‘We’re fucking princesses! They should pay us!’ says Emmy, and she really believes it.

‘Well, she’s the Queen.’ Bex coyly stamps her cigarette and looks up at Alanna. We feel the bouncer’s eyes follow us inside, as we spill through the padded door and it huffs shut behind us. Inside is a red and black and gold kind of bar, balanced between sleazy and smoky. No one can hurt us, so long as we stick together in the soft dark heat. We stand so close our cool arms brush against each other. We don’t need the cloakroom because none of us brought a coat. We didn’t want it to get in the way. You thought a short walk in the spring chill would scare us? We can walk three miles to your house in the snow if we love you, six miles from your house if we’re leaving you. We can do impulsive, crazy things sometimes. Be unpredictable. It’s our night, remember? We break from our huddle. There is loud music playing, Mona is the first to lay her thick heel on the dancefloor – or actually, it’s Jessica. I follow, I have always been Mona’s best student, filling her shoes in her absence. I pull on the hand of our girl, Alanna, while Emmy and Bex cover her eyes from behind, one hand each, then uncover them when two beautiful boys, hair sleek like a raven’s wing, not a day over twenty-seven, which is the age at which boys are ripest, square but gently rounded shoulders and lickable skin, escort us to the back of the room. They are so courteous. They may very well be fanning us with ostrich feathers.

‘Perhaps they should,’ I say, and Bex winks at me.

See that girl strutting on in front of her, leading the way with steady grace? Who is she if not our Jessica?

‘How very gentlemanly,’ she says, when the boys each slide an arm into the crook of hers.

‘Mona! Stop it! You could be their mother.’ Emmy is laughing.

‘It’s Jessica,’ says Mona in a husky voice that sounds like nobody’s mother.