In the still heat of early afternoon, Jake emerged from his office tower for a late lunch in the little park beside it. He had the place to himself.

The park was immaculate -- an oasis of lush green grass, flower boxes overflowing with marigolds, and a little stone wall that just cried out for someone to sit upon it and soak up the sunshine.

Someone had.

That someone had left very clear traces of her presence behind.

His heart began to pound as he visualized this vanished beauty, for a beauty he felt sure she was. He knew the ladies that he shared his office tower with were the cream of the crop, young professionals working their way up the corporate ladder.

He reached the little wall and sat down where he figured she had so recently been sitting, imagining the thin fabric of her skirt pressed into the rough surface of the wall by the slight weight of her shapely bottom. A few inches from his right side, a foil gum wrapper lay crumpled, surely hers, and on his left, a sandwich wrapper from the bistro across the street. That had been her lunch. Thoughtlessly, she had left behind the litter. He gently raised the wrapper to his face and inhaled the scent of pita bread, feta cheese and chicken, and he thought about her pretty mouth opening and biting into the sandwich, her sharp teeth shearing off tasty pieces of it, her tongue savoring its spiciness, her throat swallowing it down.

But the best clue of all was her dessert. She preferred mint. Or rather, menthol.

For still smoldering in the mulch behind the wall, just beneath a small sign that said, "No smoking, no littering,"was a long, beautiful Marlboro Menthol. She had been interrupted apparently, and had left it behind only half-smoked. He leaned down and looked closely. It still sent up wisps of smoke, and he breathed in the menthol vapors that had been meant for her lungs, imagining them swirling in the wet darkness of her mouth and inhaled deep into her body, feeding her hunger for nicotine, soothing her addiction, pleasuring her fine, young body.

What a pretty thing a cigarette could be, he thought, admiring its straight, milk-white form, embossed with the narrow green lines of its menthol heritage towards the filter. Her fingers had held this cigarette, cradling its feather-light weight, holding it in place to set it afire, to lift it to her lips. Those fingers had flipped through reports, bent around a pen, spent their morning in doldrum -- but ahh, they had begun the day rubbing soap over her wet body in her shower, then fluffing out her hair, picking out the clothes she would wear for the day -- silky panties, pretty skirt, sensible blouse.

The filter tip bore a telltale sign - a ring of red lipstick pressed into the white paper, recording forever the shape of her lips. Up close, he could see the fine lines, the print of her mouth that would be uniquely hers. She had had this cigarette after her sandwich, so she had actually redone her lipstick before smoking her cigarette.

With the edge of his fingernail, he scraped a smidgen of the crimson stain, still wet, and tasted it, imagining the lips that had so briefly worn it.

A dark brown circle showed in the center of the filter, where tar and nicotine had been trapped as she inhaled, frustrated only millimeters from passage into her mouth. She had inhaled deeply, judging by the shade of the stain -- she had wanted that nicotine in her lungs, not on the filter.

He imagined her lips tight around the filter, clamping down hard, the tip of the cigarette burning fiercely with the power of her draw, the smoke being dragged from that tip through the yet-unburned tobacco and into the filter and then escaping into her mouth and sinking deep, deep down into her chest as she forced it in, as she filled her lungs fully with the fumes.

Then she would have exhaled, cradling the cigarette again in her fingers as she spit out the long stream into the still summer air.

One of the marigolds beside him looked a little odd and he realized that its petals had been singed. She had tortured the little flower with her cigarette while she sat here.

Then she had left. Had simply dropped the cigarette without any attempt to step on it or put it out. He could see the tiny holes in the close-cropped soft grass where her heels had sunk in, weapons enough to have ended the cigarette's life, but she hadn't bothered.

Gently, he picked up her litter and tucked it into his briefcase. He saved the cigarette for last, picking it up slowly. The still-hot end bit the skin of his palm, like a small, angry animal until he pressed it out with the edge of his fingers. Then he fled the scene, feeling like a little boy who had just stolen candy from a store.