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Shane had never been much of a talker, but Jenna was starting to wonder if he’d been struck with a permanent bout of laryngitis.

“I mean, I can see why you keep him around… that face… ” her roommate Laura said. “And he’s obviously keeping you sat-is-fiiiiied, I can hear you moaning through the walls every night. But honestly, Jenna, does he ever say more than two words at a time?”

“Not really,” Jenna said, waving her hand through the air, the particles of her skin trailing behind like the tail of a comet.

They’d dropped some acid in a cab on the way to a warehouse party, and it was groovy shit. It had kicked in hard on the dance floor and she’d opted for some air while Shane waited at the bar for water.

She watched the ember of her cigarette glow, little bursts of light exploding from the tip like fireworks.

Laura lowered her voice. “You need a proper boyfriend. Keep him around for the epic dicking, but you need someone to like, you know… date.”

Jenna waved her hand again, watching her molecules scatter and then regroup.

“He came out tonight,” she said. “This is sort of a date…”

It was Shane’s eighteenth birthday. She’d peeked in his wallet and looked at his health card while he was showering. She wasn’t sure why she was upset that he didn’t tell her – she had no reason to expect him to share anything personal. She couldn’t even remember if he’d ever told her his last name or if she only knew it from snooping in his things. But they’d known each other for over eight months, and he’d been sleeping with her every weekend since spring. In July he’d started showing up on weekdays, too, although he’d been even quieter than usual the whole second half of the summer. She had the sense something had happened, but knew there was no point in asking.

It was Shane’s buddy Cody who had told her about the rave. He hung around a lot, seemed to be Shane’s supplier and always had good quality shit. He was cute, too, in a sort of purposeless ‘I show up where the party is and won’t remember your name’ kind of way. Sometimes after Shane left, the two of them would stay up talking. She’d caught herself thinking about taking him to bed more than once. He was certainly a better conversationalist than Shane was. But she’d never done it.

Shane Mathers was an antibiotic-resistant infection. There was no shaking him.

She thought about him more than she liked to admit, and she wanted more from him. She wanted to go out for breakfast together, and introduce him to her friends, and maybe even take him to meet her folks. But she knew none of those things were on the table. The only reason he stuck with her was because she didn’t ask for those things. Because she didn’t ask him for anything.

She just let him show up when he wanted and leave when he wanted, take what he wanted as many times as he wanted, and did it all with a smile and a moan.

She’d almost not asked him to come to the rave. It felt like a risk, to ask him to do anything except occasionally go see a movie which somehow seemed safe since that’s what they did on their first and only actual date. The only thing that made her feel less pathetic was knowing that he wasn’t sleeping with anyone else.

That had been an awkward conversation. They’d run out of condoms, and she’d shyly suggested maybe they not bother since she was on the pill. He’d looked uncomfortable, and she told him she wasn’t seeing anyone else.

“Neither am I,” he said, “but I still don’t want kids.”

He’d gone down on her for half an hour instead.

But it was his birthday. A big one, too. She had a feeling he had people who would have liked to celebrate it with him, although she didn’t know for sure – apart from Cody she’d never met or seen him with any other friends. She knew he lived with an older guy named Jerry, who was also his boss. But she couldn’t actually recall him ever talking about anyone else in his life. Still, with his sex drive, she couldn’t see him staying away from her all week just for work. He had to have people keeping him busy.

She had a strong suspicion that he had a girl, too. Someone he was mighty hung up on. But she couldn’t really see how that could be a thing; as much as Laura chirped him, she’d drop her panties in a heartbeat if he asked. Shane wasn’t the kind of guy you said no to, so there was no way he liked someone who didn’t want him back…

So she’d plucked up her courage and asked him to come, and to her surprise he’d said ‘sure’ and whipped out some Lucy.

Like her, Shane favoured downers, so this was an unexpected detour in their routine. Normally he showed up, fucked her senseless, they ordered food, and then took a bunch of oxy. If she was lucky, he’d take her back to bed for round two. Then they’d pass out, he’d fuck her again in the morning, and he’d leave.

Round two was always her favourite. Shane on drugs was an other-worldly experience. He treated her body like it was an ice cream buffet and he needed a sample of every flavour, so unhurried that it was like time stopped moving forward, just for him. He’d wring orgasms out of her like she was a dirty Pez dispenser.

“You love him, don’t you,” Laura said dreamily, looking up at the streetlamp and rotating slowly in a circle.

“Sometimes,” Jenna said.

Sometimes, she felt lonelier with him than on her own.

They headed back inside and Shane appeared with two waters. They guzzled them, and then she took Laura in one hand, Shane in the other, and led them back out onto the dance floor. She could taste the steam from dancing bodies, could feel the beat of the music through the soles of her feet, and then Shane slipped behind her and she could feel his warm hands on her hips.

“Show a little love for Love Inc,” the DJ announced, blending the tune into another.

He pressed tight against her and they started to move, Jenna swaying on the spot with her eyes closed, still holding Laura’s hand.

She felt his lips on her sweat-soaked skin and her organs liquified. She tugged Laura’s hand a little, trying to move her out of the orbit of another dancing couple, as much as you could on a packed dance floor, anyway. The couple were grinding, though to their credit it wasn’t vulgar… if anything, it looked like the rest of the party were intruding on a private moment.

The girl had an intense, expressive way of moving… it looked like she danced the same way she probably kissed; dripping with passion.

The air around her was vibrant, colourful, swirling with joy and anger and pain, and Jenna slowed down to watch her. It was beautiful. She was beautiful.

She was young, definitely too young to be there… The guy who was with her looked to be in his late twenties, and the way he was pawing at her… He was clearly on the hook, and it was just as clear that she wasn’t dancing for him at all .

Eyes closed, hands raised to the sky, the girl was dancing the way everyone should dance... for herself.

That’s when she realized Shane had stopped moving. She looked up at him and her heart sank.

He was watching the girl with a look she’d only ever seen animals wear on the discovery channel. A shiver ran down her spine and she instinctually stepped back from him, his face black with rage. He looked like something out of a horror film, a nightmare, a dragon come to slay them all.

As if she could feel it, the girl turned towards him and her eyes popped open.

Jenna couldn’t really explain what she was seeing, and she was tripping out too hard to try. But it was like there was an invisible cord winding its way around them, something thick and strong like steel cable, like they were a different species and everyone else needed to get the fuck out of the way.

The girl was staring right back at him, her expression just as predatory. Although, maybe a little defiant…

“Shane…” Jenna said and reached for him. But there was no point.

He shoved her out of the way, swung the guy around by the back of his shirt, and punched him in the mouth with so much force that it was genuinely miraculous that the guy's skull didn't turn to mist.