She can see it in her head, a sea-chart like the ones in old pirate tales – the kind where all the places are named in incomprehensible script and watercolour ships sail the seven seas. The kind that warn of monsters and whirlpools – ‘Here There Be Serpents’. Here there be bad ideas, here there be signs screaming DANGER in lurid red lettering. The idea is hilariously funny and Cameron snorts with laughter, terribly unladylike and somehow that’s even more hilarious. She has spilt a little wine down her top. The glass lays in pieces on the kitchen floor, bleeding Merlot onto the laminate. She runs an unsteady hand down her chest and dabs at the liquid, sucking on the end of her finger. She tastes wine and perfumed skin, sensual and sharp on her tongue. Her senses are inflamed. The scent of kohl is as heavy in her nostrils as it is around her eyes.

She has looked in the mirror but somehow cannot make sense of her own reflection. She looks alien to herself, and she supposes it’s because of her wild hair and black-rimmed eyes and smudged mouth, not the way good girls look, oh no. Cameron looks at her reflection and sees a feral, sexual creature blazing against the pallid green tiles. She is overcome with sexual energy, it is dancing on her tongue and glittering in her eyes, and she needs to share it with someone before she goes insane with her own need.

Chase comes over soon after she calls. Her feet itch from pacing up and down barefoot, her clothes feel too heavy and time is passing too slowly. She lets him in. He smells delicious, of warmth and of maleness, and Cameron feels she could breathe it in forever, bathe in it, drown in it. He is not perfect but in this instant he is better than perfect, not because he is Chase but because he is here, in this room, and she needs something he can give her. She pushes him against the wall and presses her mouth hard against his. His leather jacket is cool against her damp palms, his body inviting and warm and compliant to her touch. Cameron eases his hips against hers. Chase offers no resistance. He asks if she is high and she thinks yes, but so what, kiss me again, and he does. Her fingers are knotted in his hair and his hands are wavering, noncommittal. She doesn’t want that. She wants him everywhere, breathing hard in her ear, tracing her skin with his long fingers. She goads him, pressing her naked breasts hard against his back, silencing his half-hearted protests with her lips and at last, with her hands wrapped around his cock, he gives in.

Cameron doesn’t remember much of what transpired between her first gasp of pleasure and now, as she lays on the bed with the blankets pooled around her feet and stares wild-eyed at the ceiling. What she does remember in between the world spinning like a catherine-wheel is the broken rhythm of her bucking hips, the taste of blood metallic on her tongue, the unbearable heat at her core. She is slick with sweat and her heart is hammering in her chest. The sex was over half an hour ago and since then she has been laying catatonic, heavy-lidded, feeling the remnants of the drug scream through her veins, the magic wearing thin with every violent beat of her heart.

Chase is still around. She knows this because his shirt is crumpled on the floor, forlorn and gathering dust, and he doesn’t seem the kind of man to sneak away while she slept.

She eases herself into a sitting position. The world lurches and she can feel herself going down with it. She squeezes her eyes closed, grips the bed with her fingers and implores herself not to black out.

She is still gripping the mattress five minutes later when she hears someone padding across the carpet towards her.

“Are you okay?” Chase asks, tentative.

Cameron opens her eyes again. Things have more or less settled; the wall sconce is glowing a bright white and she can’t quite work out where the sconce ends and the light begins. Chase has his t-shirt and trousers back on. There is a puckered red slash across his palm. He looks concerned and ashamed and a pang of guilt spasms in her empty stomach.

“Yes,” she says thickly. Her tongue isn’t working. She shakes her head; she does not like the heavy, stupid haze that has possessed her. For a moment, she wishes she was high again, yearns for the freedom and ease that she felt when the meth stripped away all of her sensibilities. Then she looks down at herself; she is stark naked and shiny with sweat and her throat aches with the stupid things she has said, her body aches with sheer effort. Chase won’t look at her straight on, and it strikes her that, confronted with her soberness, he is afraid to acknowledge her nudity.

She gathers the blanket up and wraps it around her breasts. The warmth is welcome. “What happened to your hand?” she asks.

“Oh, I was, you…” he gestured to the kitchen, “You broke a glass. It’s okay, I’ve cleaned it.”

“Oh. Thanks.” She can’t remember breaking a glass. She wonders what else she has forgotten.

Chase has finger-combed his hair but it still looks dishevelled. His clothes are rumpled from having been on the floor. His lower lip is swollen and she realises, with some embarrassment, that she has mauled him half to death. She can see the purple corona of a bruise peeking out from the collar of his t-shirt and wonders what else he is hiding underneath it.

“You look tired,” he says. His stance is awkward and protective. She doesn’t answer him. She hasn’t seen herself in the mirror but knows she must look a mess. Cameron knows enough about meth to understand that she won’t sleep much between now and nine o’clock.

She looks at Chase. He looks tired too. He looks grey around the edges, he stands as if his body is too heavy and his shoulders have collapsed. Mostly, he looks guilty and afraid. He is shifting his weight from one foot to the other, and she knows he wants to apologise, that he is sure she is angry at him for taking advantage of her.

“Look, Cameron…” he begins, but she raises a hand to silence him. “It doesn’t matter” she says. But of course, it does matter. It matters because although Chase won’t brag about his conquest (and neither will she brag about her total domination of him) she knows that eventually it will come out. And when it does, they will have to face this head on. Sex is never just sex, although sometimes she thinks it would be ideal if it could be that way, Chase is a good fuck and it’s refreshing to recall his (surprisingly skilled) hands tracing the contours of her body as opposed to the hollow pleasure of her own dutiful, sexless touch. It’s secretly thrilling to know that his body is tired and sore and heavy with her scent, and that when he leaves here tonight he will see the bruises in the mirror and remember the texture of her teeth on his neck. It matters because she does not entirely regret it.

She called him because she knew he wouldn’t be able to say no, because she had heard from a friend of a friend that he was good in the sack, because, all things considered, he was actually quite attractive, and like a living, breathing sex toy he gave her what she needed. She knows that she would do it all over again if the opportunity presented itself, meth or no meth. That is why it matters.

He stares at her for a long, unblinking while, cautiously trying to figure out what she is feeling. The silence is oppressive and she forces a cough because she suddenly hates the empty void between their sentences.

“You can go home if you want,” she tells him, because he looks like he needs an escape route.

“I don’t want to…I mean, maybe I should stay and make sure…”

“I’m not a baby, Chase.” He looks stung. He is trying hard to be a gentleman and she isn’t making it easy for him. “I can deal with crashing. You don’t have to hold my hand the whole time.”

He folds his arms across his chest. “I know that. I also know that you’re going to find it hard to sleep tonight and I thought it might be better for you to have someone there.”

“And you thought you’d be perfect for that?” she lets the question hang, cold and barbed, and his eyes widen in surprise. And suddenly she feels sorry she ever opened her mouth. She feels sorry this conversation ever happened.

She closes the door quietly and the suffocating heat of 3am engulfs her like a tidal wave. His face was tired and his eyes empty and she regrets not letting him have his moment of redemption. In a matter of hours they will be neat and tidy and sitting around the table with their coffee cups and ideas plucked out of thin air, playing at being geniuses. And she will catch, in the corner of her eye, the hint of a bruise across the curve of his neck, and she will shudder in spite of herself. Still naked, she slips beneath the sheets and settles her aching body into a position that hurts the least. Her eyes fix on the ceiling. She can smell him on her pillow and, as the last of the meth drains from her system, as her body makes the final transition back to the real world, she can still feel the ghost of him bleeding against her teeth.