NIKKI & JOE, CASUALLY | updates every monday

05: medicines of my melancholy whores

            Caleb offers me a shot of summat glittery. I shake my head; I shouldn't drink while Cece's here. He shrugs. 'More for me.' And promptly throws the shot back. 'So time to spill the tea, baby girl. How were your date yesterday?'

He reads my expression.

'His loss.' Caleb drinks the second shot with a grimace. 'Sex thing again?'

The bliss of dancing retreats as sweat evaporates from my skin. I love the exhaustion, the ache in my legs from barely leaving the dancefloor for hours on end. Even without a drop of alcohol, I'm as euphoric as everyone else in Spectrum on Pride weekend.

Spectrum has an incredible sense of community on any day but it rises to a whole new level during Pride. People have always partied as a protest and this is a space that is unapologetically too much. There's summat revolutionary about so much queer joy that refuses to shrink itself. Or maybe people are just generous with the ecstasy.

But the lovely exhaustion is swapped for enervation. 'Nah. Apparently I have serial killer vibes.'

'You? Serial killer vibes? Right.' Somehow Caleb makes it sound like an insult.

Leaning against the wall, he looks at the silhouettes kissed by specks of iridescent light as they dance to Grace Kelly. 'Well... Maybe you can find someone organically tonight.'

I don't have high hopes to meet someone who isn't looking for a one-night stand at a club, certainly not Spectrum. 'If I were looking for an orgy, maybe–D'you need to sit down?'

Caleb slants against the wall and nods. I offer him my arm. Rather than waste time looking for a vacant chair, I guide him through the employee-only door and down the back corridor to the dressing room.

Caleb falls into the chair in front of his vanity but it's not alcohol that's the issue. Eyes screwed shut, he squeezes his residual limb, still getting used to the weight and pressure of a prosthesis. 'I'm definitely not getting out of bed tomorrow.'

'You gonna be alright at home?'

'I'll just go stay with Mums until Eilidh comes back. They'll be too busy babying me to argue.'

From the kitchen, I get us Strongbow pints of water and we drink them in silence as the music beats through the walls, pumping joy into the concrete foundations. I sit in Ida Claire's chair beside Caleb on the wall of vanities.

'What is your issue with dating apps anyway?' I ask once Caleb's face has softened from its grimace. 'You and Eilidh met on Tinder.'

'I've nowt against dating apps. You're just even worse at weeding out the gits online than you are in person.' Clearly the pain has passed; the look he nails me with is fully saturated. 'You need to get some self-respect.'

Sighing, I turn to the mirror, sink onto my forearms on the workbench. I know the expression on his face far too well: he's about to lecture me with a healthy dose of humiliation.

'I have self-respect,' I say to my miserable reflection. 'That's why I'm not having casual sex anymore.'

'And it's great that you've been able to keep up that boundary but, baby girl, you still only go on dates with people with no emotional capacity. How're ya expecting that to go, long term?'

Caleb's stare prods my cheek but I refuse to look. 'You date like... You date like someone offers you a Michelin star meal and you go "ew, hanging", then turn around and see a half-eaten stepped-on McVegan on the ground, currently being chewed on by a rat and go "oh my god yum, that's my favourite food".'