Chapter II

Two people, a man and a woman, sat in a motel room, the carpet marked with a thousand cigarette burns, the wallpaper faded with age. The motel was so cheap that it did not even have the usual faux classic paintings, instead opting for more laminated signs indicating where the fire exits were.

The man and woman kissed each other. They kissed with hunger, with passion. The man's name was Henry. He had never ventured out of the daylight city before, never wandered the streets at night, never entered the City of the Dead before tonight. This would be his first night among the Lost and the Lonely.

The woman said her name was Charlotte. Henry, having dared venture out of his apartment after the sun had set, met her at an all-night diner. He had been feeling peckish, but had forgotten to buy any food at the market, so he found the diner (which he described to himself as 'quaint') and subsequently met Charlotte.

Had he met her yesterday, she would have said her name was Sydney. The day before that, her name was Florence and before that Tula and before that Mérida.

When he saw her, he was starstruck. She was gorgeous, her dark skin contrasting against the pale florescent lights, her hair the color of cocoa beans. He wanted to kiss her right then, but was afraid. She wasn't. She knew that he wanted her and she wanted him. She took his hand and they decided to run away together.

The motel was a pit stop, Henry thought. They needed each other. They needed to make love. One night in the motel and then they would get married tomorrow.

She stood up in front of him and turned around. "Unzip me," she said in that breathy whisper he loved. He did so with trembling fingers.

With her back exposed, he saw the white lines, the raised scars. "Who did this?" he asked. "Who hurt you?" He wanted to kill whoever had done it.

"Feel," she whispered and he did, he felt the lines and moved across them with his fingertips. He traced them until he realized they were a map, a map of a city splayed across her back, across her entire skin. His fingers kept moving, searching for where the map ended, but it never did, the city never stopped.

She turned and looked at him. "Who-" he said, but she raised her finger to his lips to silence him.

She kissed him. The kiss was hungry and passionate, like everything about her. Henry felt himself slip away until at last he was lost inside the city.