to be so large… broad enough to block the sun.  Now, he’s a scarecrow.  I wipe his mouth, his arm pits, his—well—his bottom.  Other people rarely come anymore.  I’m there all the time.  I have a cot against the wall.  At night I listen to the pump and I listen to the wheeze.”  She turned suddenly and sat up, looking at James with a fierce glare.  “I do it.  And I will continue to do it.  No one asked me—no one had to. ”  Her head dropped slightly.  “But the way he stares at me.”

The corners of Margaret’s mouth ticked up a tiny bit.  “I make sure to kneel by his bed, everyday.  I take my shoes off and I kneel and pray.  I pray aloud to God for a cure.  I beg God to reverse this infirmity and restore His devout and dedicated servant.  I think if he could get out of bed, he’d choke me.”

“Still, ALS,” James said, barely above a whisper.  “It does end.  I mean, six years is a long time, but…”

“Because I care for him—dutifully.  No pneumonia, no bed sores.  The pump pumps and when the time comes there will be intubation.  If God’s not going to cure him, He’ll have to take him.”

She sat on the bed, staring into something unseen, her brows knitted together.

“When that happens—and it will happen, Margaret.  What remains for you?”

Margaret considered the question, not looking at him.  “I don’t think there is anything.”

“Your children… the church,” James said gently.  Margaret crossed her arms tightly.

“The kids are almost all grown.  The… church. I don’t want the remains of that.  Their pity.  Their condolences.”

“What, then?”

She shot an angry look at him.  “You think this is what I want?  You think I come here to… to—fuck?”  She spit the word out like a hot stone, like a word she’d never spoken aloud.

“I don’t think that.”

“What I want… what I want…” she repeated, shaking her head.

James sat up and reached towards her.  She jerked away at his touch, but he drew her to him in a loose embrace.  He pressed his lips against her forehead.  A sob tore loose from her throat.  Her rigid body slowly softened in his arms.  He moved his lips down her tear-stained face until they met her lips.  They kissed delicately, then with rising urgency.

James put one hand behind Margaret’s neck and cradled her head.  His other hand ran down her arm to her palm, his fingers intertwining with hers. Margaret lay alongside him, her fingertips tracing the line from his jaw to his throat to his chest. Their hands moved over one another, light and exploratory.  His kisses traveled across her neck and breasts in a gentle caravan. She raked her fingers through his hair, then let her hand fall to his shoulder.

His lips found the places she had forgotten and others never before explored. Margaret lay back with her eyes closed, tears running from beneath her lids.  Her breath came in halting sobs and moans.  She gave him access to every part of her, accepting each re-awakened sensation.

When he positioned himself she guided him into her. Their hips moved in synchronized rhythm, a slow timeless motion.  Margaret felt the pressure build with each movement and touch.  She opened herself and felt a shudder shake the length of her body. She opened her eyes and saw him looking into hers. She saw his focus and empathy.  She returned his gaze and felt the same feelings in her.  They held there, caught in that space. Understanding.  In that moment of being seen there was release, physical and emotional.

Afterward they laid together. Margaret listened to the tick of the air conditioner. She felt the completeness and the fragility of the moment, like a snowflake settling on warm pavement.

She sat up and noticed the way the sheets scratched the back of her thighs and how the carpet felt on the soles of her feet. She stood, gathering her clothes, and went into the bathroom. James heard the shower running as he lay looking at the ceiling.  In time that seemed compressed he watched her return fully dressed. She adjusted her hair and slipped on her shoes.

James propped himself up with the pillows.

“You could stay, if you wanted,’ he said. “The room is paid for.“

Margaret shook her head without looking at him. “No. It’d be nice. A night… away. But, no. I’m… expected.“ She gave him a brief glance. “Are you staying?”

“No. I’m also… expected. These days, I don’t want to be away too long.”

She dropped her eyes and nodded. “She’s lucky to have you.”

“And you yours,” he said.  “But they might not think so.”

Margaret sat in the chair and looked at the air conditioner, at the curtains, at the lamp. Anywhere except the bed.

“No. I suppose not.”

“Will you use the service again?” He was barely distinguishable from the pillows and rumpled sheets in the dark.

“No,” she said with finality in her voice.  “I’ve gotten what I came for. This…”   She spoke as if drawing the words out of the air. “This wasn’t nothing. It was something. And I needed something. But I don’t think I’ll need this again.” She stood, straightening her skirt, and picked up her jacket. She laid the key card on the dresser.

“Good night, James,” she said.  Then, after a pause, “Goodbye.”  She turned and walked to the door. He watched, taking note of her rigid posture.

“Good night, Margaret. I hope things work out for you.”

Margaret did not look back. She left the room and went to the elevator doors.  She pushed the button and watched the lights blink.  Her fingers brushed against the cold, hard circles in her pocket.

When the doors opened she stepped inside.