Wrapped in a towel in the changing rooms afterwards, hair in wet silver and pink rats’ tails, Bridge felt electrified. Perhaps, at last, she was starting to understand the point of this SMC thing.

I am going to ride my husband like he will not believe when he gets home, she vowed, messaging Aleš with slippery fingers. I am your Pole dancer, baby, and I can’t wait to slide along its length when you get home. She added flames, tongue, doughnut, aubergine, kissing-heart-eyed faces and a horse (for subliminal effect), along with a row of kisses.

His reply was quick-fire and emoji-free: Take all your clothes off. Be ready. I am coming, stoneczko! Almost there!

Again? The man was a right handshake hero, a priapic machine gun in his homeland. No wonder he wanted to move back to Krakow.

My clothes are off, she replied truthfully, closing her eyes and imagining her towel loosening, letting the lust blush steal up her body. Then she shivered with a thrill that caught her like an electric shock. Fantasy Ash had just entered the ladies’ changing room.

*

Turning stiffly in his armchair, eyelids briefly at half-mast in the half-awake half-light, Luca felt the warm weight of the deerhound puppy on his lap. He was in a hotel room near the airport waiting for a lift. No, he was in a snowed-in log cabin by a Canadian lake, waiting for a lover. It was cold; the fire had almost gone out. Was he awake?

He heard a stallion call, that distinctive wild shout. He’d recognise this one anywhere. Long gone now. Cold air conditioning. Staff apartments like igloos, a wall of heat outside by day, but cooler at night. That awful night. Running along the fire escapes at the back of the staff flats, the metal grating booming and rattling like gunfire, the screams ahead both horse and human.

He’d dreamed this scene many, many times since, revisited the great hanger of a barn, the furthest stable isolated, neon lit, sweat-hot, blood spots like scattered rubies on shavings. Each time he returned the angle skewed more, the original cast replaced with newer faces, their behaviour erratic. A redhead shouted at him to go away, barring the stable, telling him he wasn’t needed.

The horse never changed: grey coat sweated to gunmetal, dark eyes white-rimmed, nostrils trumpet-flared, cornered and terrified. The bravest, boldest of horses brutalised beyond trust. He called again, ribcage lifting and shuddering.

Luca jerked awake. He had absolutely no idea where he was, just that he was parched. There was a mug of cold tea beside him which he drank gratefully, closing his eyes, lead weights in their lids, mind hollow with exhaustion, trying to get back to his dream. He had to get back to save the horse. Sleep’s black blanket cloaked him obligingly. But he was in the wrong place. He was in a hotel room, watching a woman sleep, her skin marble pale in the faintest light. Immune to other people’s pain, he had to get out, get back to the horse.