I breathe on them, clean them on the seam of my dress, right near the plunge of my cleavage. Then I place them back on his face, feel the warmth of his cheeks. The prickle of stubble. It’s going surprisingly well.

‘So is your name really Daniel?’

‘Is your name really Anna?’

‘No,’ I admit.

‘Well, believe it or not, I actually am Daniel.’

Daniel Moore, I know.

‘I’m not Anna, I’m Annabel. You know what these apps are like though, everyone uses an alias. I guess that’s why I like Happn, because at least you know someone is where they say they are, even if they’re not really who they say they are.’

‘So why did you swipe right?’ he asks.

‘Honestly? You’re good looking, tall and athletic. And you didn’t say anything too boneheaded to mess it up.’ And it’s unlikely we would ever cross paths again. We’d already exchanged messages and I knew he was just here for a month doing a labouring gig. He was keen to get back home to the country. We’d sent each other photos too, talked about certain proclivities. Do I feel a little bad about doing this to him? No. Men use women all the time. Daniel is probably using me too. It’s all so easy in this day and age to get away with it.

I met Cain before dating apps were a thing, so when I downloaded the app and started swiping, I was shocked by some of the messages I received. Strangers online can be so forward; they move in quick and are entirely comfortable shifting the conversation to the explicit. There was a grey-haired man whose first message to me was a photo of his modestly sized penis. Daniel was the only one I chatted to who didn’t send through explicit pictures, or ask if I did anal, or message me at 3 am on Saturday to ask if I was awake, as though I might be some genie who would conjure for pre-dawn sex.

‘I didn’t realise you were so young,’ I say now. ‘I feel like a cougar.’

‘I’m not so young.’

‘Twenty-five?’

‘Older.’

‘Twenty-six?’

‘Twenty-nine,’ he lies.