I recognised the handwriting and so, having no early morning clients, I took the post and a small brandy into the garden. I shifted my rickety bench a few inches as some creepers were binding round the backrest, but also the better to view the neighbour who sometime last summer seemed to enjoy pressing her breasts against her bedroom window. I once stood behind her at a checkout, counting the freckles on the back of her neck.

The elderly impress of the handwriting was my fathers. He explained, in his simpleminded way, that in sending me a copy of his will he didn't intend to cause distress, merely to clear the air. As an only child I hadn't expected difficulty to arise, and a quick check at arms length confirmed, happily, that the dwindling estate was completely mine. Yet I was so resistant to seeing my old Dad crying for attention, that I'd gladly have handed over the whole inheritance to the neighbour, naked or not, just for a quick glimpse, anything to distract me but the demented letter had sent a curl of guilt rising from my belly and so, within seconds, my years of training wholly redundant, I was in the bathroom fastening on my cock ring and making some very pertinent phone calls.

I spent two hundred forty pounds. And in this way, having smothered one guilt with the cloak of another, I got through the day.