At least, I did until this lay-up when I started hooking up with Alice, but I don’t think normal rules count out here. I guess she’s officially my patient, but she also kind of isn’t in that I’ve never treated her for anything and it’s fairly unlikely I will, given we’ll be here for such a short time. Plus there really is nothing else to do. I’m pretty confident Alice isn’t going to tell anyone, anyway, and Lola certainly isn’t now.

Lola had a history of depression, anxiety, self-harm and at least one suicide attempt. I saw her regularly to keep an eye on how she was doing and tweak her various prescriptions. Anecdotally, as far as I understand, she shagged pretty much anything that moved. Male or female. Alice has been disconcertingly vague about whether there was anything more to them than platonic friendship, though I think she does that partly because she knows it puts hot girl-on-girl images in my head.

But back to Lola. I certainly wouldn’t want anyone to find out what happened between me and her – even if it was only one night.

9

Antonio

14 January 2022, 23:50

The Caribbean

Before I found the note I was exhausted, pleasantly woozy after a few vodka shots in the bath and looking forward to going to bed. With no clients on board, our working hours aren’t quite as hectic as usual, but we’re expected to put in a full day to earn our meagre money, which is even more meagre when there are no tips. Compared to being a dancer, cleaning all day is much more boring even if not quite as physically tiring. It’s not helped by the fact that the WiFi is dodgy at best, so I often end up listening to the same old music and podcasts time and time again. I’d almost forgotten what it’s like to put in eight hours of such bone-crushingly tedious work, and how privileged I was to make my money from dancing, even if work often went on well into the night. How lucky I was. Am. This is temporary, I remind myself. I won’t be a cleaner forever. Although, God. Dancing without Lola. It’s hard to imagine. Who will be my partner now?

But the note sent a shot of adrenaline through me more powerful than any line of coke I’ve ever taken (only ever with Lola, when she was teasing me for being straight and boring – drugs aren’t really my thing at all) and now I’m wide awake and buzzing. It has to be a bluff, surely. I’m almost sure that no one saw what happened that night.

And yet … there’s still a chance that someone saw or heard something. Was there something I missed? Does someone know what I did?