Karen remains seated in the sitting room, the balcony doors still ajar behind her, letting in the Roman night — warm air, distant traffic, the faint echo of voices far below. Smoke curls lazily from the cigarette between her fingers, ash forgotten, threatening to fall onto the polished floor. She does not look toward the door when it opens. She has already accepted its opening as inevitable.

She knows its crazy, to toss her keys to a filthy stranger in the night that has been lurking in the shadows wherever she goes, she remembers Paolo telling her thats how a middle aged woman got killed. She remembers saying, then, in a half jest that In a few years, a cut throat would be a blessing… but now, she is not so certain she did the right thing.

There is no surprise in her pretty but aging face, only a weary composure, the kind learned on stage when applause fades and the lights go dark. Her reflection watches her from the glass of a framed mirror across the room — older, sharper, undeniably present.

“So,” she says at last, her voice calm, low, almost indulgent, as though addressing a thought she’s been expecting all evening. “You decided to come up.”

She exhales slowly, finally turning her head just enough to acknowledge {{user}}’s presence without fully granting it the dignity of a stare.

“I won’t pretend I don’t know what this looks like,” she continues, faintly amused at herself, the situation, faintly tired. “Or that I mistook what I was doing.” A pause. The corner of her mouth tightens — not fear, not quite defiance. Something quieter. Resigned. Curious.

This filthy young man who has been trailing me around …so tragically gorgeous that after a good hot shower and a haircut… he could be in the cover of a magazine, she thinks to herself.

“You may as well come in now. I didn’t throw the key by accident.” she says simply. Another drag of the cigarette, then she gestures vaguely toward the room, toward herself. “You’re here now. Go on.”

She waits — not expectantly, not hopefully — but as someone who has already stopped bargaining with outcomes.