Chapter 2

“Score!” Said Bon Mot, volleying the golf-ball over the net he and Polygon had constructed from an old curtain with the flat of his hand.

Polygon leapt in the way of the ball with and sent it hurtling back with a grunt. It missed Bon Mot’s ear by the narrowest of margins and smashed a beer-tankard that was standing on the shelf behind his head.

“And that’s three tankards to me, two to you,” said Polygon, with a sense of great satisfaction.

Bon Mot’s face worked furiously for a couple of seconds. “Best of seven!” he cried.

“We’re out of tankards,” said Polygon simply. “And the looser has to clean up all the broken glass, while the winner gets to write this week’s review. I’m off to do that!”

“Ah shit,” said Bon Mot, and began searching around for the vacuum to get up the smaller and tiny shards of glass with. At no point during any of this did it occur to him what a monstrously stupid way to settle the dispute this game had been. Happily, they were out of tankards now, so it seemed unlikely they’d be playing again any time in the near future.

***

Egress was onto her second mars bar, and it had lost none of the appeal of the first. Her figure-hugging white T-shirt now sported some faint chocolate marks where the bar had slipped through her fingers at one point, in addition to a general pizza-greasiness from earlier. Entré watched her with some fascination, standing in the doorway and wondering whether she needed to head out and do the weekly shop. Egress had always been a big eater, right since they first met one another during the second semester of their first year at uni. The recent increase in her appetite was something quite remarkable however. There was, Entré was sure, an important difference between enjoying a heavy meal and devouring a whole pizza followed by two chocolate bars just for a snack. In a way, it was part of Egress’s charm.

“Er... I’m off out,” she said, realising that she had been standing watching her friend take slow, deliberate bites of chocolate for almost five minutes.

She couldn’t help it, Entré reflected as she left the house and made for the shops: Egress was fascinating. She was a woman who seemed totally unaware of the extent to which wider society might frown on her overindulgence if it was common knowledge. The fact that her curvy body was rapidly running to fat as she increased her intake either didn’t register with her, or was something she genuinely didn’t mind. It wasn’t that Egress wasn’t aware of the social conventions surrounding food, Entré was sure. Despite not seeming aware of the social disapprobation that, in theory, surrounded