She treats post-coital conversation like some kind of Oxbridge interview. Luckily, he’s into it, although he does wonder every time they fuck whether this will be the time that, after they’re done, she’ll pull a brick from under the bed, hand it to him, and ask him to throw it through the window. That’s what happens at Oxbridge interviews, right? Or it has happened one time at least. Supposedly.

What he likes about it is that he knows she isn’t doing it as some kind of test – she’s not trying to catch him out, or forcing him to prove his intelligence. It’s just the way her mind works – jumping from one subject to another, at speed, and seemingly also at random – he’s lost count of how many times the conversation has veered sharply in a different direction and he’s had no idea how that happened.

He tells her, eventually, that that’s what their chats make him think of and she laughs. He’s glad – he was worried she would be offended, although he did mean it kindly. In fact, these days, it kind of turns him on – she’ll be lying there, still flushed, still smiling, asking one minute about the countries that border Germany and ten seconds later about the last book he read, and he’ll feel himself beginning to grow hard again, just because she’s so adorable.

That’s what he’s thinking about – how adorable she is, how much he loves these conversations – the night it happens. He is tangled in the sheets, warm, comfortable, gently stroking his cock, and suddenly, she reaches under the bed and pulls out a brick. She hands it to him, and he takes it – what else is he supposed to do?

She gestures to the window. ‘Go on,’ she says. ‘Throw it. I dare you.’