‘Good!’ He pressed a buzzer on his phone and presently the door behind Claire opened. ‘This is Gina,’ said Sylvester to Claire. ‘She was a Bunny once, way back. She’s a real lady, and she manages this place. Gina here’s going to teach you how to do everything. All right, Gina?’

Gina came up to the desk. She was a grim-faced matron of solid build and to Claire it seemed impossible that this matriarchal figure had ever cut a dash as one of those famous jet-setting Bunnies. Gina cast a look at Sylvester, then glanced down at Claire. ‘Come on then,’ she said.

Claire followed Gina out of the door, and Gina closed it behind them.

‘How can your “hooters” fall out in the client’s face if you’re wearing a costume?’ asked Claire. She didn’t like the thought of anything revealing. Suppose one of the punters tried to grope her? She felt sweaty with fear at the thought. Even being alone in the office with Sylvester, who looked harmless enough, had made her shake.

Gina gave her a look. ‘They can, believe me.’

‘Why’s he so obsessed with the Bunny girls? I mean, couldn’t Hugh Hefner sue him for infringement or something?’

‘What we have here is just a pale imitation of Hugh’s set-up,’ said Gina. ‘He ain’t going to bother with us. What’s that accent?’

‘English.’

‘It’s cute. Follow me and I’ll show you.’

Half an hour later and the whole thing was clear.

‘I can’t wear this,’ said Claire, turning back and forth in front of a full-length mirror in a tiny dressing room at the back of the club.

Her ‘costume’ was tiny too. It was a corseted velvet swimming costume – hers was pale baby-blue, but the others hanging up on rails around the room were all colours of the rainbow, to suit different skin tones. There was no tail, no ears. There was a pair of dangerously high heels, fishnet tights, and right now Gina was stuffing balls of cotton wool down the bra part of the costume to help Claire’s breasts fill out the D cups. Trouble was, by the time Gina finished stuffing, her hooters really were in danger of popping out the top of the thing, and she could see why the Bunny dip was a necessity.

Gina paused as Claire spoke, and looked at her with her gimlet eye. ‘You want this job?’

‘Yeah, I need it, but . . .’

‘Then you wear the costume.’ Gina stuffed some more cotton wool down Claire’s frontage. ‘There. What do you think?’ she asked, standing back.