I address a bouncer as "young man"

A pub closed after "trouble", has recently re-opened. There was a table of women who looked like they'd failed auditions for parts in Eastenders, one of whom was wearing her unhappily tolerant dog like a stole. A group of men stood about vying to be pack leader through volume, ignoring the only female in their party, whom they eventually drove to her phone.

As I got to the head of the queue at a a jungle and drum n' bass night, the bouncer said "are you sure you're at the right place?"

"I tell you young man," I replied, "I was around when this music came out first time. I just want to check that the young people here are treating it properly."

Hayley and her friend Faye turned up a couple of hours later. Hayley danced for about fifteen minutes, then left me with Faye, who was undemanding, off her head, and just wanted to dance.

A man came and sat next to me. He said he had some pills which he reckoned were comprised of mdma and meth. He wanted ten pounds, which is excessive at the current exchange rate, but I bargained him down to a fiver and some mdma crystal. Arms wrapped round my shoulders, smiles, for the oldest raver in town.

Towards the end the cloakroom started emanating one of Bristol's characteristic sounds: the hiss of nitrous oxide gas canisters. Everyone on the dancefloor waggling balloons about and grinning. We were all turned into children.

Afterwards it was back to Hayley's. A dirty futon to sit on, towels for curtains. The Fish Importer was there. Hayley was unwearing a short lacy dress with wide holes in it, designed to be layered over something, with her scoop-necked black top, and black knickers. I understood then why she'd only spent fifteen minutes in the club, what we had interrupted. She'd only come to deposit Faye.

The Fish Importer -- urbane; kind and low-key with Hayley -- generously kept cooking up more and more crack for us, which Hayley was crafty enough to get an inequitable share of. He let his original story go, telling us that whilst he did indeed work as a fish importer, he is now both addicted to, and deals, crack.

"My problem is," I said, "everyone thinks I'm gay. "You are," said Hayley. "It's not funny for me, Hayley. It holds me back."

Having spent Saturday on mdma, meth, speed, and crack at a jungle rave, I thought we could ramp it up on Sunday, so I suggested we all go to see a sea shanty group. Hayley took so long getting ready, our drug soup making tasks like finding a belt complicated -- that we caught only the last two songs. Pastel pensioners and the satisfied retired, and three crackheads.

Hayley disappeared for a long time. "It's The Abuser," said Faye. "I know. She'll be Whatsapping him. I wish...she's just feeding him, not letting go." "She's never been loved, really loved. And her mum writing her out of her will. It's all she's known." I often wonder how if on the night we first met when we had rather soft-cocked sex -- speed, erections's enemy -- if I'd been harder and a bit more ruthless, whether we might now be together. Then immediately following that thought, is an aversion to the idea, knowing how much repair work I'd get involved in.