‘The thing about Andy is that he’s very cool, very secure in himself. He’s not one of those men who tries too hard,’ she said, slowly and meaningfully. She hadn’t made such prolonged eye contact with TBM since they’d had sex for the very first time. ‘And,’ it was cheap, but she couldn’t resist. ‘He has the biggest penis I have ever seen.’

The universe should have punished her for such an audacious invention. But her lie turned out to be true.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Imposter syndrome

Imogen

It’s been a weird couple of weeks. Things in the office have been a little strained since Harri ran away from my birthday party. Allegedly, her occasional irritable bowel syndrome flared up and got the better of her—she fell victim to stress, strong alcohol and deep fried cheese. Louise was especially concerned and offered to make a formal complaint to the bar, but Harri has told her, quite tersely, to drop it.

Harri’s mood is puzzling, because The Know appears to be doing really well. Our numbers keep going up, Akila is constantly meeting with new advertisers, and most tellingly of all, Lily and Katie are only coming in for a couple of hours a week, and they always look exhausted, and pissed off. Usually, they circle with a sort of dark energy, like vultures who suspect they can smell future carrion.

I rewrote an unpublished blog about wanking when lonely, framing it as a celebration of the joys of self love. I was asked to go on Woman’s Hour to talk about masturbation and the Millennial Woman. The presenter was very open minded and kind, and we spent so much time trying to work out who or what the Millennial Woman might be that I wasn’t forced to really get into things, as it were. I only spent one night wide awake with a pounding heart, and I threw up all of my morning coffee in a very roomy BBC Broadcasting House toilet cubicle, but I felt fine for the rest of the day. A handful of men called me a whore on Twitter, but only one could spell it correctly.

Still, there is An Atmosphere in the office, and we are all sensitive to it. I’m starting to realise that Akila is very good at keeping Harri mellow and balanced. It’s Akila who says ‘well done’ and ‘this is great’ and ‘thank you’. Harri used to do this, but increasingly she seems to prefer ‘this isn’t aspirational enough’ and ‘where’s that piece?’ and ‘I wanted this an hour ago’.

‘She’s very stressed,’ I said, trying to comfort Kim when Harri told him his illustration for my piece on ethical non monogamy looked like a logo from a public information film about nuclear war. (Once we’d googled it, we all spent the afternoon worrying about nuclear war instead, which made a change.)