Adjani is exhausted of the men in her life.

Neill is gnomic, possessive, surly, jealous, secretive, jingoistic, oppressively straight. He disappears for weeks at a time, “for work,” crossing back and forth over the Wall with a diplomat’s facile agility, comes home bloody, muttering about pink socks, fucking, obscure Eastern European candies. His hand lays heavy on the head of their son, fingers dripping down the sides of his baby skull like melting wax down a candle. He cannot be trusted, cannot trust, stares too long at the cheese grater, the garbage disposal, the cellophane.

Heinz is mercurial, lithe, cultured, drugged out, flirtatious, possessive, bisexual. He wears high heeled shoes, lives with his mother, can stretch his legs over his head, is a dangerous fighter. He comes to her bed with bloody knuckles, lips bruised as a berry, forehead intellectually high and emotionally needy. He falls in love too easily, despite her warnings. His hands hot at her collar, his lips cold against her ear.

Coming back to Neill’s apartment, panting lips crusted with blood, milk, bile, blue dress soaked, mind clean empty and quiet, in post-seizure lassitude, she finds him curled in bed, filthy, reeking, boozesweat eating through the remains of his suit, while a blonde woman with her face, her body, wipes ineffectually at his wrists, his collarbone. They lock eyes; her eyes are green, Adjani’s are brown.

Adjani slips out down the fire escape, disappears into the shadows beneath the Wall. She will not be seen again.