We headed out into the main festival area just before noon. Daphne carried a shoulder bag and I hoisted the blanket; wearing jeans seemed to do wonders for my testosterone levels, as I don't normally 'hoist'. We'd all put sun screen on, and I'd popped a colourful cocktail of antihistamines. The day was becoming very hot as the sun moved overhead.

Once past the ticket check, we bought a programme and Daphne scrutinised the band listings. She looked up at me ruefully after perusing all the different stages, shook her head and simply observed, "Old fogey." We shared a grin. Maggie looked uncomprehendingly at us.

We decided then to check out the various stalls lining the perimeter of the site. I'd never seen anything like it, neither in terms of the merchandise, the stall holders, nor the various people who were drifting around them. I witnessed more body piercings than I knew were possible and I saw some incredibly intricate, painful-looking tattoos. You know, if people *must* etch an image permanently on to their skin, why the preclusion for menacing reptiles? There are, after all, infinitely more attractive visual stimuli. One can only assume that those knuckle-draggers had never beheld the light playing seductively over a Monet haystack ...

But I digress.

There was also a startling amount of bared flesh on display, including a group of festival-goers old enough to know better, cavorting in the mud surrounding a leaking water standpipe, wearing only the mud itself - I wouldn't be needing memories of the effluent pit, the next time I looked too closely at Daphne's curves.

We came to a clothing stall and Daphne began to browse through long stretches of colourful material. When I asked her what they were, she told me they were sarongs, and how they're worn. Thus enlightened, helping Daphne choose one became important to me. She picked out a lovely patterned swathe the colour of claret, then discarded it and moved on. She'd been right, though. The colour was perfect for her. I decided that, at the first opportunity, I would return and purchase the sarong as a gift.

Maggie spent some time examining various pipes at a stall obviously intended for the Reggies of this world. Meanwhile, Daphne dragged me by the hand to another clothing stall, where she whipped off my baseball cap and started trying other headwear on me. After a while she smiled and settled on a fawn-coloured, cotton hat with a slight brim which would do a much better job of protecting my head from the sun. When I looked into the pitted glass propped up for patrons to use, I noted a legend in small, unobtrusive letters around the front, and whipped the hat off to read 'beige is as beige does'. It made no sense to me, but Daphne seemed to think it was absolutely perfect, and that was good enough.

"Now you do me," Daphne insisted, and swept off her sun-hat with a flourish.

I really wish she wouldn't say things like that.

By the time Maggie rejoined us, the pockets of her cut-offs no doubt bulging with various incriminating devices, I'd chosen a wide-brimmed, cream-coloured sun-hat to replace the somewhat battered straw one which Daphne saw fit to ask the stallholder to discard. She tugged the front down approvingly at herself in the mirror, then turned to me and winked playfully. I was quite proud of the fact that my knees didn't give way.

"Look! Official merchandise!" Maggie grabbed my hand and began pulling us towards a lengthy counter, behind which were erected boards. On these boards, T-shirts and hats and all sorts of things bearing band logos were pinned in display. Maggie, still insistently holding my hand, began chattering about which Indigo Haze T-shirt she should buy. Daphne materialised beside us, and her eye caught mine. She looked a little gloomy, all of a sudden.

Two T-shirts and a woollen ski-hat later, we decided to settle near the Jazz Stage, one of the smaller stages around the ground and the setting for Michael's performance, later that afternoon. The first group were due on at one o'clock, and the festival site was still relatively empty. We chose a nice spot on an embankment slightly to the side of the stage, and I spread out the blanket. Excusing myself for a moment, ostensibly to use the facilities (although I'd already seen the state of those, and had decided that I'd rather walk back to the Winnebago and its sarcophagus, when it became necessary), I slipped back among the stalls, located the sarong Daphne had picked out, and paid for it.

The band had started playing by the time I returned. Maggie had already removed her T-shirt and was sunbathing on her back, a bikini top affording some degree of modesty. Well, 'degree' might be a little flattering. Diploma of modesty might be nearer the mark. Daphne was nowhere to be seen. I folded the sarong, placed it inside the discarded shoulder bag, and asked Maggie where our friend had gone.

"Oh, she saw the queue on the ice cream stand was small, so she went to get three cones," Maggie answered. "Come on, Niles! Chill out! Enjoy the sunshine."

Awkwardly, I settled down beside her and, supporting myself on my elbows, looked over at where the band were playing. The music was an eclectic mixture of ragtime and modern jazz. It wasn't really my thing, though a crowd was slowly gathering in front of the stage, and some festival-goers were being coerced into dancing. I'm assuming it was dancing, anyway; epilepsy is not normally a condition which strikes a crowd of people en masse ...

"So, Niles," came a low voice beside me. I was suddenly apprehensive. "I meant to thank you for seeing me home last night."

"That's okay," I replied, my voice strained. I kept my eyes on the stage.

A hand crept on to my thigh and I fought the urge to flinch away. "Daphne told me I made a bit of an idiot of myself. I hope you don't think any the worse of me."

"We all make mistakes," I agreed, tightly.

"Well, I hope this isn't one," Maggie breathed, and that was when I realised how close she was sitting. I had a moment to react to this proximity before Maggie's lips descended on to mine and she was kissing me enthusiastically.

I pulled away immediately, of course. Much as it was flattering to have an attractive young woman show me such attention, I simply didn't *feel* anything for her in return, not even the basic attraction and (if you're twisting my arm) guarded respect that had seen me through a one night stand with Lilith.

And anyway, she tasted funny. If she'd been an hors-d'euvre, I'd have spat her discreetly into my napkin and called for the maître d'hôtel.

As I watched Maggie's face carefully, still leaning away from her, I saw the seductive temptress suddenly replaced by a hurt little girl. "I'm sorry," I apologised, trying to be gentlemanly even though I was hardly responsible for the situation. "I'm very flattered, but I can't do this." At the rate the weekend was going, I thought I might end up getting a T-shirt with those words printed across it, just to save time.

"What's wrong with me?" pouted Maggie.

'Well,' I mused silently, 'you're promiscuous, not remotely my type and you taste funny.'

"Nothing's wrong with you," I fibbed gently. "It's me. I'm ..."

"Gay," Maggie returned, gloomily.

Why does everybody automatically assume that? "No," I denied, then mentally kicked myself for not pouncing on the proffered excuse. I needed another one, and decided that the truth would serve as well as any contrivance. "I was going to tell you that I'm already in love with somebody." Maggie narrowed her eyes. "A woman," I clarified, probably unnecessarily.

"Daphne," Maggie guessed. When I frowned, she shook her head and managed a smile. "I've seen the way you look at her, Niles."

I sighed and relaxed my tension-wracked body. "Yes, Daphne."

There was silence for perhaps a minute. Maggie fidgeted with a thread dangling from her cut-offs and then, suddenly, swore like a trooper. No, worse than that. She swore like a woman from the north of England.

"What's wrong?" I asked, hoping that my rejection hadn't caused any major problems. After all, we had most of the weekend still to endure.

"It's Daphne," she returned, her shoulders slumping. "Something I heard her tell her brother last night."

"What?"

Maggie raised her eyes up to the sky helplessly, before saying, "I shouldn't be telling you this." I waited, and she finally turned to look at me, taking my hand in one of hers, this time with no vampish intent. "But I can't *not* tell you this. Michael asked her whether there was anything going on between the two of you. She just laughed in his face at the suggestion, and told him ... she told him the only reason she'd agreed to you coming along, was because she wanted to use the Winnebago."

A minute passed as the words sank in. Maggie let go of my hand and muttered a muted apology. Then I collapsed back on the blanket, suddenly feeling as though somebody had delivered a solid blow to my guts.