Another time, another place. This was the first time I’d ever seen you gain significantly. The ins and outs of your diet were at that time a mystery to me—still are, though I’m a little better acquainted with the “outs” now. You woke with the heat and pleasure of a stomach full of meat, freshly sloughed off the bones of a uni student you got talking to on a bus. She’d had interesting things to say about America’s place on the global stage, and once you’d had your fill of conversation you switched to discussing her own place in the world.

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.

Breakfast is long, luxurious, and includes courses not available at the buffet. Amelie returns after a long absence with a room service trolley loaded with covered plates and glasses. She also comes wearing a floaty blue body-length sarong and a slightly shy, hungry smile. “It’s about time,” you begin. “I’m hung—” With a twitch of her shoulderblades, she reveals she is wearing nothing else. You watch the slinky fabric flow over her shoulder, the swell of her breasts, her wide hips, to pool around her feet.

“Your eyes are beautiful.” I’ve told you this before, and I’m telling you now. The light is off in your room but you wouldn’t know it. Today I brought thirty candles, a lighter, an honest-to-God brass candle snuffer that made you laugh for a solid thirty seconds, it was so typically me, and an actual miniature fire extinguisher. When I asked why you didn’t laugh at me when I brought that one out of my bag you looked at me with such fondness in your eyes, saying, “I don’t know, your obsession with safety is cute.

Earlier… We’re watching television, sprawled across the couch with your feet in my lap. I’m rubbing your feet and you keep apologising and blushing because the youth from Burnsall is making himself known. The burps have stopped—he’s too far gone for that. “Don’t apologise. I find it cute.” You stare at me sceptically over a belly whose mound is lower, more diffuse. “You did not just say that.” “It’s all— it’s all part of the process.

Do you remember our first date? We’d got talking after noticing one another for a solid week at the train station. I’ve always been able to talk to anyone and not take a stranger’s rejection personally. It’s a good thing, too. If I had shit on your shoes, I don’t think I could have provoked a more puzzled, disgusted, annoyed expression from you. All I’d said was that the universe was clearly hinting we should meet.

I’m actually trying to draw you. We’re both a bit drunk, though the takeaway is soaking up a bit of the alcohol. You are lounging on your bed with a dramatic hand to your forehead and a two-takeaway swell to your tummy. “Paint me like one of your French girls,” you say, for the eleventh time today, since it only seems to get funnier to you. I’ve long since stopped reacting but you laugh so hard you get hiccups.

So today… We play with rope. After I wrote a little bit about it you asked if I actually tied people up. I explained that I’m no expert but can do it safely, then held your hand and asked you if you’d let me tie you. I think you found the slight shyness in my voice cute, and the intensity in my eyes a little hot. After some discussion and teasing you said yes, and the predatory look came to my face again, which you have come to learn is linked with a desire to feed or please you.