I peel off the last, lingering shard of ancient sparkling polish from a month-old DIY manicure, and speak to that. ‘I, ah…had a threesome once. With two guys. I’ve been starting work on a piece about that.’ Immediately, I wish I could pull the words out of the air and stuff them back into my mouth. I’m still trying to decide how I feel about it, so I’m terrified about what the rest of the team will think. Was it the escapade of a wild adventuress who stops at nothing in her quest for multiple orgasms? Or was it not quite…right?

‘WHAT?’ shouts Akila. ‘Sorry, but—seriously? That’s amazing!’ Even Tabitha swivels around to stare at me. Lou gasps. Only Kim beams. ‘Girlfriend, yes. Love your work!’

Tabitha frowns at me. ‘Yeah, was it a proper threesome though? Or did she just kiss two guys on the same night at some backwater village disco?’

I’d been about to lose my nerve and try to back out of this but I’m fuelled by only one thought: Fuck you, Tabitha. It’s easier to sell it to her than to Harri, because I have absolutely nothing to lose. I can’t make her like me. Tabitha will never, ever support me, and I don’t care what she thinks of me. No, that’s a lie. I want to antagonise her. So I smile and keep going. ‘It happened when I was working at Summer School USA in Pennsylvania. We were the only counsellors left up, we’d been drinking, and it got weird. But hot.’

As I try to order my thoughts, I’m gratified to notice that Tabitha’s mouth is hanging open. I could throw a Tic Tac in there. Even Harri is leaning forward, smiling. ‘That’s more like it! The personal angle is really strong, I think. How do you see this working, as a piece? How did it get weird?’

‘Um, I don’t know…I suppose…I didn’t want to, but I did want to. It happened a while ago, and I’m not even sure if I remember it right. Sometimes I think I liked it, but sometimes…’ I don’t think I’m ready to simply present what I’ve written, and say ‘Here’s one I made earlier!’ Maybe, if I keep fumbling and obfuscating, it will eventually get forgotten about.