Muted anger and sadness bleed from the herd as they shuffle along, faces down, emerging from dark tunnels into the station. Their haunted eyes blink in the natural light pouring through the thin slots that pass for windows. The jaded are used to their darkness or the dim glow of their screens. Later they’ll sit down to eat tasteless meals, complaining about their lot in life to those tired of listening.

I hunger for more. I’m not one of these sheep. I cut through the negatives, red jacket burning bright through endless lines of monochrome, heading towards the Underground. I dance around the pedestrian and skirt the slow, run down the escalator then the stairs, hear the screech of brakes. My red hair swarms around me in the cold gale of the approaching train.

This is London: the powerhouse of this shitty country. On rare occasions the streets come alive, fireworks fill the air, fashion and art inspire, protests and debates erupt, while policies are created to smother the masses. No one cares about your ambition or all your hard work. This city’s currency is cold, hard cash. We all want it: it pays our bills, defines success, paves our future, makes us complain when we don’t have it.

Above the labyrinthine tunnels, my latest career whore clings to his desk in an ivory tower of reinforced glass and steel. Derek doesn’t know that he’s being played and he’s so very fragile. He likes to think of himself as powerful and shits on anyone who doesn’t earn as much as him.

I love manipulating guys like him: men who love the power of a boardroom, dressing up in a suit, pretending they’re important. They want the sexy secretary type: a ‘yes’ girl who’ll get down on her knees. It’s easy to wrap him round my finger because I know exactly what he wants: to prove his virility; to flash his cash, platinum watch twinkling beneath his starched sleeve, a groove on his finger where a wedding band wears down his skin. He slips his ring into his pocket before he meets me.

Billboards line the white tiled walls, advertising things I don’t need but want. Alcohol, apartments, holidays, concerts, handbags and shoes. Executives love to breed competition and market their goods and services; they’re just dying to sell to you. Make the sheep want more so they bleat more and work harder.

The world and his wife want the life of Reilly but you can’t live in this world without give and take. I don’t work; not for money anyway. I’m not ambitious and I don’t want to move on up from employee to junior manager to senior manager… to put a gun in my mouth because my company is so fucking dull.

What I love to do is raise men up on their self-made pedestals and then to watch them fall. I look for VIPs (Very Impotent Pricks) and persuade them that they’re thinking for themselves and that they’re very, very important. They buy me pretty things. One bought me my apartment, before his wife found out.

When I’m gone, I like to think that they die a slow, painful death. Sometimes they’re toyed with by the media (‘Scandal! CEO screws mistress’), until the hounds grow bored with their scraps and toss them to the side so they can sink their teeth into fresh meat. Or they’re forced to run an exclusive exposé on yet another C-list bimbo with big tits and bleached hair who’s fallen for the latest village idiot.

I step onto the train packed with decaying meat. Our hands clutch desperately at the rails around us, bodies pressed awkwardly together. The heat and sweat bind us as the train lurches forward into the darkness.

The stranger in front of me makes eye contact and the corners of my mouth twitch. I slide my hand down the pole we hold together, my fingers running over his, across his gold ring. He frowns at first, shocked, then links his fingers with mine. He looks around slyly, hoping not to see a friend, colleague or, God forbid, one of his wife’s friends. My intent was to make him feel uncomfortable, to flinch and remove his hand: he should have a stiff upper lip, not a semi.

I don’t know what to do now: tease or ignore him? What do I want? He’s attractive enough. Plain, average height and build, mousy hair, brown eyes. He’s looking at me like he’s waiting for me to do something, smiling like he’s never received attention before. He looks like a hopeful puppy.

The train lurches to a stop, the doors creak open, and I dart around an obese man to escape Puppy. I jump onto the platform, hard beneath my feet, trying not to stumble in my new shoes. Stupid fucking heels. I make a dash for the exit.

People swarm around me and I hear a guy yell out, ‘Hey! Wait!’

Please, don’t be Puppy following me.

I make it a few extra yards but then I feel a hand grab my shoulder. I spin around and Puppy confronts me, confusion and sadness lining his plain, pallid face.

‘I thought we… had a connection,’ he breathes out.

I feel like I’m going to barf in his annoying face. Or maybe on his worn shoes. He clutches a laptop bag, material fraying at the edges.

‘You thought wrong,’ I tell him harshly. ‘And don’t touch me.’

He frowns in confusion then smiles at me warmly, like he understands. Shit, did he find that endearing?

The doors slam shut and the train creaks onwards, loping into the tunnel again. Cramped, bored commuters look out the windows at us, their faces expressionless, sickly in the yellow light.

Puppy shouts above the train accelerating, ‘Maybe you’d like to get a drink?’

Apparently he still isn’t getting the message.

‘No,’ I yell. ‘I don’t. Bye.’

I turn to join the ranks of monochrome once more. I glance over my shoulder to make sure that he’s not following me. He stands stooped on the platform, watching the last of the carriages vanish into the tunnel. Poor guy… and his poor wife.

I step onto the escalator, the grubby rubber side covered in flecks of skin, chewing gum and grime. I place my hand on one of the cleaner spots and cling on as the metal stairs rise up through the concrete passageway. Colourful adverts flicker across my vision: ‘Come and see our latest amazing show’, ‘Read the gripping thriller from this bestselling author’, ‘The latest album from a pop band with no soul’.

Reaching the top, I overtake a woman dressed in a haggard trouser suit struggling with her heavy suitcase. Striding towards the ticket barrier, I swipe my card and walk through the turnstile. Finally, I’m free of the claustrophobic shuffle of commuters and I march towards the exit.

Outside a grey drizzle distorts the looming buildings, preventing the last of the day’s sunlight filtering through to the dark streets. The new and the old stand side by side: corroded stone façades hidden beneath years of black filth and pigeon shit, old red-brick walls shoddily patched with mortar, and new constructions of concrete, steel and glass filling the gaps in between. Amongst the offices and flats, various corner shops, bars and restaurants jostle for business. Noise and brick dust rise above a makeshift yellow fence surrounding a construction site; scaffolding with blue netting hides the adjacent building.

My feet pound the wet pavement, wanting to be out of the rain and these ugly streets. The stench of human waste seeps out of the clogged drains, mixing with the smell of trash from over-stuffed rubbish bags piled high against the wall. I ignore the homeless man wrapped in a blue sleeping bag, reaching out at me with his grubby wrinkled hands.

A tribe of foreign tourists follow each other out of a restaurant, enveloped in thick padded jackets and heavy rucksacks, blocking my route. I glare at them as I step down onto the street and walk around them.

Finally I turn a corner and there stands the phallic architectural monstrosity where my current fop works: his second home. Well, actually his fourth. He owns a lovely little villa in Italy and a glamorous but tiny apartment in Monaco, as well as the home he shares with his stuck-up wife and two whiny kids.

I walk towards the thick glass doors and press the buzzer. I swear as my red painted nail chips against the sticky button. Mona, the fat bitch who sits behind the reception desk, can see me standing outside in the rain. She never lets me inside without calling up first to announce my arrival.

She’s a heartless bulldog dressed in a cheap pinstripe suit, every single button on her shirt fastened up to her fat neck, emphasising the bulge of her double chin. She never smiles, her face continually scowling in disapproval, perhaps hoping visitors will lope away when they notice her uninviting glare.

She slowly picks up her phone and dials Derek’s extension, ignoring the fact that I exist. I wonder what he says to her every time she calls up to announce that his mistress has arrived. She puts down the phone and types something into her computer, presumably to make me feel like she’s better than me while she makes me wait. Finally, she presses a button to let me inside and I push the glass door open.

‘Mona!’ I greet her in a sickly-sweet voice. ‘How are you? You look very… formal today.’

I smile widely and I’m sure her eyes narrow as she picks out a plastic name badge for me.

‘Name?’ she asks monotonously.

‘It makes me so sad that you never remember,’ I say, faking a pout.

‘Your name?’ she repeats, pen poised. Maybe she’s a robot?

‘Julianne Carrell.’

‘How do you spell that?’

I give up. Sighing, I spell out the whole darn thing. Some people are just born without a personality.

She slides the piece of paper with my name into the little transparent sleeve and hands the badge to me across the desk. I pin it on my t-shirt.

‘I presume you can remember which floor he’s on?’ she asks, her lips pursing into a sour curl.

‘At the top, away from this creepy bottom floor,’ I say, smiling sweetly and her face falls.

I turn my back on her and head towards the marble corridor of elevators, walking to the far end so she can’t see me, unless she watches me on CCTV.

Once I fucked Derek in one of the elevators, late at night when no one was around (after Mona went home to munch on her TV dinner and four family-sized chocolate bars). I watched the city beneath us as he thrust inside me, the distant lights of skyscrapers twinkling in the distance, cars below accelerating through the rain, raindrops trickling down the glass. Derek told me that he’d deleted the security tape afterwards, but maybe Mona has her own secret recordings that she masturbates over at home. Is she jealous? Or perhaps she just hates the fact that I don’t care about fucking a married man.

The elevator doors ping open and I step into the lift and press the button for the top floor. Then I hit the close-door button several times, just in case Mona comes at me in a jealous rage with an eight-inch kitchen knife.

The doors slam shut and as the elevator rises into the sky, I turn to see the blood-red sun falling from its pedestal, cast behind the darkening cityscape. The rain dribbles down the glass wall and I clutch onto the metal rail, cherishing this moment to myself as I watch the busy city below me. It’s easy to forget that you’re just one drop in a large, filthy ocean, everyone drowning together, clambering over bodies to rise to the top, or just trying to keep your head above water.

The doors open and I turn around, expecting to see Derek standing there to lead me into his office. But the corridor’s empty.

I frown and walk down the echoing corridors, heels clicking on the shiny tiled floor. The vacant boardroom looms behind its glass walls, steel blinds shadowing the sleek, characterless table and designer leather chairs. Large green plants strain towards the windows, dying from the nine-to-five boredom, filling up the corners of the room. They’re the only figures with a trace of life in this building.

Derek’s door is closed to me. Maybe he’s on the phone. Or stuck on a call with his whiny wife.

I peer through the window to see him sitting glumly at his desk, typing something half-heartedly on his laptop, stopping to clutch his head. He’s undone his tie and top button; I’ve never seen him look so dishevelled. Why didn’t the fucker get up to greet me like normal?

I don’t bother knocking and stride into the room. He looks up guiltily and doesn’t rise from the desk. He’s lost his balls.

‘You look like shit,’ I tell him, crossing the room to stand in front of his desk.

He grins but then loses his smile. I’ve seen that look before. He’s going to dump me. Maybe his wife found out.

‘Julianne, I…’ he trails off.

‘What?’ I demand, taking off my wet jacket and giving him a blank stare.

I drop my jacket and bag down on the floor then perch on the edge of his glass desk, my skirt riding up to the top of my thighs. He sees my skin, remembers what it feels like, but he looks away.

‘I don’t think we can see each other anymore,’ he says.

Shit, I knew it.

‘You don’t think we can?’

‘We can’t keep doing this!’ he exclaims, getting up and looking out of the window, watching the rain fall down on the dirty city below. I wonder if he remembers that night we had sex in the elevator.

‘Did she find out?’ I ask, staring down at my pale legs.

He turns to look at me. ‘What? No! I don’t know… I just… I can’t anymore. It’s not like we’ve ever been serious.’

Depends on your definition of ‘serious’. Sleeping together is considered ‘serious’ to some people. Being fuck buddies, on the other hand…

‘Okay, if that’s what you want,’ I say, shrugging and hopping off the desk.

I knock a brown paper folder onto the floor and out pops a printout of an old tabloid article. It’s one of my favourites, featuring yours truly, topless, my tits blurred out and my mouth wide open in shock. An older man in a suit stands behind me in the photo and the headline reads: ‘MP quits after affair revealed with sexy secretary.’ I confess, I did a bit of shitty admin in my youth. But I’m not exactly recognisable in the fuzzy black and white photo.

I bend down and pop the article back in the folder, but he knows I’ve seen it. I put the folder back on his desk.

‘A friend gave it to me,’ he says.

‘Really? So you got your “friend” to investigate me?’

He looks down, embarrassed. ‘I wanted to know more about you.’

‘You could have asked.’

I pick up my bag and jacket and consider pilfering the vodka bottle sitting in the glass bar at the side of the room. Amelia’s throwing a party tonight, after all.

‘I’m sorry,’ he says sincerely, finally looking me in the eye.

‘I’m not,’ I tell him, picking up the vodka and walking out.

I stroll down the lonely corridor, the world outside cast into full darkness now. He doesn’t follow me to the elevator, doesn’t question me taking the bottle, and he doesn’t apologise for his double standards: breaking up with me because he knows that I’ve slept with other men now, when he was cheating on his wife all along.

That’s what happens eventually though. We never wanted to commit.

The doors ping open again and the elevator pulls me down to the lowest level. I’ll miss this elevator and its memories, but I won’t miss Derek. Gullible, predictable, boring Derek. I’ll miss holidaying in his Italian villa, where the pool waters were crisp and clear, small birds flew around the gardens, and the stone walls sparkled in the sun.

Downstairs, there’s Mona and her smug face when she sees that I’m single and clutching a vodka bottle tight in my hand.

‘I’m checking out now,’ I tell her, plonking the bottle down on her desk while I unpin my badge.

I wonder whether she orders the booze as well as the stationery, and whether she recognises the bottle shoved in front of her face.

‘That was quick,’ she says, smirking.

‘For some guys, it is,’ I tell her forlornly, picking up my bottle again and walking out the door.

I’ve enjoyed making Mona uncomfortable these last few months, but I won’t miss Derek’s bulldog and her fucking sour face either.

* * *

‘So he dumped me!’ I whinge, as I walk inside Amelia’s flat.

‘Well, it went on for a bit,’ she says, not really sympathising.

‘Did it?’ I cast my mind back and remember meeting him at a Christmas party. ‘I guess…’

I put my bag and vodka down on her kitchen table and throw off my jacket. The bottle grew heavy on my walk over. I eye Amelia’s pretentious nibbles and the drinks she’s laid out, and realise that I haven’t eaten in hours.

‘What the fuck are you wearing?’ she asks, looking me up and down. She’s chosen a dusky pink, sequinned dress for the night. A little over-the-top for my tastes but she carries it off well.

‘Relax! I’ll change into one of your dresses or something,’ I tell her, and pick up a breadstick.

My plan had been to get changed at mine before heading to the party with Derek, but I’d walked to Amelia’s from the office instead.

Amelia’s eyes narrow at me for disturbing the food that she’s arranged as neatly as possible for maybe an hour or so, but she lets it go.

‘At least you showed up,’ she says.

Amelia’s my friend because she gets me, even though I don’t always get her. I judge her for committing to steady, long-term relationships and she judges me for my flings with rich idiots. A month ago, I helped her to get over her ex, David, when she realised that he was too tedious.

It was a lucky escape. She was boring when she dated him and used to host mind-numbing, middle-class dinners with her beautiful boyfriend. I used to think that she wanted to show off David to the world. He could have been a model but chose to be a human rights lawyer instead, proving to the world that he had both beauty and brains. But you can’t have all three: he lacked a personality.

I walk into Amelia’s bedroom and throw open the wardrobe doors. Her clothes are arranged far too conveniently – one side for work (she’s a lawyer with a gorgeous taste for designer suits), one section casual, one for dressing up. She looks like my opposite: black, tall and curvy, long braids that emphasise her height; few of her clothes fit me. I pick out a plain black dress with two long side slits.

‘You always wear that one,’ Amelia complains, leaning against the doorway.

‘It’s a classic,’ I tell her, slipping off my t-shirt and skirt and working my way into the slinky dress.

I look at myself in the mirror and smooth down my red hair, damp still from the rain. My red bra clearly shows and I take it off under the dress. Showing off both legs and tits is a bit excessive, but who cares.

‘You won’t get too wasted tonight?’ Amelia asks me.

‘God! Are you my friend or my chaperone?’

‘Don’t be like that. You’re upset that he dumped you, even if you don’t want to admit it,’ she tells me, and walks into the kitchen to get us some drinks.

She’s right: I am upset. I try not to think about it but, deep down, I’m pissed. Normally I know when a guy’s about to dump me. The bastard surprised me. And he had that ‘MP screws sexy secretary’ article on his desk. How the fuck did he find that?

Amelia was right: I was with him for far too long. And I didn’t realise that I’d grown comfortable with him, which is usually my sign to end things. Now I needed to find someone else, and count my pennies until I found Mr Not-So-Right… But I hate that it’s always difficult to find a willing subject.