She is wearing purple lipstick. The heavy wooden door closes behind her, and she clicks across the stone bricks towards the teller windows. Her semi-dark blue dress comes all the way down to the floor, and is speckled with half-moons and Japanese symbols. The dress is clenched around her waist by a thick piece of red cloth that is knotted in the back, kimono-style.

     Her fingers lift a strand of black hair from her face, stroke it into place behind her left ear. She reaches the line of customers and folds her arms, then brushes at something on her shoulder. There is a tattoo near her wrist, a black star with lettering underneath. Her heels tap one-two, one-two on the floor. The line moves forward, she comes up to my window.

     "I like your dress, ma'am."
     "Thanks!" She smiles at me, a purple crescent vivid against her pale face.
     "What can we do for you today?"
     "I'd like to make a withdrawal, please."

     Her eyes focus on the Dalí painting that hangs behind me, yellow figures twisted around a mud-green landscape. She shakes her head, closes her eyes, lets out a sigh.

     "Ok, ma'am. There you go! Here's your receipt. Have a nice afternoon."

     She smiles at me again and turns, curves back through the lobby, dodges a large man wearing a polo shirt, almost runs into him. She stops, glances back over her shoulder towards the Dalí painting, and then walks out the door.

     There are no customers in line. I pull up her account on my computer. Sanders, Anna J., balance $1564.72, customer since April 1995. I take a drink of my soda, but all the ice has melted. I scribble "Anna J. Santers" on my yellow notepad, then cross out the Santers and write in "Sanders". I look around, make sure nobody is watching me, then click the Deposit button. Deposit $50.00, Account Anna J. Sanders, Ok, Balance $1614.72. I take a fifty dollar bill out of my pocket, and put it into the cash drawer.

* * * * * * * *

     I walk along Central Avenue, weaving between light poles and trash cans. Bits of plastic mixed with leaves blow past me, scatter across the street. I need to get a new jacket, one that is warmer and waterproof. A bus screeches to a stop beside me, surrounding me with bitter exhaust fumes.

     I wonder what Anna Sanders looks like without her purple lipstick. I picture her fresh out of the shower, wrapped in a big white bath towel. Her face is slightly reddish from the heat of the shower, and she smells of plumeria. She turns her back to me, and lets the bath towel drop to the floor. Her back is delicate and white, nearly flat but slightly curved, and I can see the faint, v-shaped outline of her bones. She stretches her arms upward and sighs, then spins around to face me. Her green eyes explore my body, down to my feet and then back up to my face. A drop of water forms slowly on the tip of her nose, then falls to the floor.

     I reach the Cyberage Coffee House, a brownish stucco building with red iron wolves on either side of the front entrance. I pause for a moment, and imagine that the wolves are wearing purple lipstick also. They howl at the moon, silhouettes on top of a mountain, and their lipstick glows in the dark. I order a double mocha latté, then sit down in front of a computer terminal. Find "Anna J. Sanders", results 1 thru 20.

     Her homepage loads quickly, and has a large picture of her face at the top. She is wearing black lipstick in this image, but has purple streaks in her hair. Anna was born in 1960 at the Presbyterian Washington Hospital. She grew up in Seattle until she was 14, when her family moved to Arizona. She loves to hike in the desert, go camping, and watch lightning storms at night. Anna attended college in Tacoma for four years, where she procured a degree in chemistry, and then decided to move back to Arizona to become a painter/novelist/poet. She lived in an apartment with her boyfriend Tom for five years, then he broke up with her but they are still friends. She moved to New Mexico in 1990, and is currently writing a novel entitled "Red Leaves Falling". Her book should be published sometime this year, hopefully before Thanksgiving.

     Anna has an online gallery of her best paintings. There is a painting of a woman crouched beneath a large stone cross, and the cross appears to be falling on her. There is an oak tree in the background with orange leaves, and a naked man sits between two of the branches. He has a forked tail and curly, blue hair. He holds a yellow book, and his cat-like eyes are focused on the woman below. There is another painting of a woman standing in a pool of green, red, and black liquid. She gazes off to the right towards an Arizona-style cactus, but the cactus has the head of a man. This head has a black goatee, and is tilted up towards the moon. The moon is full, and looks like the face of a young child. The child's eyes stare straight ahead.

     I click on the link to send Anna e-mail, and type "I really enjoyed looking at your paintings online. I own a gallery in Santa Fe, and am very interested in retailing your work..." I stop for a second, drink the last bit of my latté, and then click Cancel. I spool a large picture of Anna to the color printer, even though it will cost me a dollar. Then I struggle into my windbreaker, and go back out into the night. I feel like my body is being forced to run on a gigantic treadmill, long after my brain has ceased to function.

     I walk along Bear Canyon Arroyo until I reach my apartment complex. I can see my breath in the orangish glow of the street lights, it floats upward and sublimates into the night. My apartment is warm and small, and the TV is still on from this morning. I look at the screen and see black-and-white war footage, naval vessels firing off shells at each other. There is plenty of posolé left over from last night, and I heat some up in the microwave.

     I sink into my soft, green couch and close my eyes. This time Anna is wearing her purple lipstick, but she is completely topless. I notice a silver coyote hanging from her neck on a gold chain, dangling between her breasts. She is wearing a black slip, and looks straight at me. She comes over and sits on my lap, and I run my fingers slowly through her long hair. Then she leans back and kisses me, leaves thin purple lines around my mouth.

     I focus on Anna's face, on her purple lips, and unzip my pants to jack off. It doesn't take long, I come easily and then she vanishes. The thermostat needs to be turned up, there is a draft coming in from under the front door. I get a tortilla from the fridge, fold it around thick slices of pepper jack cheese, and heat the whole thing up. Then I grab a beer and sit back down in front of the TV. There is a talk show on, single mothers whose daughters decided to become exotic dancers. I change the channel, but there isn't anything else on.

* * * * * * * *

     I climb a steep, winding hill, then finally reach Sage Street. I'm way out on the Westside, and I've never been here before. The city lights spread across the Rio Grande valley to my right, little rivulets of car headlights moving through a speckled grid. This is a new area, most of the houses are still under construction. I walk down to house 206, which is covered in white stucco and has a sloping, Spanish tile roof. There is a light on upstairs, and I can see the bottom triangle of a glowing TV screen.

     I have two carnations, one violet-orange and one red. They are surrounded by baby's breath, and all wrapped together in cellophane tied at the bottom with a black ribbon. They smell somewhat like boiling honey mixed with peaches, and I hold them in front of my face and stare at them. Then I stand beneath a street light and look down at my khaki pants. There is a large, red spot of salsa on them, right above my crotch.

     I hear a train blow its horn, a long, deep note from somewhere off to the North. I walk down the block, look at all the new houses. Some of them are nothing but blocks of concrete and metal rods, foundations surrounded by dirt. The train blows its horn again and this time the sound echoes, seems like it is behind me.

     I walk back to Anna's house, 206, and head towards the front door. A dog starts to bark in the backyard, rams itself against the wooden fence and makes it rattle. I run across the street, throw the bouquet into a large juniper bush, then hide behind a piñon tree. I see a shadow upstairs in the house, standing in front of the window. She draws Venetian blinds across the window, slides them across and then closes the slats.

     I stand behind the piñon tree for a long time, probably for a couple of hours. I imagine her inside, eating an ice cream sundae and watching talk shows. She has on a burgundy nightgown, very short and I can see her thighs, smooth and white, stretched out in front of her. There is an easel beside the TV, and there is a new painting on it. This one is a series of blurry purple rings, one inside of the other. In the middle there is a Greek pedestal with a red star perched on top. There is lettering wrapped around the star, but I can't make out what it says. In the middle of the star is a green eye, and the pupil is jerking back and forth.

* * * * * * * *

     Pale morning sunlight comes through the tall front windows, falls in a grid on the floor. The bank look different: the colors are more pastel, less artificial and sharp. I have my picture of Anna folded-up and hidden under my keyboard. I slip it out, unfold it, and hold it halfway under my desk. Her legs poke out, clad in red leather pants. This way her lipstick doesn't distract my attention, I can look at the rest of her.

     The wooden door swings open, and a woman walks through it. She is wearing a yellow blouse, with orange-red tassels along the bottom. Her pants are tight and black, show off the shape of her legs, how they curve upward into her thighs and then meet at her thin waist. She is wearing purple lipstick.

     I fold the picture up again, take care not to make any new creases. I tape the picture shut, then slip it back under my keyboard. The bank just opened, and there are no other tellers on duty yet. Anna sees the "Open" sign on my window and comes over.

     "Good morning, ma'am. How can we help you?"
     "I'd like to cash this check."
     "Just a moment." I take the check and open the cash drawer. My fingers start to shake, and I can't separate the bills.
     "Is there a problem?"
     "Um, no...I was just wondering...um, well...um I'd like to buy you dinner sometime. I think you're beautiful, I love your lipstick. I'd really be honored, and um that's a really pretty blouse too. I'll get your check, but um I just had to ask you."

     I look down and can read the tattoo on her wrist now, it says "Shades." She smiles at me, but her face is softer this time, dimples form in her cheeks, the purple is less vivid.

     "I'd love to, but I really...I can't. I'm already seeing somebody."
     "Alright." I smile back at her, and my hands are steady again. I count out the bills, twenty, forty, sixty, eighty, one-hundred and five.
     "Thanks." She walks out the door, the tassels on her blouse snake back and forth. I focus on the back of her head, try to ignore her legs. There is a red oak leaf stuck in her hair, wound between a few strands and only halfway visible. She opens the door and walks out.