He’s secretly a monk, thought Gehna. I knew it. No wonder he hasn’t kissed me. In his sacred order they probably chop off a hand if you touch a girl.

Built into a wall were two cupboards, one with double-doors like a wardrobe and the other with a single door of the sort normally used to store linen.

Gehna knew it was wrong, but she couldn’t help herself. If she saw an unopened drawer or cupboard, it drove her crazy. She soothed her conscience by telling herself that most people were the same; she was just honest about it. She opened the smaller cupboard first and found a neat pile of black tees, one neat pile of white tees and three piles of books. Picking up two at random, Gehna looked at the titles: Calculus in the Real World and Bluffing: All You Need Is a Pair of Balls. The rest were more of the same kind, either math texts or poker tutorials.

When she shut the door, Eram was standing there. ‘Boo,’ he said.

Gehna was so startled that she screamed out loud. ‘Are you completely mental? Damn. I think I peed in my pants a little.’ She punched Eram’s shoulder as hard as she could.

‘Ow.’ He threw himself on the bed. ‘You know that scene in the movies where someone’s rummaging in a fridge at night? All you can see is that person in the light from the fridge. And you just know that when they shut the fridge door, there’s going to be someone standing there. That scene always makes me laugh. I wanted to try it, see if it worked in real life.’ He started laughing. ‘It does.’

‘I’m making a list,’ Gehna said, ‘of all your shortcomings. This definitely makes the top five.’ She tugged at her jean shorts and walked to the bed with as much dignity as she could gather. ‘How’s your dad?’

Eram shrugged. ‘Okay, I guess. Embarrassed about his freak-out, but he’ll never admit it. He’s still having a go at me for using the wrong glasses.’ He shot a quick look at Gehna, perched at the edge of his bed. Nobody but he had ever sat on this bed before. It felt weird—intimate and intrusive at the same time. His hand was resting a couple of inches from where Gehna was sitting and he felt an urge to brush his knuckles against her thigh. He wondered what would happen if he did.

She’ll either pretend it didn’t happen, or be horrified. Either way I’ll probably never hear from her again. I’ll probably be so humiliated that I’ll have to grow a beard and move to, like, Guam or somewhere, under an assumed name. This is the trouble with losing your virginity. Once it happens you think you’re some kind of a sex god, when actually you still don’t know jack.

He moved his hand away before it went and did something stupid.

‘What’s behind door number two?’ Gehna said, pointing at the other, larger cupboard.