Bastogne doesn’t forget.
It holds on.
Just like she did.

I found her near the memorial —
a black coat against the gray sky, standing still enough to seem carved from the stone itself.

She didn’t smile when I passed.
She didn’t look away, either.
Just said,
“You carry your noise like a shield. Put it down — if you want to breathe here.”

She never said she was an escort in Belgium.
She said, “I don’t sell warmth. I share it — with those who stop asking for it.”

Her place was above an old store, where the stairs creaked under every step and the windows held back more than just the cold.
She poured thick coffee.
She didn’t ask why I came.
She simply said, “Stay as long as you need to remember how to be still.”

The massage wasn’t technique.
It was memory — pressed into skin like a story only she could read.

Her hands didn’t try to soothe me.
They tried to recognize me — the version of myself that didn’t flinch from quiet.

Later, she stood by the radiator, letting her dress slip off her shoulders.
No performance.
No hesitation.
Her striptease was like snowfall —
not meant to impress,
but meant to remind you how soft the world can still be, even after everything hardens.

Beautiful girls in Bastogne don’t set you on fire.
They keep you warm enough to survive the cold you didn’t know you were carrying.

And the expensive girls here?
They don’t take your money.
They take the part of you that thought intimacy had to be loud to be real.

Want to meet a girl in Bastogne?
Then don’t come looking for a spark.
Come when your chest feels too heavy for your own hands.
She’ll see it.
And she’ll sit there — until you remember the way back to yourself.