Sniff

The horrible militarism of Remembrance Day is over. Men who don't often drink were in the pub, talking at a performance volume. Paranoid, aware that we are simultaneously watching them and ignoring them with silent disdain, they dance round homosocially with international lager.

It stinks, even through the plastic, a bitter smell, a bit like piss. "Be careful with this," he said, "it's fucking strong." I started trying to cut it and it was sticky and wet; all of these should be good signs.

Well, I've had three [Really? Just the three? - Ed.] doses of a centimetre each now. It's nowhere near the best stuff I've ever had, which was made in a university.

"I know you've heard all this before," the student said," but honestly, don't do more than a centimetre." Everything about them came across as genuine, so we reluctantly obeyed. We were soon gasping, our hearts racing with a surfeit of chemical energy. After wasting the best part of the high on an infuriating detour to an ATM for someone who told us after we'd done it that she needed to get some cash out, who wouldn't accept our offers of a loan of a tenner, we danced for hours in a right-on Lancaster community centre where men in jumpers refrained from chatting up girls as that was considered a sin against feminism in the Macrame Belt of Lancaster in the 90s.

The cynic in me thinks he's thinking: "Hmm, I've got a keen customer here. Let's water it down a bit and see if he notices." I'm going to be straight with him. I only want the best stuff and if it's not available, fine. We're not addicts, we're connoisseurs, hedonists. We're not doing this as a paid version of self-harm; we're doing it to heighten our sensual, sexual, and artistic lives.

Round about now Trina will be arriving in Helsinki to spend a few days there with a friend. It's so liberating, not having to think or analyse my feelings about her. This afternoon I popped into the pub where Kitty and I were the other night, for what was necessarily a single pint due to the prohibitive prices: 3.40 for Thornbridge Jaipur.

I bumped into a couple of friends who were asking me where this made-up girlfriend is. I said "She's not going to get into Penthouse any time, but it just works for me." I wish I hadn't said that. Makes her sound like some lumpen over-sexed tart.