‘Do you think you are upset by these things because you secretly want them for yourself?’

‘I see it all for what it is. I would guess you’ve never been loved as much as you thought you deserved. I think if you really wanted to change the world you’d find a way to stop being so furious and so quaint.’

I tried to think of Oscar Wilde. Of Aristophanes. To be insulted by you is to be garlanded with lilies. I tapped my cigarette on the sandstone floor and looked back at him. ‘Well well. Don’t we have all the undainty revelations.’

He was a gun, I was counterfeit. The expectation up until that point might have been that we’d sleep together that night (we didn’t), but with those two admonitions, we fucked each other good. I don’t think we had ever felt our sex as much as we did in that moment.

Well, maybe one other time.

He smiled sweetly again. ‘Do you think there’s one person for every person?’

I shook my head. ‘No. I have never thought that.’

‘I’m scared of not meeting the right person.’

‘I’m scared that not meeting the right person, over and over, might be the point for me.’

He nodded grimly. ‘Same time tomorrow?’

And that’s how it went. We drank mint tea and smoked together every night in the garden after dinner. ‘Hey, movie star,’ he’d say, when he saw me. I cringed at that. I ensured my cringing was visible. Still, I sat there, waiting for him, Movie Star Me.

On the last day, we swapped email addresses.

He emailed me as we travelled in separate cars to Cairo.

INBOX

Subject: YOU

ARE SOMETHING ELSE.

That was it.

I have to admit, it excited me. The boldness. The way he used the subject bar as part of the message. The lot. I read it and I thought – Okayyyyy, maybe we have something here. I had never been emailed like that. It was like seeing my own brain pinned wriggling to the page. Delightful! And moreover: undeniable.

I didn’t reply. (Hahah. Mine to kill. Mine to kill.) I stared at the email. I sat back in my chair. I watched two pale yellow butterflies twirl around each other. Are you dancing? Are you asking? I’m asking. I’m dancing. I clicked my phone off and then clicked it back to life and stared at the email again. I wanted the feeling to last forever.

I messaged Kelly:

What do you make of this then?

I was milking it, I know. But I felt like I deserved a bit of milking after such a drought. And there had been a drought, certainly on the sexual-banter front. I’d been having a lot of sex, but not so many sexy verbal high jinks.

Kelly replied:

Sounds like an alpha male. Good luck

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