Substitution
With her eyes closed:
She could pretend this wasn't the fire stairwell of the Hilton, or Sheraton, or whatever upper-middle-class hotel they were in. It wasn't 2 AM the night before Finals and her fingers weren't pounding into some girl whose name she couldn't remember, whose thumbnail was flicking her clit maddeningly, over and over until she was close, so close she wanted to scream and cry and die all at once.
She could imagine the hair against her cheek was golden, fine and smooth, not brown, coarse and wavy, not much different than her own. The vanilla perfume that choked her with its cloying sweetness annointed peaches-and-cream innocence personified, not a tanned demigoddess whose every word - every action - exuded sensuality.
She could fall, and Tor would catch her.