She felt betrayed by Alice even though she knew Alice had done nothing wrong. Thoughts she had never before formulated came to her now, fully articulated. I saw him first. He was mine.

But that’s okay, she thought, in a whiplash reversal, feeling truly magnanimous, dancing with her head tipped back and her hands stretched either side of her. I’ve let him go because I love them both.

She took a deep breath. I love them both but I deserved that one night. I deserved the universe giving us one hot, perfect night because we needed to get it out of our systems. So the universe could reroute and take its expected course. So we could both go back to loving Alice because – Alice, Alice, Alice…

She held her fingers to her temples, allowing the deep feelings of spirituality she was experiencing to wash over her, like the beats on the dance floor. And then she heard it. Like a calling card. That song she hadn’t realised she liked so much, about wishing your girlfriend was hot like… OMG she loved that song!

It felt so right, in that moment, to embrace her womanhood and her sexuality and to unapologetically give it to the dance floor.

The dance floor heaved with hundreds of girls called Catherine and Sophie bumping and grinding to the music, singing at the top of their voices. The bounce from the parquet trembled from Nina’s feet to her thighs, vibrated in her groin. She flicked her hair up and felt it settle back round her shoulders. Sexy!

She swung her body left to right, grinding her hips down towards the floor, curving her body like a wave as she moved back upwards. Her hands were grasping her own breasts when she spotted Ted across the room and bored her eyes into his in as sultry a way as possible: ‘Don’t cha?’ she crooned, thrusting her hips energetically. ‘Don’t cha?’

She just about stopped herself from switching girlfriend to wife, feeling a deep and solemn loyalty towards Alice, and spun her head away from Ted’s.

The more she jerked and twisted on the dance floor, the more the space seemed to open up and it spurred her on: the crowd parting, pulling back, to observe this woman in all her glory: this sexy, alluring beast. She started to crook her legs open further, her labia practically sweeping the floor as she rolled her hips, fingers in her mouth seductively. ‘Don’t cha?’ she sang, head bopping and wiggling from side to side. ‘Don’t cha?’

She looked for Ted again but couldn’t see him. Instead, there was a row of people standing, staring, open-mouthed – Ted’s Uncle St. John, whom Nina had met earlier and whose name she couldn’t pronounce, Dickie, Lulu, the little prick pageboy – okay, maybe he’s just a kid, not a prick, she acquiesced – and Jules. Her beloved Jules. She looked cross about something. Something must be going on. Why is everyone looking?