Steam Heat

I lay there in her bed with the sheet half over me, sweltering, yet oddly comfortable. My head ached a little from the drinking and my stomach lurched now and then, but not alarmingly so. My left arm stretched over my head, lightly brushing hers. From time to time she stirred-- a shallow sleeper. I forgot what it was like, those old, Upper West Side apartments in the winter. It's either on or off, the heat. No thermostat, and when it's on, it's on.