"Um," I said as we breathed in the night air. "Coffee?"
"Home," she said. "I think home for now. Coffee later."
"Yeah," I agreed. She lived up in Hayes Valley. I spotted a taxi rolling by and I hailed it. That was a small miracle -- there are hardly any cabs when you need them in San Francisco.
"Have you got cabfare home?"
"Yeah," she said. The cab-driver looked at us through his window. I opened the back door so he wouldn't take off.
"Good night," I said.
She put her hands behind my head and pulled my face toward her. She kissed me hard on the mouth, nothing sexual in it, but somehow more intimate for that.
"Good night," she whispered in my ear, and slipped into the taxi.
Head swimming, eyes running, a burning shame for having left all those Xnetters to the tender mercies of the DHS and the SFPD, I set off for home.
#