Sandra proffered the plate of tiny scraps of wafer-thin toast topped with blobs of pinky brown. Dougie dabbed his tongue cautiously. The look of trepidation left his face. ‘That’s not bad,’ he said. He chuckled. ‘Had me worried for a second. Thought it was one of your strange veggie concoctions, but this is a lovely pâté.’

Sandra’s face took on a flinty edge. ‘It’s not meat, it’s seitan. Made from wheat gluten.’ She set the tray down on a side table and turned back to face him. ‘Although I am no longer truly vegan I still try to live by its guiding principles.’

Dougie could feel his hopes for this night slipping away. It would be like that time he tried to take her up the wetlands to one of the bird spotters hides. She had smiled as she had accepted the cola cube alcopops he had bought, and then smirked when she told him Carl from the rugby team would be well chuffed with his them.

But Sandra smiled warmly. She shook her head lightly. ‘What are the chances? Us two? Both of us on the same Space forum?’

Dougie grinned with relief. Back of safer ground – their mutual love of those seminal Liverpudlian nineties rockers, Space. When news of their hometown comeback gig was announced he had broken all his social media rules and got involved in frantic chat on the fan’s web forum. It was a blast from the past when Sandra sent him a message, and even wilder still when she turned the conversation to her Liverpool city centre apartment and offered him a place to crash following the gig.

Sandra said, ‘Did I mention, I only have a one bed city centre apartment?’

Dougie could only manage a gulp.

Sandra dropped to her knees and placed a hand on his knee.

‘I think we should get any awkwardness out of the way up front. Do you agree?’

Dougie managed a limp nod. Sandra squirmed her hand between his thighs.

Throatily, she whispered, ‘Good,’ and then, ‘But I have to confess, I have a little sexual peccadillo…’

Had she confessed to a giant sexual rhinoceros Dougie would not have cared. Reality for Dougie had become this stunning woman who stood, slipped from her dress and then led him through into her bedroom. He danced himself naked, shrugged off the odd feel of the plastic sheeting beneath his feet, hurled himself onto the bed then stopped.

‘Rubber sheets?’ he said. It all became clear. She had a rubber fetish.

It was to be the greatest night of sex of Dougie’s life. It would never, ever be topped. He felt as though he were floating above his own body watching some athletic porn video as Sandra thrashed atop him.

Afterwards, as a puddled mess, he was barely able to focus through the haze in his brain. Sandra’s voice seemed to fill his head.

‘Here’s my confession, my little sexual fetish…’

Dougie felt something gloriously ice cool pressed against the skin beneath his chin.

Sandra said, ‘You see, I can no longer be truly vegan because I’ve joined a little sex cult. It’s the society of the praying mantis. You see, we mate, and then…’

The ice cold feel vanished from Dougie’s neck as Sandra raised the knife so that it glittered before his dull eyes.

‘But…what about the Space gig?’ he managed to murmur.