Showering quickly before changing into your uniform, you try to resist the lure of a sexual fantasy with the man in the dunes. He said his name was Eurig. An unusual name, but hardly a golden boy… but that’s all right; you like the greying, older, slightly tarnished look. You doubt that he’s much more than forty and ten years isn’t such a gap. Perhaps his heart’s golden? He seemed so mannerly, shaking hands and all; such courteousness is rare amongst the dune cruisers. You try to conjure in your mind the friendly face attached to the body that has so turned you on, but the features are ethereal and quietly you concede that your mind is a bit one-tracked when it comes to the physical features of men. Yet it was something in Eurig’s face that had deepened your interest. How tired his eyes looked, perhaps? Maybe there was some sadness in the face, too. Pulling on your trousers, you wonder if Eurig might not turn up the next day. The melancholy brought on by this doubt un-nerves you. You question the spell cast over you by Eurig’s smile, which comes with transient vividness to your mind’s eye.

Eurig

Passing through the gate by the buddleia bush, you consider the possibility that Dylan might stand you up; after all, you barely exchanged more than a dozen words. How was it possible that he’d aroused such a cauldron of feelings? How could you have been so stupid, so adolescent even, to have been seduced by those green eyes and allowed yourself to believe that he might actually fancy you? You push off the bleakness of the disappointment you foresee descending, should Dylan decide to stay away. You seek, instead, to occupy yourself in a search for the spear-leaved orache and viper’s-bugloss that grow along the path amongst the thrift.

Dylan

You try to ignore the fact that you’re being cruised and hope that the man who circles the rim of the hollow will leave you alone. The last thing you want, if Eurig does turn up, is for him to think you’re copping off with someone else. When the gym-sculptured parody finally comes down into the hollow and struts his stuff, you recognise the boy with the conch-shell tattoo. With a smile, you ask if the antibiotics you’d prescribed him at the clinic the previous week have done their job and whether the crab lice you’d found in his groin and armpits are still driving him crazy at night. You don’t catch the boy’s reply as he runs off over the brow of the hollow.

Eurig