Lachlan squinted in the rear-view mirror. ‘What’s happening?’ he said.

‘It’s the guy from Richmond,’ I said.

‘Oh,’ said Dan, ‘the Richmond Man.’

‘That sounds like the Somerton Man,’ said Lachlan. ‘Is he okay?’

‘See?’ said Dan.

I explained that I had sort of messaged him when I was high, strange messages that I had meant as opening salvos in a campaign that would result in the retrieval of the towel, before I’d learned the towel return was optional.

‘You have to go over,’ said Dan.

‘What,’ I said.

‘Ah never mind,’ he said.

We drove in silence.

I closed my eyes.

‘No, go on,’ I said.

‘I guess I’m getting soft,’ he said. He chuckled, amused with himself. ‘I just think if you can be nice to somebody, you should. Don’t you, Lachlan?’

‘What? Sure,’ said Lachlan.

‘He seems so sweet,’ said Dan. ‘Would it be so terrible to, like, “go to him” and see what comes out of it?’

‘Yes,’ I said. It was generally true, but specifically stupid. Dan was not considering any of my particulars, like how tired I was, and how I didn’t feel like it, and without these particulars it became one of those things that seemed just and good only if you weren’t the one who had to go through with it. ‘I miss the old Dan,’ I sighed. Sleepy, sleepiest.

‘What do you miss about him?’ he asked.

‘Uncompromising. Formidable . . .’

Vrrrrrroooooooooooooommm.

‘Wake up,’ a voice said.

I opened my eyes. Lachlan was craning his neck over the front-seat headrest. ‘We’re here,’ he was saying. The car was stopped. ‘It’s time to go.’

I blinked and stared at him. ‘But I don’t want to,’ I said.

I looked around, trying to work out details and location, and opened the door slowly – ‘yes, that’s it,’ Lachlan said – and stepped onto the footpath – ‘very good,’ said Dan – and closed the door behind me. Purr and zoom, and they were gone.

If they’d died on the way home – just as an example – my last image would have been of Lachlan staring grimly ahead while Dan looked back at me with a gleeful expression, at the goodness he’d released into the world via his agent, me.

They’d dropped me off in Richmond, actually only a short walk from the stranger’s building. It seemed like I should probably just get it over with.

‘I’m almost there’ I texted.

‘good stuff :-)’ the message said.

I waited for a long time under the blotty sky. The road was very busy, New Year’s Eve and just past lunch. I sighed up at Vivian’s, where the window was shut and the suggestive curtains were tucked neatly behind the glass. My foot hurt, but it was fine. ‘I’m just downstairs,’ I texted.

He buzzed me up. I caught the lift. ‘Are you on PrEP yet?’ he asked. He wore a stripey jockstrap and a pair of stripey socks, pulled high.