She breathes the air and reaches out to touch the wall, the floor. She has dreamed of sex on this carpet—or rather, she has imagined this carpet with moderate accuracy, a striped hall runner cut so that the old boards are visible underneath, and imagined herself having sex upon it. This was where she held his shoulders. This was where she lay down. She has not, of course, viewed images of his home, or plans of the building at last sale. It would have been out of bounds, beyond the limits of their agreed encroachments. No. She simply knew that his place was one of these, and considered how a person like him—like her—would arrange it. The encounter which hangs in her eyes now is fantasy laid (ho ho) over supposition.