Well, that proves the soundproofing works at least. I wish I hadn’t told her how horny I’ve been feeling these past few weeks. Oh my god! Is she actually licking the glass?

Gehna angled the monitor away so that Eram wouldn’t be able to see the Yam having sexual intercourse with a room. Then she caught sight of something and squinted at the screen.

‘What?’ asked Eram. ‘You’re making your suspishy face.’

‘Come closer.’

Eram pulled his laptop closer towards himself. The room he was staying in disappeared from view as his head and shoulders filled Gehna’s screen.

‘Take off your ganji,’ she said.

Eram stripped his vest off in what he imagined was a sexy move. ‘Mmm. This is so much better than sexting. Your turn. Take off your . . . what is that, a dress? . . . take it off.’

‘Shut up,’ Gehna said. She pointed an accusatory finger at his neck. ‘What’s that?’

‘What’s what?’ He touched a spot on his collar that looked red and inflamed. ‘This? It’s nothing—’

‘Don’t even try to tell me it was an insect or some rubbish. That is a suck mark. I’m a big-city girl, Eram, I know the difference between a mosquito bite and a hickey. Who was it? Some Chinese skank you met at one of your fancy casinos? Did you bring her back to your room? That’s why you showered so late at night. I know you, you always shower before you make out with someone. And your room is a mess. Your room is never a mess. I can handle you being with someone else, but I can’t handle being lied to. So what is it? Just tell me.’

‘I’m telling you it’s a mosquito—whoa, hey.’

Gehna was crying.

Eram didn’t tell her she was overreacting. He didn’t tell her that it was just hormones; he didn’t laugh it up or tell her to calm down. If she was feeling something, then that was her truth and, by extension, his as well. He spoke to her with gentleness. About the crazy hours he was keeping in Macao. About the fat fucking mosquitoes in his cheap hotel room. And about how he missed her.

‘How much?’ Gehna wanted to know. ‘How much do you miss me?’

In the movies, Eram thought, they get away with some pretty cheesy shit like spreading their arms as wide as they can and saying: that much, as if everyone’s about six years old.

‘I don’t know, but a lot. Like if I was the parched earth and you were rain.’

‘That’s such a total line, Rat. But points for using parched in a sentence.’ The dimple in her right cheek deepened.

‘I think,’ Eram said, ‘that’s the first time you’ve ever been jealous.’

‘Nuh-unh, not me.’

‘Go on. Admit it. You were just a tiny bit jealous.’

Gehna shook her head. ‘No-no-no. I’m not the jealous type, but what’s mine is mine. End of story.’

If she were being honest, Gehna spent quite a bit of time each day in her head feeling insecure about her relationship with Eram. How not? There she was, a perfectly adorable girl to begin with, who had now ballooned into a big ass moody bitch. She peed roughly sixty-four times a day and felt like peeing when she wasn’t. She cried. She waddled. Occasionally, though not, mercifully, in public so far, she farted without meaning to.