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this good Kieren?’
    Yes was the answer to that question, and No was too, for without warning Brian found himself caught in the grip of the strangest feeling. As much as he tried to access that portion of his mind where the impossible could be believed and the morally untenable happily embraced, somehow it eluded him. And that was strange enough in itself, for it took up a not inconsiderable fraction of his brain, and the neurological pathways leading there were well established.
    But there was more. Something in that voice, its closeness, its familiarity, drew his eye down his pathway, past his stained wood letterbox to the suburbs beyond, where surely she now sat, mobile to her ear, financial desperation set down beside her. It wasn’t guilt Brian felt when he thought of her, or even sympathy.
    ‘Is this good Kieren?’
    Leave me out of this , he wanted to say. You do your job, I’ll do mine. If I wanted to chat I’d have rung Youthline.
    ‘Yes, yes it’s good.’ Brian was having real doubts now. He had broken the first rule of fantasy. She was real to him, and how could that possibly work? How could he be excited by someone who was real?
    ‘You sound excited Kieren,’ the terrible, somehow familiar voice continued; and that was so obviously untrue Brian could barely keep the mobile to his ear. A weaker man might have admitted defeat, but Brian came from stronger stock than that.
    Never start a job you’re not prepared to finish, as his good dad said (when it suited him) and dammit, Dad was right. What’s more, hanging up meant letting go of the voice on the other end, and the sorry truth was, it had a hold on him.
    So Brian closed his eyes and tried hard to concentrate. What was that she was saying now? Was that a television he could hear in the background?
    ‘I’m taking my top off now, Kieren. Can you hear that?’
    He could, and he could imagine it too, but it didn’t make him feel excited at all, not the way he would have liked. It made him feel distant, and, in the strangest way imaginable, dirty.
    ‘Um, yes, wait, just wait a sec,’ Brian pleaded, knowing how pathetic he must sound but seeing no other option.
    ‘Is there something wrong?’
    ‘I’m just, I’m just not ready. Say something else.’
    ‘What?’
    ‘Something that hasn’t got anything to do with sex. Just tell me something about yourself. Tell me what you like. Tell me about your hobbies.’
    ‘I don’t think I should do that,’ the voice replied, after the shortest of hesitations.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘That’s not really how it works. That would be dangerous.’
    ‘You can trust me.’
    ‘No I can’t. I bet you haven’t even told me your real name.’
    ‘I will, if you agree to meet me.’ He didn’t know why he had said that. Something was driving him on, something he didn’t understand.
    ‘I’m sorry, I can’t do that. Come on, let’s just forget about it and go back to talking dirty.’
    ‘I’ll pay,’ Brian tried.
    ‘Look, I think it’s best I hang up now,’ the voice told him.
    ‘No, don’t—’ but Brian’s plea was interrupted by a second voice on the other end of the phone, somewhere in the background.
    ‘Juliet? What are you doing?’
    ‘I’m on the phone.’
    ‘Yes, but you said you’d—’
    ‘Sorry.’
    The phone went dead, and a very startled Brian tried to make sense of the swirling confusion inside his head. That voice, that other voice, he recognised it, but where from? He frantically searched his brain. The answer came to him with a thud, the sort of shock that could send nascent love and uncertain excitement hurrying back down the same black hole where earlier arousal had retreated.
    But as he lay there, the phone still in his hand, his heartbeat easing back to a canter, a new and dreadful truth dawned upon him. Juliet. He had a name now, and more. Juliet-friend-of-Malcolm. Malcolm, that little prick from the party, with his smartarse questions and perverted research. How hard could