It Started with a Cigarette

It begins with one cigarette in a city apartment and the polite fiction that the night is still small. A neighbor steps in. Then another. The room was meant for two, and the bed becomes the only place left to sit as the count climbs toward seven. / Nobody makes a speech about what is happening. Drinks move, names get half-learned, and the space between strangers disappears one excuse at a time. By the time the ashtray is full, leaving would mean admitting they all knew where the evening was going. The last person at the door has not decided whether to lock it.