There’s a bright circle of light in the middle of the hotel room. I raise my eyes for a moment to watch the cheap glass shade shake a little from movement on the floorboards above. I’ve been in plenty of rooms too cheap for a light shade.

The woman, one of my regulars, has brought scented candles with her and stacked them on the narrow shelf above the bed. With the curtains closed and the perfume from her and the candles thick in the air, it’s becoming an effort to breathe. Even the plaster wall at my back feels warm, like something alive. In this place there are floors of lost people just like me and the walls sweat along with us.

There’s a tiny sink beside us, beside this middle-aged woman and the sweetheart she pays for by the hour. I’d like to wash my face in the cracked, dirty basin but I would have to push her away from me to get to it and I know without trying that I just don’t have the energy.