‘Those are your tiger stripes, Ruby. You’ve earned them. Be proud of them. Alessandro always makes me feel so fat – like one of those giant jellyfish in a Jacques Cousteau doco, floating in the sea like a flesh balloon. But the boys on board think I’m Kardashian-esque. It’s all free sex to them. Besides, if you don’t nab the guy, someone else will.’ Emerald pointed back to the dance floor, where a woman with a particularly steatopygous derriere was waddling on fragile heels towards Wayve, beaming at him like an overeager game show host.

‘Do you fancy him?’ Emerald asked, with an appraising eye.

I looked at the strapping young man and felt my salivary glands shift into third gear. ‘Yes, but I don’t speak his language. He keeps going on about things being “lush” and “frothy” and “totes awkie” and “triggered”, and how he’s looking for inner peace. I don’t know how to break it to him that there’s no such thing – only anxiety, insecurity and alcohol.’

‘Who cares? As long as he’s fluent in body language.’

‘No, no, I can’t. It’s been so long since I’ve been with any other bloke besides Harry. Decades!’

‘Well, all you need to know is that young men have foreskins. Uncut guys are great, by the way. The head of the cock is like a big, giant man clit. And there will be dick picks. Sending genitalia selfies is to courtship rituals what compiling mixtapes was in our day.’

‘But what if I’m no good?’ Since Harry’s betrayal, I’d been gorging compulsively on self-loathing. ‘No. I can’t go through with it. It’s too embarrassing.’

‘You won’t be doing anything that your lying, cheating husband isn’t doing right now with the girl of his wet dreams.’

The thought of what Harry might be doing with whom prompted me to fumble for my phone. It was about the millionth time I’d checked for a message that day. Silence, I realised then, is not golden. It’s pitch black, cold and cruel. Jealousy and rejection churned sourly in my stomach. I had loved my husband with every fibre of my being, and what had it got me? Heartache, loneliness and self-esteem so low not even a limbo dancer could retrieve it. Love should be classified as a Class A addiction, I pondered. Well, from now on, I was in romance rehab – starting with taking the phallic cure and being as shagadelic as womanly possible.

But then I faltered. No, I just couldn’t break my marriage vows.

This decision prompted an urgent message from my clitoris, along the lines of ‘Hey, haven’t you ever entertained the idea of wild, inventive, spontaneous sex?’

‘Yes, of course,’ I replied, mentally.

‘No, I mean, with a partner,’ clarified my clit.

‘Ha-ha. Clit, calm down. I just cannot betray my husband . . . Can I?’