They want me to look at a photo of the bartending teacher. It is why we can’t possibly miss out on the bartending course, I infer. They point at it urgently, like it’s a mugshot. ‘Is this the man who attacked you, miss?’ ‘Look, look!’ they say. And I look. I concentrate on the black-and-white picture: his face a static composition of vertical and horizontal lines, his features meeting at ninety-degree angles in the centre of his face. A face of perpendiculars, perfectly designed: the strong brow crossing over the short nose, which runs along the middle of his face to meet the narrow lips, open in a wide, confident smile. Teeth strong, and regular like corn kernels; square jaw. His eyes incongruous; the kind you come across on boys twenty years younger, round and soft like those of a handsome young dog.

I paddled desperately, with both hands and feet, so that for a while I was so occupied that I didn’t pay attention to the arm closing around my neck. I couldn’t tell it apart from all the other limbs moving in the water. I was in a headlock. Then he pulled his elbow upwards and I was leashed, salt water pushing at my lips, my wet mouth parting.

‘Stuart Brandon Pierce,’ says the caption underneath. I blink. ‘Purveyor of the finest drinks for the finest ladies.’ The caption matches the smile but his eyes are speaking a different language, one I feel I understand, though not fully – a sort of tingling. Then the Lolitas go, ‘Aaaaaand,’ and they scroll down to a series of photos at the bottom of the web page. They take a moment to load; they are moving frames, GIFs of him whipping some pink stuff in a shaker, pouring it into a cocktail glass. The words ‘FROZEN DAIQUIRI!!!!’ flash intermittently across the last GIF. In the pictures, he is shirtless. The pixelated blur adds grace to his gestures. The Lolitas can no longer contain themselves. They do the girl equivalent of fist pumps and make the girl equivalent of bicep flexes. I roll my eyes and roll back to my desk.

‘If it’s less than five hundred,’ I say, wiggling the mouse to wake up the monitor.

£299 for three hours. The Lolitas are triumphant.

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