You‘ve got to stop letting women slip drugs into your mouth, Dex, it‘s unhygienic. And dangerous. One day it‘ll be a cyanide capsule.‘

Dexter laughed. So do you want to hear what happened next?‘

She placed a finger on her chin. Do I? Nope, I don‘t think so. No, I don‘t.‘

But he told her anyway, the usual narrative about dark back-rooms at clubs and late-night phone-calls and taxis across the city at dawn; the endless, eat-as-much-as-you-can buffet that was  Dexter‘s  sex-life,  and  Emma  made  a  conscious  effort  not  to  listen  and  just  watch  his mouth instead.  It was a nice mouth as she remembered, and if she  were fearless, bold and asymmetrical like this Naomi girl she would lean over now and kiss him, and it occurred to her that she had never kissed anyone, that is never  initiated  the kiss. She had been kissed of course, suddenly and far too hard by drunken boys at parties, kisses that came swinging out of nowhere like punches. Ian had tried three weeks ago while she was mopping out the meat locker,  looming  in  so  violently  that  she  had  thought  he  was  going  to  head -butt  her.  Even Dexter had kissed her once, many, many years ago. Would it really be so strange to kiss him back?  What  might  happen  if  she  were  to  do  it  now?  Take  the  initiative,  remove  your spectacles, hold onto his head while he‘s still talking and kiss him, kiss him—

—so Naomi calls at three in the morning, says, ―Get in a cab. Right. Now.‖‘

She had a perfectly clear mental picture of him  wiping his mouth with the back of his hand: the kiss as custard-pie. She let her head loll to the other side to watch the others on the hill.  The  evening  light  was  starting  to  fade  now,  and  two  hundred  prosperous,  attractive young  people  were  throwing  frisbees,  lighting  disposable  barbecues,  making  plans  for  the evening. Yet she felt as far removed from these people, with their interesting careers and CD players and  mountain bikes, as if it had been a TV commercial, for vodka perhaps or small 

sporty cars. Why don‘t you come home, sweetheart,‘ her mother had said on the phone last night, Your room‘s still here . . .‘

She looked back to Dexter, still narrating his own love-life, then over his shoulder at a 

young couple, kissing aggressively, the woman kneeling astride the man, his arms flung back in surrender, their fingers interlocked.