‘Can I speak frank, right? We don’t like our women too heavy to handle, know what I mean? You’ve got a gorgeous face. And if you went down the gym, you could lose that tummy in no time. I can show you some exercises I do.’ He lifted his shirt to smack the scrawniest, whitest set of abs I’d ever seen. Like a fleshy pink cheese grater.

‘Wow, you’re stacking some muscles there, aren’t ya?’ I said, stepping down into the second chamber and stopping to look at yet more badly lit dripping calcium deposits.

I could hear our guide Margaretha distantly banging on about karstic precipitates and paleoclimatic variations and pointing to some rock up ahead that looked a bit like Dumbledore riding a pig. Talking of which…

‘I went out with an overweight girl once,’ said Conan, pushing in front of me to get a look at Piggy Dumbledore. ‘She was funny but they always are, aren’t they? They overcompensate. No, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with it, like. But you can always tell with fat girls where their priorities lie – the fridge!’

I laughed like a drain – blackly and emptily. ‘You’re so right!’ I giggled, scanning his body for the right sinewy parking space for a blade.

But there was something even more amiss about Conan – something beyond being a habitual douche-canoe. No, he was wired, for want of a better word – and through the absence of any scent of alcohol on his too-close breath I deduced it was drugs. Uppers, ecstasy or speed. He constantly touched his nose and had this swinging jaw habit going on.

He held up his bicep to show me the fruits of his efforts. I could barely see it. ‘Feel that. Go on.’ So I did. He flexed. It was like a plum on a twig.

‘Wow. So hard.’

‘That’s since November. And I can bench nearly 40k.’ He lifted his shirt to show me another flash of cheese-grater abs.

Please stop. My penis can only get so erect. ‘That’s dead impressive.’

We shuffled forwards and I wasn’t so much blood-lusty by this point as utterly bored. I sort of wanted to kill him but in a way that wouldn’t take that much effort. I thought about pushing him into one of the deep pools surrounding the walkway but there were too many people around who’d help.

‘Men don’t make passes at gals with fat asses,’ he announced, laughing like he’d invented it. Negating his point, he pinched my arse cheek.

I chuckled, forcing a smile. ‘You’re so clever.’