story five# privet, no peking

we ate roast chicken and drank red wine in bed. the meat pale and slippery, steaming hot, grease staining the duvet in irregular little islands. he wrote his name, drunk, on my arm and fashioned a nervous plait in my hair as i lay back on all the pillows, stacked beneath me imperiously. earlier, he’d claimed he didn’t need one and lay curled on the swell of my breasts instead. i taught him how to curse in spanish and he’d told me not to show off, then smiled, teeth stained claret.
as the night faded and the empty bottles rolled off the end of the bed whenever we’d moved our feet i’d asked him why he’d done it.
silent, for a moment, but he didn’t sigh as i’d expected.
he told me because he’d needed the money, that he’d been desperate.
my fingers smelt of roast chicken and his chest hair. i told him i’d have lent him the money if he’d been that desperate, that he’d just had to ask.
then he did sigh, and rolled over, snagging the covers.
in the morning his name had blurred and bled on my skin.