Down the snaky length ofthat scar.

Rudy could feel the sweat trickling down his sides, his thin T-shirt plastered against his back. His battered duffle coat was piled on the floor and he gave it a nudge with his toe to shove it aside. The dim red light of the room and the sticky heat from the ceiling vents pressed down on him. He thought his breath would seize in his chest or that he might suffocate from wanting the woman behind the window.

The metal shutter slamming down jerked him back on his rusted stool like a jolt of electricity. Rudy fumbled quickly in the bulging pocket of his loose-fitting jeans, sorting through the loose change, keys, comb and a wadded tissue for the greasy tokens he needed to open the shutter and reveal Claire. Painful seconds seemed to stretch out while he groped for the BurlyCoins - panicking once when he thought they were all used up - then gasping with relief when his fingers finally found the tokens. He fumbled four into the machine, scrubbing strands of sweat-slicked hair out of his eyes to better see the token slot.

The shutter ground upward, and Rudy couldn't help bending over to better hurry his chance at seeing Claire. When he saw long red hair, his hopes crashed.

"Where's Claire?!" His shouts startled the woman for only a moment. Then a slatternly, knowing look slid across her face, and she slinked across to the window. Shimmying slowly up and down the glass, she stroked the little window hatch in a suggestive manner. Then she pressed the speaker button.

"Slide some more of those tokens into the slot, lover, and I'II open the hatch. I'II help you forget about Claire."

Rudy's fist slammed the glass right next to the woman's face. She leaped back, startled, and stumbled over the chair in the middle of her cubicle. Anger darkened her features, and as Rudy hammered the glass once more in frustration, he saw her foot snake out and toe the floor alarm button. He was so distracted by his desperate frustration, he barely heard the heavy pounding in the hallway. Before he could think to grab his coat and run, Antonio, the bouncer, crashed through the door and grabbed him by the scuff of his neck. The red-haired woman was standing stridently at the glass, screaming incomprehensibly and pointing at Rudy. As Rudy's head hit the doorjamb on the way out -just before he blacked out from the blow - some detached part ofhim wondered in awe that his infatuation with Claire's scar was so great he could ignore the heavy breasts and tight, oily thighs of the angry redhead.