*

So as we get to The Diamond and they’re playing Donna Summers. There are women on roller skates cutting round the dance floor in the fluorescent lights. We get the drinks in and there’s Arlene and she’s a got a pal with her, whose name I can’t even mind now, but she has her hair up in a bun and with the two curls hanging down sexy, like. But she has this voice. This fucking Dublin voice that I just cannot stand. Pat’s got Arlene up against a wall and he’s whispering in her ear and they’re both rubbing up on each other. I can see Arlene’s panties through the pattern on her dress. The Rolling Stones comes on. ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’. I take a swatch at Arlene’s mouth. You can tell it has never had a cock in it in its life. It’s flat and it’s tight and it’s even got pubic hair on its fucking lip. Her pal is telling me about going to the college, she’s a nurse. She’s telling me that death is recession-proof, especially in Ireland, she says. What the fuck ever, I’m saying to myself.

Your man Rod Stewart comes on. ‘Hot Legs’. Arlene’s pal asks me if I want to dance. I don’t really want to dance, love, what I want to do is explode all over the front of your dress, darling, but I dance with her anyway. I lift my arm up as she does a pirouette. Her dress spins all around her, like colour into water. We take a seat. She tells me about a car she’s saving up for. A Vauxhall Viva. Is that right, love? But I’m elsewhere, darling. I’m looking at all these women on the dance floor, these women dressed so fine. Who are these women? And who are the men they’re going home to? I look at Arlene’s pal with her own stupid mouth, tight as a mouse’s ear. I think of the women in the Dragon magazines; in a dungeon beneath Belfast, the prizes. And that’s when I see her.

Dancing with another redhead. The two of them in the leotards and the high heels. It’s like my dick is going to pop out the centre of my forehead like the Buddha Himself. It’s only Kathy M. It’s only the fucking girl we kidnapped. And she looks fucking unbelievable. I picture that drawer she had, filled brimming with her panties. I picture Barney rifling through them. I catch the curve of her hips. She has her hair curled round her face like Farrah Fawcett. What’s that word for the crease at the top of her thighs. She’s laughing and dancing with a friend. What a moment.

I make my excuses and walk round to the other side of the dance floor. I stand there and watch her, in secret. I see her take her handbag and go into the toilet and I don’t think twice. I follow her in there. There’s no one else inside. She goes to walk into one of the cubicles and I grab her and push her in and lock the door behind us. She’s as cool as a kitten.