The music is so loud my skull feels like it's splitting the moment I arrive. It's the usual shit playing, some dance track which achieves its mission in getting everyone up, attempting to move to the rhythm, their drinks spilling on the floor when they lose their footing. The fluorescent lights of the club act as a spotlight, shining on unsuspecting victims, turning their skin an unattractive shade of pink or green, depending on the colour chosen. It is the kind of tacky place that you expect to find in Ibiza or Magaluf, anywhere but Chester. I fucking hate places like this, but I don't have time to travel further to one of the better clubs, spend half an hour sussing out who's not there to take a woman home at the end of the night. At least here, I know what I'm dealing with. It'll have to do.

I choose the one sitting by the bar, watching his friends as they dance. I can see he's starting to tire, itching to get out of here. His luck's in.

I draw out the stool next to him, order a drink, a shot, throw it down my throat, relishing the way it burns.

I look him up and down. He's young, has one of those annoying faces that will probably look forever youthful, while we all start rotting around him. Dirty blond hair, a slim build. It's time to quit messing around.

"Hi."

I move closer to him, leaving him under no impression that it is him I am directing my attention to. I can tell how this is going to go the minute he looks at me. Not that I was in any doubt before. He might as well be drooling, the way he stares at me.

"You alright?" He says it a little nervously, as if he isn't use to this sort of thing. Maybe he's a first timer. Even better.

"Want to get out of here?" I stare at his lips, licking my own ever so slightly in the process.

He is taken aback. "We just met..."

Come on. Don't tell me he comes to a place like this and expects to go home alone?

"So?" I whisper it, inches from his face.

"Well...what's...what's your name?"

Oh, for fucks sack. What is it with these boys? Why does everything have to be some fucking courtship? What's your name, where do you live, tell me about your family, your job, your fucking whole entire history.

"Peter." It's the name of someone I knew, a long time ago.

"I'm Paul."

Whatever. I forget it the minute he tells me.

"Lets go."

"Now? You're a bit forward, aren't you?"

"What's the point in wasting time?"

I place a hand on his thigh, slowly bringing it up higher. His reluctance to leave is making me act like a desperate queer. But it works, this persuasion.

"Where do you want to go?"

A suggestive smile is beginning to spread across his mouth now. I've got him, hook, line and sinker.

"Back to my place."

Cheryl's at Chez Chez, so I have a good couple of hours until she comes back.

Just to make sure though, I call out her name when I open the door to the flat. Darkness. No reply.

"Come in."

I stand back so that he has to squeeze past the small bit of available space between us to get inside. He brushes up against me, as I had planned. I feel my cock harden.

"Nice place you've got here."

I cut through the pleasantries by ramming my tongue into his mouth. He breaks away, shocked, but then grabs my face in his hands, kissing me back. He tastes of beer and smoke. I unzip his jeans as I explore his mouth, put my hand underneath his boxers. I want to see what he's like.

I fist his cock, giving a gruff laugh when I hear him moan against my throat. He's large. I'll have fun, with this one. He tries to kiss me again, but I stop him, laying a finger over his mouth, a warning. He looks at me like he thinks he's done something wrong. Then he gets it, understands. I don't want to kiss him right now. There are other games to play.

I move to my knees, pulling down his jeans and boxers in one clean motion. His cock stands before me, erect now, just like that. He stares down at me, looking unsure, but wanting it, all the same. I decide I will keep him waiting, make him beg for it. I begin by holding my hand on the base, and give slow, small licks along the shaft. That alone makes him almost buckle in pleasure. Then I increase the pressure, my tongue moving faster, listening to the sounds he's making.

"Peter..."

That fake name, coming so easily to his lips. I have toyed with him enough. He has begged. The game has ended.

I put my mouth around him, giving him what he wants. It doesn't take long for him to cum, adding to my theory that he's a beginner at all this. I swallow, and climb to my feet again. His eyes look glazed, like he can't focus, like he's just woken up from a dream. I consider pushing his shoulders down, asking him to return the favour. But instead, I kiss him again. It is easier, my eyes closed like this, just his mouth and mine. It's easier to pretend that he's someone else entirely.

"What did you just say?"

His lips break free from mine, the area around his mouth slightly red from the ferocity of my moustache rubbing against his skin.

Why the fuck has he stopped?

"What?"

"You just said..."

He moves a step back, covering his arms over his body in a late attempt at modesty.

"What? What's the matter with you?"

I should have just fucked him, forgotten about the kiss. We'll be here all night at this rate.

"You just said Stephen."

I've never been so turned off sex in my entire life. I suddenly don't know how he got here, what I was thinking, what I have been doing all this time. I thought I had it all figured out. I would go to a club, find someone to play with, throw them out when I finished with them. I'd be in control the whole time. Never has my mouth played tricks on me like this. This is not me, saying things like this out loud, let alone thinking them. They have always been locked away, hidden from prying eyes and ears. What the fuck is happening? Why is he all around me, inside of me, following me, in my head and my fucking heart? I hate him for it, the way he won't let me let him go.

I realise that I am alone in the flat. The boy must have left. When did that happen? Part of me wants to call him back, to try to salvage this thing. But he could be anywhere by now. I don't have his name, his number. I didn't care enough to even entertain the idea of asking for them.

I suddenly feel so fucking exhausted that I don't know what to do. I can't sleep. I don't want to think about what I'll see when I close my eyes. There's only one other option I can think of that'll make all of this go away.

I go over to the cupboard, where my supply usually lies. But it is not there when I search, not hidden in any corner or tucked away by Cheryl, disapproving of my habit. It is always there, that bottle of Jameson. I didn't stock up when the last lot ran out. I haven't needed it lately. Not just because I haven't been able to access it, from being locked up. I didn't need it even before then, because I had Stephen with me. The promise of him kept me from searching for it.

Chez Chez will still be open. I lock the door behind me, making my way towards the thumping sound of the music. One of the advantages of being the boss is a free bar. Right now, I don't care if I am losing money for the club. I am going to take full advantage.

Rhys is manning the bar. I stand next to him, scanning the selection of drinks for what I'm after.

"Alright, Brendan? What are you doing here?"

"What do you think? I'm here to celebrate."

I give him a look, and select the Jameson and a glass, moving behind the bar once more to sit on an empty stool.

"Are you going to pay for that?"

I don't even bother to dignify that with a response.

"Because Cheryl's just in the office..."

"So she'll never know, will she?"

"Brendan -"

"Listen, Ashworth. I'm in charge here, okay? You want to keep your job, you'll keep that," I point a finger at his mouth, "shut."

Rolling his eyes, he goes to serve the next customer. I glug back the whiskey, some of it spilling across my chin in my rush to get it down. It is not working fast enough. I want to not know where I am, who I'm with, who I am. I want to wake up tomorrow with a clean slate, a new life. I want to be reborn.

Slowly, the music starts to fade away. The place begins to grow less crowded. The noise dies down. It is becoming darker, the lights being extinguished.

"Time to go, Brendan."

Rhys zips up his jacket, ready to face the cold outside.

I sneer at him. "You're telling me to leave my own club?"

"It's closing time."

"Then give me the keys to lock up."

"Cheryl has them."

"Cheryl!" I shout it at the top of my lungs, but it still somehow manage to come out as slurred. Rhys uses the opportunity of my distracted attention to scarper off.

"Cheryl!"

She emerges from the office, holding a stack of paperwork.

"Bren! What are you doing here? It's your night off."

"It wasn't originally meant to be my night off," I remind her, "Not until you changed the rota."

"Well, I thought after what has happened lately -"

"Ashworth said you have the keys."

"Yes, but -"

"But what?"

I see her eyes move over to where my hand grips the glass of drink.

"I think you've had enough."

She is wrong. I haven't had enough. Not nearly enough.

"Leave the keys on the table, Chez."

She looks like she wants to say something, or sit next to me and stay. I pray that she does neither. I feel her hand on my shoulder, lightly. The set of keys are placed in front of me.

"Be careful, Brendan."

She whispers it, so softly I think I have imagined it. I hear footsteps on the stairs. But they are not the only ones. Another pair pass her on her way out. I hear voices, exchanging words, then nothing.

The stool next to me is pulled out, occupied by a mass of brown hair, a figure hugging dress, lips made bigger, fuller by the gloss that covers them. The girl who hides behind her own creation. Mitzeee, with three Es. Or Anne. Take your pick. The last person I expected to see.

"What are you doing here?"

We haven't talked, not since she tried to convince me to lend her money weeks ago. She had said I owed her, for what happened with Foxy. Did she think I would fall for that? I don't owe anyone anything.

"I've come to you with a business proposition."

"A business proposition? At this time?"

"What can I say, I'm a busy girl."

The last time she came to me with a business proposition, I ended up with her tongue in my mouth, and protecting her from some sleazy photographer.

"Not interested."

"I've got a modeling job, and I need the club -"

"So you finally got some work, huh?"

Her eyes narrow. "At least I'm actually doing something with my life. What are you doing, eh? Drowning your sorrows in your own club, like some washed up drunk."

"On that note, I've finished the bottle."

I stand up to get a new one.

"Get me a glass."

I look over at her.

"Did you not hear what you just said?"

"Well, if you can't beat them, join them."

She takes a small sip, looking at me out of the corner of her eye.

"Have you gone to visit Warren?"

I almost choke on my drink.

"Yes, Anne. I've been to see him everyday. We exchange tales of our time behind bars and discuss our plans to move in together when he gets out."

"I'm just asking! I thought you might want to, you know. Rub it in. What you did to him."

"What we did to him, you mean."

She stares down at her glass.

"Do you visit him?"

"No! Of course not!" She falters. "But it doesn't stop me from thinking about him, sometimes."

"Don't tell me you miss sleeping with a murderer every night?"

"That's not what I'm saying. I'm glad he's gone. I know he didn't love me, not really. He said he was going to kill me. And he would have done."

"But?"

"But..." she sighs. "He was my boyfriend, Brendan. You can't just...stop caring about someone overnight." She looks at me. "Well, I can't, anyway."

I pour myself another drink.

"I saw Ste today."

My hand shakes, the bottle missing the glass, the alcohol seeping onto the table.

"Oh yeah?"

I use my shirtsleeve to mop up the fluid, just in case she hasn't noticed.

"He just got out of hospital this morning."

I imagine his face, the way I saw it last, not an inch of skin uncovered by a bruise. Even his eyelashes, always so ridiculously long, looked different somehow. His body must have been the same. I saw him clutch his sides a couple of times. I had wanted to reach out to him, to stroke the area of pain, to heal it with my touch. But I hadn't been able to.

"Have you seen him yet?"

"Not today."

I don't know why she's still here, asking me these questions. Does she think I'll change my mind about her stupid photo shoot if she says these things to me? Is this her idea of sweet talk?

"Why not?"

Because I don't want to see him. He makes me feel things, when I'm with him. He makes me need him. It's easier, this way.

"Anne, it's late. I'm going to go home."

She snorts. "No, you're not. Until I came, you were going to get completely shit faced. More shit faced, I mean. Admit it."

"I am not even tip..tip...tipsy."

Who knew it was such a hard word to say?

"Brendan, you're one step away from me taking you to A&E with liver damage."

"You always were a drama Queen."

"And you always were in love with Ste."

I stop. Blink. "What?"

She smiles at me. "I may not be your favourite person right now, or ever, for that matter. I know our entire relationship pretty much revolves around convenience. I need help, you're there. Reluctantly, but you're there. You need help, I give you what you need."

"I don't need anything."

"Sure." She looks away from me, but I still catch the way she raises her eyebrows. "Anyway, as I was saying. We may not exactly be friends. But I know a thing or two when it comes to you. You can tell me as many lies as you like, feed me all the bullshit you can manage. But it doesn't change who you love. That's why you couldn't see him before. You're scared."

I put my hand on her cheek, turning her to face me.

"I don't fucking love Stephen. You think you can psychoanalyse me, like you know me? Who the fuck are you, Anne? Just some frightened little girl who hides behind a cover, pretending to be a slut. The only reason people know your name is because you slept with your dead aunt's husband. So what does that say about you?"

I expect her to pull away from me, to start giving me the water works. To scream, to give me some kind of reaction, any reaction. But she just keeps on looking at me.

"It probably says a lot of things about me, Brendan. But it doesn't make me wrong about this."

I move my hand away from her face. Foxy has hardened her. Made her tough. She is not the same girl she used to be.

"Okay, so you don't love him."

I look at her, confused. What is she doing?

"You feel nothing for him. You don't even care about him."

She's caught up.

"But..."

My hand tightens round the glass.

"Lets just say...hypothetically, that you do. That he's the...one."

The one. Like there's a fucking one. Like it exists, the most sickening, stupid idea I've ever heard.

"Why him? I mean, hypothetically. What is it about him?"

The wave of tiredness that I felt earlier hits me again. The club is dark now. It feels like the only noise in the world is our two voices, barely more than a murmur. My body aches, the result of having to keep this tension, this strength that stops me from finding Terry, from killing him, from going to Stephen right this second and telling him that the fucking song in the hospital was right. He is the only one who can save me. I used to be able to exist without him, once. But that time is unreachable to me now, gone forever. This is a half life, without him here. Worse. An empty shell, a decaying carcass. Nothing, without him to fill me up, to stitch me back together again.

"I don't love him."

I put my mouth around the Jameson bottle, not stopping to pour a glass now. It only prolongs the inevitable.

"But...hypothetically."

I take a deep breath, but it doesn't feel like breathing. It feels like I'm gasping, desperately searching for air.

"It wasn't meant to be like this. He was meant to be like all the others...nothing, meaningless. And he was, at first. Just some mouthy little git who was always in my face, interfering. Making things difficult. He was always beautiful, though. Fucking beautiful, so much that I started to think it would be okay to have him around, just so I could look at him. But then...he wasn't just beautiful anymore. He was still all up in my business, sticking his nose in. But it was...it unsettled me, in some way. The way he stood up to me. The way he challenged me. And how he talked, all the time, about a load of rubbish, really. I couldn't get him to shut up. It was annoying, and...endearing. The joy he had, in certain things. Like a child, discovering the world for the first time. But he was old before his years, too. Had all these responsibilities, these kids, this ex who relied on him. He'd do whatever it took, go to the ends of the earth for them. He reminded me of me, when I was that age. But with all of the good. None of the bad. And he began to...like me. Trust me. People in the village, they looked at me like they thought I was trouble. Malachy, always sniffing around, waiting for me to trip up. No one saw anything else in me. Except for Cheryl. But she had always done, it was the way things worked. Stephen didn't have to, I didn't force him to. He just saw that side...saw the good. When I kissed him...when I fucked him...it was like nothing else. I didn't understand, how he could be so...how we could fit together so perfectly, when I was his first. He was open. He didn't hold anything back. He gave himself to me, completely. Looked at me like I could do great things, like he believed I could fucking fly."

Have I just say all that out loud?

"I don't love him. But, hypothetically, if I did...that would be why."

Anne leaves her glass untouched. When she speaks, she is quiet. I have never heard her be so quiet. The layers of Mitzeee have pealed away.

"He told me once, you know. Why he loved you."

My head swims with this new knowledge. I don't know whether I am furious with him for talking about us to an outsider, or whether to smile with the possibility that he was proud of me.

"It was at that lingerie event that was held here. Two years ago, remember? I was your beard at the time. You were bored out of your mind, not even attempting to pretend you were interested in half naked women parading around in knickers. You weren't exactly being Prince Charming. So I asked Ste, when I saw him. I asked him what it was he could possibly see in you, as I hadn't got a clue."

It comes back to me now. Stephen, passing around drinks. Rae, pregnant at the time, laughing with the other girls. I had promised her that I wouldn't go back to him. That he was safer without me.

"He played dumb at first. But it didn't take much to get him to open up. This...smile came across his face. Small, but there. He told me you were protective, to the people you loved. Loyal. That you'd do anything for them."

He said that?

"I think I knew then. How he felt about you. I had thought it was just sex, something that didn't really matter. But when he said that...the way he said it...I should have known though, even before then. The way you two were kissing, when I first found out about you. There was something about it. Private. Intimate. Something you wanted to keep from everyone else. But not just because you didn't want to come out. Because you wanted him to be yours. Only yours."

Her words stab me, tear at me. Why isn't the Jameson working? Why do I still have the ability to feel this?

"Stop, Anne."

"I know how much you hate all this, Brendan. But Ste's not going to wait forever. What happens when he finds someone else? Someone else who's not like Noah, who you can't drive away with your little games? What if he's actually a decent person, and makes him happy? You'll lose him."

"He's better off without me."

"Oh, so this is you playing the hero, is it? Saving Ste from the big bad wolf? Did you ever stop and consider that maybe he wants you? That you don't have the right to make that decision for him, to be in his life or not? Look, the whole village knows about you two. There have been rumors for months. And I'm not saying that I approve of what you've done to him. Hurting someone is not loving them. But it's not always black and white. Love isn't some fairytale where everything ends happily ever after. Sometimes it's messy, and it's screwed up, and sometimes you'd rather be dead than experience it, because it's that painful. But you don't have a choice, do you?"

"No. I don't have a choice."