In this dream we are lying together on towels on a roof terrace. The towels are much too small to hold our bodies; they are more like hand towels than beach towels. All the same, since we are not on a beach and there is no sand, we are fairly content. Our heels push into the hot grainy tarmac that covers the roof. It is getting warmer and I’m beginning to sweat. The country is Spain, maybe Italy. It is very early in the morning and perhaps we have stayed up all night. I am wearing tinted sunglasses and when I look at your arm through them, your skin is a burnt amber colour. I can make out the white hairs that fan out in circles around your shoulder bone. I look at the side of your face: from above, you could be looking right at the sky, but from here I know your eyes are shut. I roll my upper arm across the towel towards you so that the inner side now faces up. This way we are closer together by almost an inch. I walk my hand towards you sideways, like a crab, inch by inch, until my pinkie grazes the side of your sleeping hand. You don’t stir, not even when the ends of the hairs on my arm are touching the ends of the hairs on your arm, static energy bringing us a few millimetres closer still. I am reassured and frustrated by your lack of reaction. I want more. I close my eyes and feign sleep. After a while I get bored and feign stretching in sleep. I roll over to your side and now my mouth rests against the heat of your shoulder. I can smell your sweat and its salty coating. The sea is very close, the sound of the waves is deafening. I lick your shoulder. You don’t wake up, or if you do, you let me.