There’s a few minutes when your dreams are still vivid before you forget them. Sometimes they stay with you longer. This one did.

I was with a friend. I could have been with a lover. I could not choose between them. Sometimes I was in a cinema with the friend who was a man. Then I went out and called the woman. I arranged to meet her. I messaged him and said I would see him later. Then after being with her for a while, I said I should get back to the friend. My partner, the person I am living with, was not with us. She did not know about my lover. By then my friend had gone home. I began to be afraid of losing both my partner and my friend. I went back to the lover and said it would not work. She said you said that before.

I awoke from the dream with a dreary sense of shame. And incompetence. Again.

I told Maureen about my dream. She laughed and said: “The beat of the selfish gene. Even the little house martins who pair up for life are faithless. Scientists know that from testing the eggs…they cheat on each other, too.”

“How often do you dream such things?” I asked.

“Mind your own business”. She laughed again.