‘Good God, Wilkes,’ she said as he sat down. ‘You look terrible.’

‘I’m on the turn,’ he said, ordering a goat’s-urine banana smoothie from a passing waiter whose nametag read I Don’t Believe in Names (they/their).

‘You’re going through the menopause?’

Wilkes shook his head. ‘I wish,’ he said. ‘It’s so discriminatory that only women get to experience that. Women are really lucky, when you think about it. Cis women, I mean. It’s part of their privilege.’

‘I suppose you’ll have to blame God for that,’ said Elizabeth.

He frowned. ‘You know I don’t believe in God,’ he said.

‘I know. Sorry. I just meant that, if there was a God, then it would be His fault.’

‘If there was a God,’ he replied with a deep sigh. ‘I very much doubt that He would be a He anyway. Speaking of which, I woke up feeling binary again this morning, so, for now, will be referring to myself as I.’

‘That didn’t last long,’ she said, rolling her eyes. She really wasn’t in the mood for his nonsense today. ‘So when you say you’re on the turn,’ she asked, sitting as far back in her chair as she could in order to avoid the stench of effluent that was seeping from his person; it was at moments like this that she missed the days of social distancing. ‘What are you referring to, exactly?’

‘The hygiene turn. It’s now been ten days since I last washed, so my body is starting to release its own essential oils. I’m incredibly sticky all over, my boxer shorts are practically stuck to my crotch, and the strange thing is, I find it really arousing. You don’t fancy coming back to mine to peel them off me, do you?’

‘I don’t,’ she said slowly as I Don’t Believe in Names (they/their) left Wilkes’s smoothie on the table. ‘It’s a lovely offer, but no.’

‘Thank you,’ said Wilkes, looking up with a smile. ‘I appreciate you.’

‘I appreciate you too,’ replied I Don’t Believe in Names (they/their). ‘And I appreciate your appreciation.’

‘I appreciate your appreciation of my appreciation.’

They walked away wearing a serene expression on their face and Elizabeth stared into her boyfriend’s face. There was something not quite right going on there.

‘You look …’ She hesitated, not wishing to sound rude. ‘I don’t quite know how to describe it, but it’s almost as if you sprayed yourself with suntan lotion and then went for a ten-mile run in the blistering heat.’

‘It’s my pores,’ he explained. ‘All the poisons in my bloodstream are escaping.’

‘Through your face?’

‘Well, not just through my face, no. Through my hands, my legs, my feet, my back. Everywhere.’

She bit her lip, wondering whether it would be wrong to go into the ladies’ toilets, light a match and hold it up to the smoke detector in the hope that the sprinkler system might activate and give him, at the very least, a rudimentary wash.