Just Sex, No Feelings

There was something deeply wrong with setting an alarm for five thirty in the morning in the middle of July. A little like rooting for the Dodgers in San Francisco: technically possible, but ethically suspect.

Cleo knew this as she reached toward the nightstand with all the grace of a sloth recovering from a tequila bender. Her phone buzzed like a hornet with a caffeine problem.

"Tomorrow at six, I expect a selfie of you out in San Francisco. No excuses," Phil had texted the night before.

"Have you mistaken me for someone who functions before nine?" she’d replied. "More importantly, for someone who takes selfies?"

She closed her eyes, hoping to wake up in a Parisian bistro with Timothée Chalamet reading Baudelaire to her. No such luck. Her tiny one-bedroom off Mission Street was still there, as motionless as her bank balance after rent cleared.

"You’ll thank me. Running sets your soul free," Phil had insisted.

"My soul is already too free. It’s my body that would like to be free of the obligation to move."

She gritted her teeth like a woman walking to the gallows and got up. While searching for a T-shirt that didn’t look as if it had survived an entire geological era, she took in her natural habitat.

The bookcase overflowed with volumes arranged according to a system known only to higher beings. Her desk looked like the scene of an intellectual crime: Post-its everywhere, fossilized coffee mugs, and the kind of disorder Cleo called "creative chaos" and her former roommate had called "the reason I’m moving out."

The couch had endured so many TV marathons and precariously balanced dinners that it had developed a personality of its own. The kitchenette, small but functional, was the only relatively tidy space, mostly because Cleo rarely cooked. Pouring cereal and ordering delivery were her specialties.

It was her den. A cozy mess that said, Someone lives here who has stopped trying to impress anyone, herself included.

Her phone buzzed again.

Phil: "Are you out yet?"

Cleo: "If I were a character on Game of Thrones, I would be plotting your slow and painful death right now."

She grabbed her keys and left.

San Francisco at six in the morning was almost unrecognizable. The streets were quiet, as if the city were holding its breath—or, more likely, sleeping like every sentient creature should at that ungodly hour. The air was still cool, the morning fog not yet sure whether it planned to stay.

Cleo started running. Or, more accurately, performing an experimental interpretation of the concept. She moved like a malfunctioning robot. Her arms and legs appeared to be competing in two entirely different sports. Soon she was gasping for air, reminded of why her relationship with physical activity had always been openly hostile.

«Sets your soul free,» she muttered between wheezes. «My soul is trying to escape this traitorous body.»

She passed an older man walking with a cane, who regarded her with concern. Cleo gave him what she intended as a smile. It probably looked more like a grimace of acute pain.

Forty minutes later, somewhere between apocalypse survivor and ready for embalming, Cleo headed home. She had run—or done something vaguely adjacent to running—along a route determined primarily by her desire to get back into bed.

Outside her building, she noticed someone sitting on the front steps. A woman was sobbing into her hands. Blond hair, black evening dress, and heels designed for mountaineering. A penguin in a sauna.

Cleo wasn’t sociable. Or particularly empathetic. She had developed a reliable protocol for managing human interaction based on three principles:

First, avoid talking to strangers.

Second, if absolutely necessary, imply an urgent appointment elsewhere.

Third, if a stranger is crying, pretend not to notice.

She slowed down. The woman looked genuinely wrecked. Either the victim of a catastrophic hangover or something worse.

«Um… excuse me.» Cleo approached her as she would a frightened animal. «Are you okay?»

A pointless question. Nobody was okay sitting on the steps of an apartment building at seven in the morning, wearing an evening dress and Rorschach-test mascara.

The woman looked up. Red eyes, trembling lips. «No, I’m not okay. Although, looking at you, maybe I’m doing better than I thought.»

Cleo became acutely aware of her appearance: sweaty, red-faced, her hair resembling a failed experiment in static electricity.

«Can I do anything?» she asked, fully conscious of her own inadequacy. Her idea of comfort involved silence, food, or quotes from obscure movies.

The woman sniffed. «Unless you can wipe assholes off the face of the earth, probably not.»

«Do you live here?» Cleo asked, gesturing toward the building.

The woman shook her head so violently she resembled an emotionally distressed jellyfish. «No. I spent the night with a guy who does. This morning he told me he wasn’t looking for anything serious. Apparently, he thought he’d made that clear from the beginning.»

Oh. One of the neighbor’s casualties.

«I’m Cleo.» She held out a sweaty hand, then immediately pulled it back.

«Erica.» The woman smeared her mascara a little farther across her face.

«Have you had breakfast?»

Erica looked surprised. «No. I ran out as soon as he started talking. My stomach’s in knots.»

«There’s a coffee shop around the corner,» Cleo said. «Want some coffee? Or something inappropriately high-calorie, like we’re in the montage before the inspirational song?»

Ten minutes later, they were sitting in Angel’s Café—one of them in an evening dress, the other fresh from her alleged run. The barista kept glancing at them, visibly confused.

«So,» Cleo said, taking a sip of coffee. «That went badly.»

Erica nodded. «He was just so… different. When he plays, it’s like he’s in another world.»

Cleo raised an eyebrow. «Plays?»

«He sings in a band. I saw him at The Lantern. He has this voice… and when he looks at you while he’s singing…»

«Ah. One of those.» Cleo nodded. «The classic emotionally unavailable musician. More predictable than the ending of a Netflix rom-com.»

«He’s not what you think,» Erica protested. «I thought he cared.»

Cleo bit her tongue. It was all too easy to picture the type: hats, bracelets, and the word vibe in every other sentence.

«Maybe it’s just bad timing for him,» she allowed. «Or maybe he wasn’t as clear as he thought. Men and communication exist in parallel universes.»

«He said he was drunk. That he didn’t remember everything. But when we were together… he seemed so present.»

«Ah, the emotional-escape trifecta: ‘I was drunk,’ ‘It’s not you, it’s me,’ and ‘You’re too special for me.’ A masterpiece of modern immaturity.»

Erica smiled. «You’ve met a lot of assholes, huh?»

«Let’s just say I have a natural talent for finding them. Swipe right for trauma, left for emotional stability.»

Erica laughed. «The worst part is that I’m mad at myself. Why did I think I was going to find love with some guy I met at a bar?»

Cleo nodded. «Romantic optimism is an advanced form of insanity. Cynicism and chocolate are the only known cure.»

«You’re being incredibly kind, having breakfast with a stranger in the middle of a crisis.»

«You saved my lungs. Any excuse not to keep running. We’re even.»

They kept talking. Cleo was beginning to enjoy her company. In another universe, maybe they would have become friends.

«So he lives in your building?»

«Yeah. Never seen him, though. All I know is that he lives across the hall and has a remarkable talent for making women cry.»

«Aren’t you ever curious? You’ve never watched through the peephole?»

«No. But only because it’s covered by a Post-it with my grocery list.»

«If you meet him, don’t tell him you saw me crying. I’d like him to think I left with my dignity intact.»

«Don’t worry. I doubt I’ll ever have a reason to talk to him. I avoid neighbors like the plague.»

When they said goodbye, a more composed Erica hugged her. «Thank you. That was exactly what I needed.»

«Good luck. And remember: living well is the best revenge. That, or texting him drunk at three in the morning and then blocking him.»

Upstairs, Cleo stopped in front of her neighbor’s door. Normal. Anonymous. No sign reading, A musician lives here. He will break your heart. What did all these women see in him? Genuine charm, or just another mediocre man with excellent marketing?

She shook her head. Shower and silence. But while the hot water loosened her screaming muscles, she was already typing into the group chat.

Cleo: "Guess who I had breakfast with this morning? One of the victims of my womanizing neighbor."

Curiosity, after all, had always been her favorite sin.