We were lying on her futon watching the new James Bond movie, both of us halfway through beers that had gone too warm to finish. She had her head on my thigh and was scratching her ankle with a fork she’d been eating out of earlier.

Her hair smelled like laundry detergent and something else, like old oranges maybe. I had the urge to bite her elbow. Not hard. Just to remind her I was real.

“You know when I was a kid, I used to think I’d be a spy?” she said, after a car chase scene.

I nodded like that tracked. “What made you stop?”

She shrugged. “I realized I was a weak-ass. Turns out I always give up secrets for snacks.”

The cat was sitting on her stomach like a full coffee mug. Very proud. Watching me like he could see through my intentions and know they were all dumb. Like how I wanted to impregnate her without having to make love, bring into this world a prophet baby together.

Then as if she could read my mind, she turned to me and said, “I think if I got pregnant I’d name my baby something like Kevin but spell it unreasonably. Like ‘Qhevenn’ or something. Just to give it an edge.”

I said I’d support her, but only if I got to pick the middle name.

“Cool,” she said, “but it has to be something you can say out loud in a church.”

“Fair,” I said. “What are we naming now? A baby or a demon?”

She shrugged. “A vibe.”

When we finished the movie, she put one cold foot under my leg and said, “I like it when you stay.”

Then the cat farted and we both pretended it was each other, and then laughed too hard and kissed anyway, and somehow the night moved forward like it forgave us.

Sarp Sozdinler has been published in Electric Literature, Kenyon Review, Masters Review, Vestal Review, Fractured Lit, HAD, Hobart, JMWW, Trampset, X-R-A-Y, and Maudlin House, among other journals. His stories have been selected or nominated for anthologies including the Pushcart Prize, Best Small Fictions, and Wigleaf Top 50. He is currently at work on his first novel in Philadelphia and Amsterdam.