He was apparently a little nervous, because he poured more whisky in his glass and swallowed it in one gulp.

‘She’, I read, ‘creates the world.’

I felt blood rush to my cheeks, salt in my eyes.

The world of biology.

Puts emotion in honey jars with spiders and bees.

Can’t see the difference between people and trees.

Through the empty glass in front of him his skin appeared dazzling, as things can sometimes seem, glinting in the distance. I didn’t know what to say so I read it again, as though I was struggling with it.

‘What do you think?’ he said.

‘I don’t get it. Is this what I’m like?’

‘I just wrote what I think.’

‘But it could be anyone. Any student.’

‘I could have described you as well. Your hair.’

‘No, no. No hair. No eyes. No lips.’

I tried to smile, feeling like I’d said something wrong. One word too many: lips. The word brought a barrage of thoughts: licking them, biting them, kissing them. I imagined that I bit his tanned neck, and couldn’t help but think, this is it, Johanna, it’s happening, and I was sure he could read it on my lips. His shoulders swelled as he tensed and relaxed his muscles. He leant his head towards me.

‘Oh, I see. You’re a feminist.’

‘That’s not what I said, I just think you’ve written enough.’

‘I just wanted to give you a compliment. You have nice lips,’ he said, as if adding a coda to the poem, and I squinted back at him, sucking in my lips as though in retreat from his mouth. In my head the words from Moon Lips were throbbing:

… full and succulent.

I turned to Carral, but next to me I found only an empty brown kitchen chair. She must have gone to bed.

When I look back, I can remember the sound of Carral brushing her teeth, flushing the toilet, shuffling upstairs to the mezzanine while I read Pym’s napkin. I remember the sound of a creaking bed and a deep sigh from the other side of the plasterboard. All this returned to me later, as though my senses were slurred, facing Pym by that kitchen table. Because in that moment she was gone, all at once.

Pym and I sit facing each other like two Cheshire cats in the moonlight. He grabs the whisky glass, empties it in one gulp. A drop hangs on his lower lip, a pendulous pearl that remains in place as he smiles.

‘You’re such weird girls.’

‘Oh?’

‘Carral looked kind of sick.’

‘She was just drunk.’

‘And you’re a weird one. Cold and pale, like a pearl.’