I needed these friendships to go somewhere. I made certain alterations to my lifestyle for these old men. I dusted, I tidied away my father’s collection, I cleaned out my bathroom cabinet so it resembled the cabinet of a woman who had very little to worry about. I saw myself making these slight adjustments. I watched as if it was an instructive montage about how a person can take purposeful strides in their life. The music that accompanied these scenes was sassy and upbeat. I suddenly gave a shit and it suited me.

My father used to ask if I cared about other people at all and the correct answer was ‘Yes’. I did. I cared, I cared, I cared. I had healthy friendships in mind. Things should have been easier when I got the men alone but they never were. I wanted them to talk, to tell me everything, about their families, and the minor incidents that destroyed them, and maybe the moments they had ruined by doing or saying the wrong thing. What then? What then? But, nothing. Their eyes just roamed around like they were searching for something better beyond my head. Of course, they were all seized by a singular fear when I began my striptease. I guess it was because I was always more involved in the tease than the strip. I liked jokes, death jokes, single-girl jokes, and was shocked when these didn’t lead naturally to a friendly situation.

Sometimes, when the fingers were flying over the front of my blouse, I thought: ‘This is hilarious. No, actually, this is an illness. This inability to take anything seriously. I should get money from the state.’ Afterwards, I compensated by lying. I’d been let go, I’d been promoted, I do this, I do that, who cares? In a second of stupidity and weakness, I told one of them about my developing hump. I may have curled up on his chest and cried. I may have beaten his chest lightly with my fists. He promised that if we stayed together he would love me all the same. He wasn’t begging but he nearly was. After he left the house, in the half-dark, I caught him on the street, kicking a taxi. It was an embarrassing situation.

The time came to return to work but I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t so much the job as the confusion and frustration that went with it. Standing and sitting and breathing in the stale air of people who despised me – I couldn’t face it. I rang up HR and told them my boss made a pass at me. I said I hoped it accounted for some of my odder behaviour in the few weeks before my departure.

HR asked: ‘What happened?’

I said: ‘Well, he brought me into his office.’

HR said: ‘Of course, he did. He’s your boss.’

I said: ‘He sat across from me at the table.’

HR said nothing.

I said: ‘He leaned quite far across the table.’