I pretend I don’t hear him and roll back onto the damp earth. When he gets up to leave, I hear my voice tell him the address and room number. There’s that demented ventriloquist in the sky again, speaking through me, wanting to land me in some deep shit, although really, what difference? Brian or Niall or Tom or Kev, Stu or any of the rest of them? At least this time the money I make will be mine. I’m bigging it out on this one.

I’m lying on the bed when he knocks, and I wonder about the whole open-door policy. Is it a safety thing? I decide I’d prefer to leave it open a crack – it’s what the other girls do, and even if skeleton-man downstairs gets off on it, at least it’s better than being locked in this sweaty cupboard with a stranger.

The guy seems older, his face shiny, wet patches under his arms. I tell him what I’m prepared to do and what I won’t, in a professional-sounding voice, imparted to me from above. Although the biggest part of me wants him gone, wants to tell him to fuck right off in fact, my strings are being jerked about goodo and I’m way outside my own control. I’ve never done this kind of thing almost-sober before, and it’s feeling way too real.

He nods, like he’s in a trance, staring at my legs and knees, especially my knees, as he begins to undo his belt. Before I know what’s happening he has pushed the door closed behind him and turned the key in the lock, then puts the key in his pocket.

‘Hey,’ I say.

‘Privacy,’ he says, as he pulls his clothes off, except for his socks, and he stands there in all his fat-suit glory.

My hand reaches out and does what it has to do.

‘No,’ he murmurs, and pushes my head down.

I do what Brian taught me. It’ll be over quicker this way.

He strokes the back of my head. ‘Good girl, good girl,’ he says. ‘How old are you, anyway?’ He pulls my hair hard and yanks my face to look at him.

‘Eighteen,’ I say.

‘Sure you are, girlie. Now swallow.’

That wasn’t in the plan but I do as he says. I want him gone.

When he’s finished, he insists on lying on the bed, pulling me close.

‘Time’s up, mister,’ I say after what I consider to be a polite amount of time.

‘I’ll say when time is up. I’m the one paying.’ And he draws me even closer, his bulges of flesh pressing into me.

‘Don’t you have to be back at work?’