I nodded and leaned my lips into his ear. ‘Ou Est le Swimming Pool.’

He continued the exchange of leanings-in. ‘You French, yeah? Dishy.’

I started to laugh—and then changed my mind.

‘Oui.’

I didn’t lean all the way out. We kissed. And it was something, so when I felt teeth on my lips and tongue in my mouth, I went along with it. Why not, yeah?

Stop

We broke for a breath after a few minutes and, as I pushed away the hair that had fallen all around my face, I said, ‘That was all very sudden.’

Well I just dance the way I feel

What little I could see of his face looked confused. ‘All right? You want to do this or not?’

All I could see were the watery blue of his vacant eyes and I tried to not, tried to form a picture of an undashed possibility— dark eyes and tousled hair, words and words and words—but it eluded me and, somehow, I was looking at a hesitant smile in a pink lehenga.

No.

‘I need another drink.’

Stop breathing

‘Course.’

‘I should probably find my friends first, though—’

He gestured to one of the black couches lining the dark walls, where Ark was obscured by expanses of white leg and red hair.

I sent David a text asking him where he was, and nodded at the guy. For the first time, I noticed he was wearing a blue jumper and made a mental note to keep at least that in mind.

He guided me through the tightly packed bodies, all of them dancing or drinking or kissing or crying, to the slammed bar on the ground floor. There was his hand on the small of my back and sometimes, the brush of his mouth along my neck, and I tried to feel all the things I wanted to feel, I really did.

I drank something disgusting. A cocktail of different liquors, intended only for the purpose of quick obliteration.

Quickly, the boy became a beat between my legs and a whisper in my ear—‘Shall we?’

No.

‘Yup. Your place.’

Imagine none of this is real

His apartment was in one of those buildings where you have to walk past judgmental eyes that track you down the lobby to the elevators at the end. It was the only point during the evening where I felt I would unravel, where I felt like walking up to the person attached to the eyes and ask them if they could help me, could they help me please, because I didn’t know what I was doing and all I was trying to do was forget, and I judge me too, sir, I do. But I just need to forget, just for a while.