Olivia is now exploring your inner thighs. Her kisses sometimes depress your pillowy skin, sometimes trace the curves where the suspender straps compress that skin into smooth valleys. There is one valley she discovers all of a sudden. Her pursed lips place a soft, melting kiss on your own. Without parting, her lips massage circles into you, trail kisses up and down your blossoming labia. You let out a sigh and Amelie leans down to kiss your mouth, deeply.

During the day, Club Deliquesce is like so many clubs on the island: An unassuming two-story building in grey or white rendering, blistered with air-con units and flanked by an electricity substation. During the night, bass seeps from the walls, animating the fairy- and neon-lit front with an insistent form of life as if the earth itself is inviting the queuing supplicants to dance. There is something primal and hallowed about it, if you ignore the giggling hen dos with their dealy-boppers and identical white dresses, the lads groups chanting football songs, and the furtive gentlemen standing by selling glow-sticks and little packets for a reasonable number of Euros.

Amelie stops in front of a stall, clutching her breast. The piece that has caught her eye is a simple but massive beach towel, back on white, depicting the branches and roots of the tree of life emerging from the abstract figure of a woman in the trunk. Celtic designs frame it, placing it squarely in the style of a third of the artifacts here. The hippy market, one of many on the island, is a ranging, chaotic, overpriced and overcrowded procession of tat, souvenirs, clothing, wood and leather.

You wake at 4am with heartburn and realise fuck, you frenzied again. You breathe through the discomfort, allowing it to dissipate as you struggle to remember the faces and, more importantly, the bodies of the last three days. The fat woman you met while clubbing started it. Jayda? She had pretty eyes and immaculate nails that utterly failed to protect her against her swift consumption when you isolated her in a bathroom.

It’s three in the morning when I shake you gently awake. You look up, shaking off vague dreams of building a house with tall walls, and it takes a little while to orient yourself. “Bluh? What’s the matter?” I’m doing that thing where I’m looking at you like I’m the luckiest man in the world again. At least you think I am. Your eyes are not quite focusing despite your excellent night vision, and you can feel that your hair is sticking at right angles where you slept on it.

I am a fool. I am so lucky. I watch as your eyes close again, the better to savour what you take from my wrist. Watching your eyelids feels like watching the guillotine fall. I can’t pull away. When I try, your arms feel like iron, and you rock only the tiniest bit. Blood loss fuzzes my motor control, making me feel hot, weak and shaky. Watching the rhythmic pulsing of your throat isn’t helping matters.

Feels amazing, huh? So if you won’t let yourself indulge in that way, maybe you need someone to make it happen. Someone desperate, who has to make a few people disappear. Picture it: Night out, friend of a friend introduces you to this guy. Charming, bit jumpy. Workman’s hands, nice glasses, fits his T-shirt well. Later, when everyone’s more drunk than you are, they go trawling for a late-night shame feast.