.

of his cum clung to my fingers. I washed my hands – both of them, just to be safe – till they were pink and tender, scrubbing beneath my nails with Alice’s nailbrush.

      ‘Julia? Are you OK?’ The shower must have woken Alice up.

      I didn’t answer. I was concentrating on making my mind as blank as possible, but I couldn’t keep the sex flashbacks at bay:

      Kneeling by his bed.

      His thigh slapping against mine.

      The dead fly on the ceiling.

      ‘You’ve broken my penis.’

      Why did I let him get away with saying that to me? Why didn’t I just walk out of there? How fucking dare he blame me because he didn’t come? I hadn’t fucking come either, but at least I’d had the decency to fake an orgasm.

      I spent the following week going to work, coming home, and going straight to bed. I watched comforting old TV shows on repeat and imagined myself back to a purer time; a time when the thing I wanted most in the world was berry-coloured lipstick from The Body Shop and the furthest I’d got with a boy was when Phil Green kissed me on the cheek after his Bar Mitzvah.

      Alice tried to comfort me by telling me about the time that her ex-boyfriend Joe tried to prove he could give himself a blow job; he’d thrown his legs over his head in the yoga plough position but he hadn’t been able to reach, and then he pulled a muscle in his neck and screamed in pain till she helped him lie flat on his back again. That did make me feel slightly better. Not better enough to want to have sex with anyone ever again, though.

      Work was a distraction of sorts, but I wasn’t behaving normally, I knew that; I chose the desk next to Stan every day, to avoid my team and their questions about the date. Uzo cornered me one lunchtime and said, ‘So? How was the hot date?’ but I just said, ‘Fine, thanks,’ and then Tom called her into his office to tell her off for buying stuff from ASOS during work hours.

      Luckily there was a new sense of purpose in the office, everyone bustling around trying to impress the new Grade Six, not as much small talk. I couldn’t really look anyone in the eye, least of all Owen – he’d probably want to tell me how fantastically it was going with Laura and compare date stories, and I didn’t think I’d deal with his happiness well. But I couldn’t avoid him forever, and on Wednesday he insisted on taking me to Pret for lunch.

      ‘Are you all right?’ he asked me, as we finished off our chicken and avocado sandwiches. ‘Did something happen on your date?’

      I nodded. ‘I had sex,’ I said, and to my horror I felt my eyes filling with tears.

      ‘I hope Laura doesn’t cry when she tells people that,’ he said.

      ‘I’m guessing you’re not as bad in bed as Finn was,’ I said, still crying, but laughing a bit too.

      Owen frowned. ‘He didn’t— he didn’t hurt you—’

      ‘No …’

      He put on what he obviously thought was a caring face. ‘You can tell me.’

      ‘He masturbated for an hour, and I just sat there.’

      ‘Wow. What a wanker.’

      ‘Literally,’ I said, nodding.

      He patted my arm. ‘Do you need some company tonight? We could go to the cinema or something, if you like.’

      ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘but Cat’s got a few days off between shows, so I’m going to meet her for dinner.’

      ‘I haven’t met Cat yet,’ Owen said.

      ‘Sorry, Owen,’ I said. ‘You’re not invited.’

      Cat took me for a curry in Brick Lane. We sat at a tiny corner table in the windowless downstairs room, next to a tank full of fluorescent fish.

      ‘At least you banged someone. You needed to get that out of the way,’ Cat said, ladling dhal onto my plate.

      ‘I’m never going to do it again,’ I said. I bit into a samosa, hoping that was the end of the conversation.

      ‘Never say never,’ Cat said. ‘Remember how I was feeling like a third wheel with Lacey and Steve, the new tadpole?’

      I nodded.

      ‘I fucked someone last night. A year-five teacher.’

      ‘Is that ethical?’

      ‘Why wouldn’t it be? I’m not a student. I’m a pretend frog.’

      ‘I wasn’t sure where the line was drawn.’

      ‘The point is, it wasn’t the best sex, but it’s not going to put me off forever. You wouldn’t stop drinking just because you got one bad hangover, would you?’

      ‘This is different,’ I said. ‘I broke his penis.’

      ‘I wish you actually had broken his penis,’ she said. ‘Then he wouldn’t be able to inflict shitty sex on anyone else.’

      But here’s the thing – the next morning I was writing a letter to a man who was very, very angry about the cost of prescriptions when I felt an unmistakable hollowness within me, a deep ache between my legs. I was turned on – turned on and bored, a very common combination for me – and I knew I wouldn’t be able to concentrate till I came, silent and hard, in the disabled toilets.

      There was no point in trying to resist it. I locked myself into the cubicle, sat on the closed lid, pulled down my trousers and Googled Women’s erotica on my iPhone. I wasn’t in the mood to be fussy, so I scrolled quickly through the worst of it, looking for a story about two consenting adults fucking anonymously, preferably somewhere they could be caught. The words handcuffs and dripping pussy caught my eye – I like directness – and I wanked, leaning forward into my hand, rocking as I came, my face a wordless scream.

      Maybe I needed to give sex one final chance.

       6. A SEXY, WORDLESS TONGUE CONVERSATION

      So when Alice and Dave invited me to a house party in Dalston at the beginning of February, I said yes. It was hosted by another of Dave’s arty friends – a designer who embellished H&M vest tops with sequins and sold them for huge amounts of money on Etsy.

      ‘You’re sure Finn won’t be there?’ I asked Dave, as we walked along Kingsland Road.

      ‘I checked,’ he said. ‘He’s home in Ireland for the weekend.’

      The party was sedate compared to the one in Hackney Wick. There was no DJ, just a Spotify playlist, and the flat was lit by IKEA standard lamps rather than industrial strip lighting. The place was rammed, people pressed up against one another like rush-hour commuters. I went straight to the kitchen, poured three glasses of red wine and carried them carefully back to Alice and Dave, who had somehow found space on a sofa. They edged closer together to make room for me.

      But soon they were arguing about a wedding they’d been invited to, that way couples do when they’ve been together for a few years and have stopped pretending to like each other’s friends.

      ‘We’ve got to go. She’s the editorial director. It’s flattering that she’s invited me at all.’

      ‘No. You’ve got to go.’

      ‘You’re coming. I’ve RSVPd for both of us.’

      ‘But I won’t know anyone.’

      ‘I’m sure she’ll sit us next to each other at dinner.’

      ‘Everyone will talk about books and wanky authors and I won’t know what to say.’

      I looked around for someone else to talk to but I was hemmed in