On his four day weekend visit, we sit in a dark park in semi-sleet and imagine my future Hispanic lover, whom I will meet in Austria, him a travel writer, me a nomadic backpacker.

When he says beautiful, I say like a tree.

A high class prostitute. The perversion of beautiful by two skinny funny guys with thick eyebrows.

He’s packing up now, leaving behind graphic novels and the icing on the cake. Brute man force he said the recipe called for, and took the glass bowl I stole from cookery class from my arms.

To distract myself from the lack of brute man force hovering at my cake-mix bidding I have exam preparation, one solid uninterrupted week of being good in every imaginable way, until Dublin happens.