I climb a few more steps. Mrs H-W unleashes another whopper and I stop. OK, just one more line.

me if this request is inappropriate, but I don’t know where else to turn. Would you

Would I? Would I? Would I what, Antonio? Quit beating around the proverbial.

consider taking on my girlfriend as a client? She is seeing a psychiatrist but

Grrrrrrr. I decide that, just for now, I’m going to pretend I didn’t read that. Deep breaths of the cool air, Charlie, and let it go. Really, I don’t know what possessed me to open a message from Antonio Silva of the too-giant-for-condoms dick. I do not ever learn.

Snarling a little, I close the app and tiptoe back into Mrs H-W’s bedroom. I flop down in the chair, ready to take on her hostile A-level students. I can do this. I can help her. Body confidence. Body confidence. Body confidence.

Mrs. H-W blows off once more with feeling.

TRANSCRIPT

DC: This is Donato Cruz interviewing Charlotte Aaron with Doctor Roman Pelka also present. We recommence at 1.53 p.m. on 17th September 2027 in Location B, Leytonstone Road, Stratford after Ms Aaron requested a toilet break. She has been advised of her right to legal representation during this interview and she has declined.

CA: Legal what? Er, thought I was just here to help.

DC: What exactly is your job? Your business card says Dreamhacker. Do you mind explaining?

CA: Oh, you must want my elevator pitch. OK, just a second, let me remember what I’m supposed to say . . . OK, ready?

DC: As ready as I’ll ever be.

CA: I’m so glad you asked, Donato! I guess you could think of me like Billie Piper in that old TV show – damn, what was it called again? You know, where she goes to people’s hotels and does dirty stuff to them. But without the sex in my case.

DC: I don’t watch TV.

CA: Oh, never mind. Seriously, there’s nothing sexy about dreamhacking. I sleep in armchairs and on settees and sometimes on the floor while people snore and grind their teeth and . . . stuff . . .

DC: How many floors does this lift stop at?

CA: What they do in their dreams is their business. And it’s my job to help them do it in a more healthy and proactive manner.

DC: Your formal qualifications are . . . ?

CA: I just remembered the elevator pitch! Secret Diary of a Call Girl meets Inception! That’s it.

DC: OK, got it. And your formal qualifications?

CA: Um . . . well, it’s a new field. There are no actual, like, governing bodies.

DC: But you went to – let’s see – Excelsior-Barking University. You have a lower-second-class degree in Psychology. Online.

CA: Yeah, and look where that went! I couldn’t find any proper work after I graduated, so I had to temp for an agency. Office work.

DC: You temped for a marketing company, apparently. Arguably some psychology there.