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a small bag of coke from a case in the wardrobe. We did two lines each off the glass-topped coffee table. I didn’t need to ask her agreement; Bebe would have ensured her willingness before issuing an invitation to the party. After so much drink, the coke was a bomb.
    We had sex three times. I don’t make love now; I have sex. I do it because it’s there, just something else to fill the emptiness. I once saw a nature programme about some monkeys that engaged in constant and meaningless shagging. The males were at it constantly, copulating with total indifference that verged on boredom. And the males groomed their mates at the same time. Hips pumping, they would remove a flea and munch away. That’s how I am now: I just go through the motions. There was no excitement with Angel; in fact there never seems to be excitement with any woman these days. The joy is in the anticipation, the knowledge that I can have sex with no consequences and no effort.
    I’d forgotten Angel’s name by the following morning. Such a situation should call for some cunning and guile, but I was past such a pantomime. ‘What’s your name?’ I asked, without opening an eye to protect me from the pain nesting in my head after the drink and drugs.
    She moved a bony knee into my back. ‘Angel.’ Her voice cracked from thousands of cigarettes and a dry mouth.
    â€˜Real or professional?’
    â€˜Didn’t worry you last night.’ She shifted sharply to find some yearned for comfort and grunted when it eluded her. ‘Shit, my head is thumping, that coke was some shit.’ The bed wobbled as she levered herself to her feet. It took several attempts to find her balance and she groaned when she took her first steps. ‘God, I need a piss.’
    â€˜Classy.’
    â€˜That didn’t worry you last night either.’
    â€˜You got your rewards.’
    â€˜Sure,’ she said with heavy sarcasm.
    She walked around the corner of the bed and into view as I finally prised open my eyes. ‘Smart prick,’ she muttered in my general direction. I watched her pad her way to the bathroom, her feet lazily scuffing the thick pile of the carpet. She was slim and tall, but with enough flesh on her thighs and hips to nicely round her body. The skin of her buttocks was translucent, as though the tougher brown skin of her back was rubbed away by the demands of her job. Briefly she half turned as she struggled to find a light switch on the inside bathroom wall. I closed my eyes; not wanting to see what I suspected would be a face considerably less attractive than it had been in the soft lying light of the evening.
    Several minutes later, accompanied by a toilet flush, she returned. Her breasts were heavy and swung in time to her walk. She slipped into bed and put her hands between my legs. I’m not much of a morning man, but I answered her invitation and entered a well-known and well-worn place.
    Afterwards Angel propped herself up with a pillow, pulled the sheet up to her chin, which was a strange shyness given all we’d done, and lit her first cigarette of the day. What dedication to her profession: a fuck before a fag. Impressive. She took an enormous drag and blew out smoke like a geyser. Inevitably she coughed and then sighed with the relief of the nicotine. ‘So how come you haven’t married again?’ She spoke as she exhaled her second drag. This time smoke chugged out in little puffs on her words.
    This was a conversation I wanted to avoid. ‘Just haven’t.’
    â€˜Afraid of the commitment? Is that why you spend your time with girls like me?’
    â€˜Something like that.’
    â€˜Why did your wife kill herself?’
    â€˜Sorry?’
    â€˜I read about her in a Times article.’ She saw my look and rolled her eyes. ‘What’s with the surprise, the fact I read the Times or that I can read at all?’
    â€˜Point taken.’
    â€˜It said