#*angel lung

Thundering, tender spring in the Bahamas.

They find their mark. Eurostar learns that Angel Lung can match his jive. Night two their mark loses his briefcase and the codes are returned to Vienna. They tango, foxtrot and quickstep. And she learns this each of the mornings after: he is very bad at goodbyes.

They both pick up on the body's details like unspoken skim stones. Her pearly white martyrdoms and his silverscreen communiqués vie together too well. They make every parting feel like the final.

It's better to avoid goodbyes. Easier, he thinks, to coax her back to the hotel bed. His reflection does not smile fully until she looks up at the antique mirror. The quality of the air, the negative space, the change in the currents, the vibration of the carnival sounds shining in from the viny, copper-coloured balcony. Heat, static electricity. The invisible sense that someone is close, the way the warm of the sun slips in. He wonders what someone like her hears first, as he drags his open mouth up the side of her neck to map the shape, the texture. Is it the sounds she feels and creates more than hears, or something different entirely?

She keeps up the ruse of putting on her tourist clothes as his knuckles kiss the underside of the silk that otherwise sits against her ribcage.