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hadn’t even kissed. I always thought that sort of sex came from knowing someone properly, trusting them, being willing to explore your boundaries regarding sex and push them outwards together. I always thought that sort of sex came from being able to completely relax with a person, knowing they would still have feelings for you afterwards. I did not want reminding that our encounter probably meant nothing to him.
    He was sitting on the steps outside my flat, legs wide open, elbows resting on his knees, sunglasses on his face. He’d morphed back into the man I first met, not the man who’d brought me coffee and croissants, who played footie in the park and who I’d had dinner with.
    I stopped at the bottom of the stone steps and had to drop myheavy bags. Now that I had my car, I often drove to a bigger supermarket at the Marina or Homebush to do my weekly shopping, but I couldn’t face the drive today. And there was no point in going the short distance down the hill in the car so I’d walked. Doing something physically punishing had been good for the body and refreshing for the mind after the confusion I’d been in since last night, but it was hurting now. I wiggled my fingers to get some feeling back and then turned them palm-side up and stared with interest as the blood returned to them and they went from an anaemic yellow to browny-pink again.
    Staring at my fingers stopped me from having to face him.
    ‘Well, I should probably tell you that I thought you were playing hide and seek,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t until I actually looked behind the door in the dining room that I realised how ridiculous I was being.’
    I stretched my fingers, clenched and unclenched my hands, watching as the ligaments and muscles moved in them.
    ‘Was it really that bad?’ he asked so softly I barely heard him above the sound of the seagulls and the voices, chaos and lives from the main road, St James Street, around the corner. ‘I thought you’d—’
    ‘I did,’ I cut in before he said the word, but I still could not raise my gaze. ‘I did, you know I did. And you know it wasn’t bad at all.’
    ‘Then why did you leave? I was expecting to wake up with you this morning.’
    ‘I—I was ashamed of myself.’
    ‘What on Earth for?’
    ‘For doing that, enjoying it, when in the whole thing, I could have been anybody.’ I managed to look up, to finally look at the man I’d had sex with the night before. He had taken his sunglasses off and his eyes were focused intently on me. ‘It wasn’t about me or us or a special connection we had, was it? I was simply another body to fuck, another hole to fill.’
    It was his turn to look down, to confirm my suspicions thathe’d done that, in that exact same way, a significant number of times. I quailed inside, thinking of how many women had put their hands where I had put my hands and had opened their legs for him as I had done. I tried not to wonder how many of them had stayed, had used the towels and dressing gown he had gone to get for me, had been secure enough in what they had done to go back for seconds.
    ‘Haven’t you ever had one-night stands before?’ he eventually asked, still with his eyes lowered.
    ‘Yeah,’ I said, looking down again. ‘And with some of them I didn’t realise they were going to be one-night stands until the person didn’t call. But none of them have ever felt as … calculated and soulless as last night.’ I undid then redid the blue jumper tied around my waist, which had been slowly working its way down my body. ‘We’d had such a nice night, I thought I’d been proved wrong about you, then we did that. I couldn’t stay and pretend it was OK with me because it wasn’t. I . . . I was ashamed of myself.’
    We both continued to stare at the ground, unable to say anything that would heal the situation.
    ‘Do you want a hand with your shopping?’ he asked.
    I shook my head, still staring at the ground, scared to look up in case he saw the