The Adulterants

I knew it was not a problem for Garthene, my talking to Marie.

Then he became quite likable.

I knew from experience to avoid Michael until much later on in the evening, when his drugs had run out and he hated himself a little.

Nobody resented Michael for still being into cocaine because we all understood that, for him, the bathroom was a kind of time machine.

I went into the bathroom and composed a message for my wife.

But Garthene and I agree that, in the moment of a conversation with Dave Finlay, becoming aware that your next in-breath will be, to a greater than normal extent, rich in his DNA, is a pretty profound turn-off.

In the abstract, I have no problem with knowing this.

When he drinks wine, small beads of it become trapped in the thick hairs of his moustache, and Dave is aware this happens, so after each sip he draws his bottom lip up over his top lip and pulls down remnants of, in this instance, Picpoul de Pinet.

My wife, Garthene, was not at the party. She was not about to emerge from the bathroom and discover her husband reaching a windy philosophical plateau with an unmarried woman who, from a distance, seemed to be wearing a lot of poorly applied lipstick but in reality just had an unusual upper-lip transition.

are friends again because it’s hard to make meaningful new relationships when you’re over thirty.