This happened on their third date. It started as a Tinder relationship, but it had gotten off to a bad start. Their first date was at a park. The restaurant where they were supposed to meet was closed due to a sudden, unspecified tragedy. The park was nice, except that their rendezvous was somewhat disrupted by three homeless men fighting over the ownership of half a bottle of red wine. They promised each other a second date, feeling that circumstances had played against them. The second date was uneventful. Maybe even boring. They met in one of those hipster coffee shops that have popped up all over Budapest, promising the illusion of being somewhere abroad. They tried to maintain a conversation, but the coffee machine was shrieking the whole time, and the discussions they overheard seemed more interesting than their own. At the next table, a pair of sisters were talking about their father’s recent vasectomy, at another a man was trying to convince his friends to buy a house on the island of Krk, in Croatia, because he could get an excellent deal. Zoltán didn’t dare to order a second coffee; he barely had enough money for the first one.

The third date was their last chance, they both knew it. Nikolett arrived with fresh injuries. Scrapes on her knee, on her arm, and minor bruises basically all over her body.

A few hours later they were lying in his room, reeking of sweat and sex. The boy hated the room now for not being more glamorous. Zoltán had wanted to move out of it ever since he moved in, but he never had the money, and now he feared Nikolett would be turned off by the state of the place.

‘All right, I’ll tell you about the scratches,’ said Nikolett. ‘But you won’t believe it.’

Zoltán shrugged. ‘Try me!’

‘I bit a dog!’ the girl said, giving an imitation of laughter. Her voice shivered from anxiety. The boy got up on his elbows in the bed. Now it was getting interesting. She began her story.

Nikolett had promised a friend of hers she would watch his dog while he was away on vacation at a Croatian ski resort. She wasn’t a fan of dogs, but she didn’t hate them either. To her they seemed like practical tools. She never got the whole emotional aspect of owning a dog. Dogs were not man’s best friend. They were man’s subordinates. Still, she liked her friend well enough, and it was no problem looking after his dog for a few days. She and the dog got along well.