‘That’s exactly the problem. We need clicky. You need to keep capturing people’s attention. This well-meaning, earnest feminist stuff you keep pitching won’t bring enough people to the table. What else have you got for me?’

I think my CV might claim that I thrive under pressure. Now, the pressure is making me nauseous. The air seems thinner, my ears might pop. Harri is both shoutingly near, and far away.

‘Harri, I…I…I’m really sorry…I don’t know.’ What’s wrong with me? I must have at least fifty blog posts I could recycle, other pitches I could tweak, angles I could add. But fear has descended like rolling fog, I can’t seem to see my own thoughts. It’s as though Louise has infected me with some sort of emotional flu.

Harri sighs and seems to soften a little. ‘Basically, Upstairs—management—have decided we’re the victims of our own success. The threesome performed so brilliantly for us, so early, that now everything else needs to do twice or three times as brilliantly.’ Harri looks at me, earnestly—as if she’s asking for something entirely sensible, logical, reasonable. What’s three times as brilliant as a threesome? A ninesome?

What can I do? ‘Maybe I could try to get an interview with that revenge porn campaigner…’

Harri cuts me off. ‘I’m thinking we want a personal angle. That’s what worked so well. The Girl really responds to it. We’ll have a think—but you do need to come up with something. You couldn’t have another threesome, could you? Ha, I’m joking. But bring something good to the features meeting tomorrow.’

Or else.

‘Hahahaha. Another threesome! I’m on it!’ I smile, and my vision swims again. As I walk back to my desk, I have to concentrate very hard in order to move in a straight line.

Some hours later, Sam Strong is reaching a juddering conclusion, and I am screaming, primally, into a pillow.

‘Ahhhhhhhhhh!’ I think I might hate my job. My dream job.

‘Ahhhhhhhhhh!’ Is there some way I could spend two weeks in hospital, in a safe, relaxing coma? Is there any way I could get knocked down by a bus, and not die, or break any limbs, but just be taken out for a bit? And I’d still get paid, and everyone would have to be nice to me?

‘Ahhhhhhhhhh!’ What am I going to do?

‘Oh, yeah, you really loved that, didn’t you? Dirty girl.’ I get up to pee, and he hands me the used condom—making exactly the same ‘helpful’ face as a customer in a bar, handing me an empty pint glass.

When I come back from the bathroom, he’s mid-sentence, ‘…reckon I must be responsible for half your traffic, I sent it to everyone I know! Very, ah, entertaining. You should get into erotica. Bounce with Mounce! Imogen…in-me-again.’