Wires jutted out of rolled-up posters. Jan realised these guitar strings and felt out of his depth. No, you're not out of your depth, he told himself. He looked at Luna and wondered if she would take off her clothes. She was preoccupied with changing over a battery in a fuzz pedal.

Luna was much given to solitary pursuits. Mainly playing guitar and other art projects. Aged 19, she had already prepared installations, guitar based, for several of the city's hippest art spaces and cafes. Jan interested her as he affected to be a poet. He was aloof, preoccupied, nervy, all the classic traits of said profession. His poems also happened to suck but that was besides the point. He was gorgeous - he looked bored, dreamy, angelic.

She was gorgeous he reflected. He felt surges of tenderness, excitement, fear. He watched her carefully light an incense stick and he wanted to take her small hand and kiss and lick it. Sad, slow whisps of silver smoke trailed upward to the ceiling. Minute billows destined for consumption by the greedy heavens. Please don't rain, he prayed. Allow nothing to extinguish this moment.

She put on a John Cale CD, one of his more abstract conceptual pieces. Jan had to sit down and hold onto something as he felt the room go into a wild and dreamy orbit.