Gin, Fizz & Tonic

Animals in the sack

Hastily wrapped in my fluffy pink dressing gown, solo thigh boot removed and kicked under the bed, I open the door.

Dylan looks revolting, as in revoltingly healthy—clear-skinned, peroxide blonde hair standing up in tiny spikes, and the whites of his eyes matching the dazzling, recently whitened teeth he flew to Turkey for. His faux leather bomber jacket evidences the Bros 1988 look he's been emulating ever since watching the (ill-advised) documentary on BBC iPlayer.

I scoop up Freddie, who tries to make a run for it, as Dylan yells, "Matthew, you can come out now! She's fully covered up!" at Matthew's door.

(Had I known when I first moved in here that Dylan and my neighbour were acquainted, I might have reconsidered my location. The Glasgow gay scene being what it is—small, incredibly insular—Dylan knows EVERYONE.)

Matthew emerges, scanning the hallway warily for half-naked women and nods briefly in my direction. I nod back. Dylan sniffs the air as he follows me into the flat.

"Fee, fi, fo fum... I smell the blood, or rather spunk, of an Englishman. Who wouldn't happen to be Zander, right?"

"No comment," I snap, before remembering I need to sook up to him so that he can fill in the memory blanks. "Come on through, dear wonderful friend. And gimme that Diet Coke."

Dylan, who mastered the eye roll at the tender age of four years old when his mother asked him if he wanted to play Cowboys and Indians with the other little boys, performs one now, each perfectly plucked brow battling against his Botox-ed forehead.

His nose wrinkles as he takes in the sight of my living room. The other thigh-length patent black leather boot is strewn across the back of the three-seater grey velvet sofa—along with my green sheaf dress, and a red bra that the Ann Summers buyer would have discarded for being too garish.

Dylan picks it up and idly twirls it around. "Good job Zander already has biblical knowledge of your body," he remarks. "Otherwise, he might have felt very cheated when this came off. Look at the padding on it!"

I snatch it from him. He sits on the sofa, his legs encased in skin-tight snow-washed jeans stretched out in front of him. I plump for the armchair and sink into it, popping the tab on the Diet Coke and gulping down half of it.

Dylan rolls the tube of effervescent tablets across the glass-topped coffee table also marked with red wine stains, towards me. I guess it's too much to expect him to fetch a glass of cold water to dissolve the stuff in, so I break it in half and wash it down with the rest of the Diet Coke.

Dylan stares, incredulous. "God, are you s'posed to do that?"

Nope. The broken halves lodge in my throat, and I cough, spluttering out droplets of coke and fragments of half-dissolved tablet. Dylan pulls up his legs and twists away. "Urgh!"

He shrugs off the bomber jacket. In keeping with the Bros theme, he's wearing a tight, sleeveless white Tee. Clingfilm encircles his left bicep.

"Another tat?" I ask, and he nods, extending his arms in front of him. The right one is covered. The left one is about eighty per cent there. The latest body art seems to be a little fire-breathing dragon with green and silver , based on what I can make out through the clingfilm.

"Nice. How much did that cost you?"

"Dear oh dear oh dear. You don't remember then? The Black Cat on Great Western Road? You ordering Alicia pierce your nipple? Alicia saying you were too drunk, you adamant that you weren't, and for her to get on with it...?"

Shit. Well at least that's one little chunk of missing memory filled in. Now that I concentrate, the flashbacks start. Alicia is a childhood friend of Dylan's—hence her willingness to let a bunch of eejits in her shop late last night, Dylan airily insistent that she wouldn't mind at all. Zander joking that he ought to get the old Bella Caledonia tattoo on his shoulder, which he's had for years, covered up and replaced with a glass of gin in honour of me...