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was too tall. My mother tried to stop me from seeing Sebastian, so I ran away to his house and lived there. I used to always feel so safe in his house. I only went back home when she said I could carry on seeing him, but she threw all the party invitations from his parents straight in the bin in future. She hated the whole family after that – because they were louche. His parents were always having parties.’
    James was tugging at the ends of my pussy bow. He realised that it was stitched in place. He unzipped the blouse at the back. My hair got caught in the zip. I lifted my hair up and he told me that the nape of my neck was exquisite. I felt like I would cry – the way he was touching me was so gentle.
    â€˜Get off,’ I said.
    He paused. ‘All right.’ He paced the room. The carpet was salmon-pink. ‘I know you’re young,’ he said. ‘I mean, I know I’m old.’
    â€˜You’re not that old.’
    He had unzipped his trousers. I could see a swarm of Bart Simpson faces on his boxer shorts.
    He knelt down before me and clutched my hands. ‘You’ve talked about your lost love,’ he said. ‘Now let me talk about mine.’
    I yawned. ‘All right.’
    â€˜When Margaret died, I thought I could never love again. I thought I would never see another woman’s face who I would know, just know. That familiarity is.’ He closed his eyes. ‘What I miss the most.’ His eyelashes were grey. ‘I know you were only joking when you said you loved me before, because you can’t love me, because we only just met.’ He released my hands. ‘Why would you love an old man like me?’ He stood up and fiddled with the iPod on the wall. He turned the TV off.
    The song began: ‘I’ll Be Your Mirror’.
    â€˜Turn it off,’ I said. ‘Please.’
    We lay next to each other on the bed for a long time.
    â€˜It’s a coincidence that you like pussies,’ I said, eventually. I had my back to him. ‘Because I once rescued some pussies from a refuge.’
    â€˜Where are they now?’
    â€˜Oh. I don’t know. I had to take them back to the refuge.’
    An hour passed.
    James heaved himself on top of me. He whispered in my ear: ‘I was always faithful to Margaret, right to the end. I cared for her for eight years. But she always said to me: After I’ve gone, James, please feel free to impart jouissance to whomsoever you do wish. Otherwise it is a crime against women .’
    â€˜A crime?’
    â€˜Yes. And let me tell you, there was crime in her jouissance too. The way she howled when she came. It reminded me of an animal caught in a trap.’ He rolled off me. ‘It was the same sound that she made in the hospital bed during her last moments on earth. She howled like she was coming. She howled because she wanted more of life.’
    His tongue slid into my mouth; I pulled away. He sucked on my nipple like an energetic little baby and I let him for as long as I could. Then I sat up and lit a cigarette. Out of the window, I watched the traffic circling around something in the distance.
    â€˜This is a non-smoking room,’ he said.
    I put my cigarette out on the lid of the truffle box. ‘Would you say that Margaret was your muse, James?’
    â€˜Perhaps. I never thought of it before.’
    â€˜Because there was this one time that Sebastian and I were sitting on a bench outside Finsbury Park station and he was like: I never believed in the concept of the muse until I met you . We were about eighteen. I had no idea what a muse was. He said a muse was a mythic woman who inspired men to make great literature. The men extracted her feminine essence. She couldn’t create anything herself. Sebastian said he was going to extract my essence. He sounded really mean when he said that. I got up and I was like – I remember that he was smoking a Marlboro Menthol – I’m