‘Ruth, babe?’ the Lolitas coo from beyond the changing room. ‘How you getting on?’

I am wearing, I suppose, a red satin number. It does, I consider, cover my nipples. I rub my arm. It’ll bruise.

‘All right. I guess.’

There is a rustling and their little heads pop in from each side of the curtain, first the red hair, then the brunette. My arms cross over my chest as I back into the trompe l’oeil.

‘Come on, let us see,’ says Emmy.

‘Fuck’s sake, Emmeline. Stop torturing her,’ says Bex. ‘Oi, Ruth.’ She nods in my direction.

‘Yes.’

‘You know what Miss Phyllis would say?’

‘What would Miss Phyllis say?’

‘Legs for days!’

‘Let us see! Ruth!’

‘Get the hell out of my changing room, you pair of perverts!’ I’m laughing.

I buy the bra and two sets of coordinated panties – identical bikini briefs. No, not the thong – no, a hundred per cent sure, thank you very much.

In this dream I am lying in a shallow pool of warm water, my elbows resting on the edge of the stone basin. It is a cool day and I am bathing out in the open, like a bird. Water, refracted, distorts my legs into inconsistent sticks, greying away under the surface. I am happy. I have always felt happier in water, I find myself thinking in the dream, though this is something I have never thought of while awake. I can’t stop looking at my graceful legs. They look so long, so so long and then they turn to stone as I watch them.