My very pleasant chat just now concluded with Dr Elliott’s assurance that one of the hospital concierges will be in touch to help me with everything from getting travel clearance from GOSH and liaising with Duke’s international patient services department to organising medical visas and supplemental oxygen on our flight should Tabby need it.

Like I said. Open sesame.

I sold my body and instantly jumped all sorts of queues, and I’d do it a million times over, because it got me exactly what I needed. But I can’t let myself get used to it.

This money—and this job—goes away as soon as I’ve paid for this trip and stashed away some savings so Tabby’s ongoing medical care isn’t purely dependent on the overstretched folks at Great Ormond Street. The empowerment it’s giving me is temporary, as is my ability to book business-class flights, and the decadent workwear shopping trip Brendan has insisted on for my first day, and any orgasms he sees fit to throw my way.

None of it’s real. None of it’s permanent. The life that people like Brendan live is not for me, and it will serve me to keep that in mind as he dazzles me with this tantalising glimpse of a parallel universe.

What’s real is Tabby securing a new “piece of equipment” in the safest possible way so that she can live a normal, active life.

And who knows, the orgasms may not even be a thing. He made it very clear that he was pitching me.

He pitched me.

He closed me.

Just like he said he would.

It’s entirely likely that, from here on in, he’ll just use me and reward me very handsomely for the privilege.

Maybe it’s a good thing. I’ve always thought (or hoped, rather) that I was the kind of person who didn’t believe in the end justifying the means. It turns out I am so that person it’s not even funny. But at the very least, it seems indecent that I should enjoy the means any more than I have to.

Brendan Sullivan is a means to an end for me, and I am for him the latest in what sounds like a long list of endless acquisitions: the newest and shiniest toy to which he’s treated himself. He told me he has ADHD, just like he told me he’d bought himself a fucking catamaran. How long until I lose my lustre?