‘Are you finally going to make a move on Mark tonight?’ I shout in Amelia’s ear.

The party’s in full flow, as are all of our drinks. I’ve lost count of how much I’ve downed already. Our single friends have crept out of the woodwork because Amelia’s stopped surrounding herself with boring dinner-party couples. The music’s loud, our conversations louder, and tonight reminds me of the house parties we hosted at university, just with less puking, older guests and more intelligent discussions.

Anyway, Mark is Amelia’s boss. He’s arrogant, intelligent, tells funny stories about his run-ins with stupid bimbos, and he’s fucking gorgeous. Amelia has always had a crush on him – it’s hilarious to watch her around him – but she hates the fact that he’s a player.

‘No! I wish I hadn’t told you about him,’ she whispers, elbowing me in the ribs to keep quiet.

‘I don’t think you did. It’s obvious. Even he must know that you want to get in his pants.’

‘Shut up!’ she tells me, trying not to look in Mark’s direction.

She downs the last few dregs of her wine and goes into the kitchen to pour herself another glass. I think she’s still sad about losing David. Or losing two years of her life to their relationship.

For once, Mark hasn’t brought along any blonde arm-candy (perhaps intentionally?) and I have every intention of trying to set the two of them up. He’s chatting to a couple of younger suits who hang on his every word, as if they’re his trainee flunkies.

Suddenly he looks up from his conversation and smiles at me. A ridiculous, dashing, white smile, like he’s advertising a new whitening toothpaste on TV. It throws me and I can’t help but stare and smile at his fucking perfect face. Then I realise that he’s Amelia’s crush. I close my semi-gaping mouth and just narrow my eyes at him. He frowns, confused, then turns back to his conversation. Good, I scared him off.

‘So who are you?’ a guy asks me, who’s crept up behind me.

‘Huh?’ I say, turning to look this new weirdo in the eye.

‘I mean, how do you know Amelia?’ he corrects himself, holding half a glass of whisky in his hand.

I thought he might be socially awkward, but actually this guy’s annoyingly charming. He has a voice that can melt small puppies, and his face freezes time while you wonder whether he’s carved from ebony and how his creator chiselled the most exquisite jaw and cheekbones. His head is shaved and he’s wearing a tight, black t-shirt revealing that he pays for one of the best personal trainers in London. I try not to gulp at his hotness, wonder where he goes to the gym, and pray that he likes redheads.

‘Uni,’ I say, trying to sound casual. ‘You?’

‘Work,’ he tells me, rolling his eyes. I’m not sure why he’s rolled his eyes, but I hear Amelia’s a bitch at work, always trying to get her own way so she can rise to the top. ‘So you’re her roommate?’

‘Once, a long time ago.’ Shit, I don’t want him to think that I’m old – usually I pretend I’m in my twenties. Change the subject: ‘We drove each other crazy.’

He nods, smiling, and looks at Amelia. ‘So how did you two meet? I mean, you’re not exactly… similar.’

Does he mean that our skin is a different colour? Or that I look like trash while Amelia spent hours getting ready? The truth is that we bonded over coke one evening at a party. Amelia had always been a straight-A student, a goody two-shoes, but she wanted to rebel when she went to university. We were wasted and she told me with glee that she’d bought some coke from the douchebags who smoked weed downstairs. She wanted to confess to someone and thought that we could be ‘partners in crime’. When we’d sobered up the next day, she tried not to be embarrassed or ashamed about it, but she didn’t touch drugs again after that night. Plus, I think she’d slept with one of the aforementioned douchebags when she was high, and her disgust turned her off drugs for life.

I shrug. ‘A party, I think.’

There’s an awkward pause between us when we run out of things to say. Maybe he isn’t as charming as I initially thought.

‘I’m Jamal,’ he smiles, holding out his hand.

‘Julianne.’ When I half-heartedly shake his hand, I notice his entire hand swallows up mine.

‘So what do you do?’ he asks. Urgh, the dreaded question.

‘I’m a buyer.’ It’s kind of the truth.

‘Like stocks and shares, or…?’

‘Fashion, mostly.’ Change the subject again: ‘And I guess you’re a lawyer?’

‘A consultant,’ he corrects me, like ‘consultant’ actually means something.

‘And what do you consult on?’ I ask in an overly-slutty way.

‘Erm, finance and investments,’ he says, trying not to boast.

I nod, as if I understand. His answer pretty much just means ‘money’, but does that mean he’s rich and owns a yacht, or that he works for a company that tells him what to say to other companies?

‘And do you like it?’

‘I guess. I get to travel a lot. I just got back from Dubai.’

Perhaps he is wealthy? He wears a beautiful platinum watch on his wrist but doesn’t have any other clues on him. I’m about to whore myself out and say that I’ve got plenty of investments back at my place that he might want to take a look at, when in bursts David through the door. The entertainment!

He looks angry and stumbles into the room with a key in his hand, which presumably is Amelia’s front door key. I think he’s drunk, although he never used to drink. He searches the living room for Amelia, but she rushes towards him quickly, looking embarrassed that he’s turned up.

‘What are you doing here?’ she hisses at him.

‘You’re having a fucking party?’ he asks her in disgust.

Jesus, he actually swore? I’m just as taken aback as Amelia.

‘Are you drunk?’ she asks, taking him to the side of the room.

Damn, now I can’t hear their conversation.

‘Who’s that?’ asks Jamal.

‘David,’ I say, trying in vain to listen in.

‘Boyfriend?’

‘Ex-boyfriend.’

‘Oh.’

Amelia looks around, still angry and embarrassed, and shepherds David towards her room, shutting the door so they can talk in private. Looks like I might not get the chance to set her up with Mark after all.

Desperate to know what they’re saying, I sneak into Amelia’s spare room and try to listen in through the wall. I just hear mumbled shouting, the music in the background too loud to hear actual words.

The door closes behind me and the room is cast into darkness.

‘You’re eavesdropping?’ Jamal laughs, flicking on the light.

‘No shit,’ I say, standing next to the wall with my ear pressed against the paint.

Jamal downs the rest of his drink and comes over to listen in too. He presses his empty glass against the wall next to his ear and I try not to giggle.

‘Why did they break up?’ he whispers.

‘He was really, really dull.’

Jamal smirks. ‘Well, you’re not dull at all,’ he tells me, brushing a strand of hair behind my ear.

We lean towards each other to kiss when suddenly a large bang makes the whole wall shudder. We jump back, look at each other and laugh. Then we hear thumping and really loud moans. Amelia’s definitely making up with David.

Jamal points to the door and I nod that we should make a hasty retreat.

Outside, we close the door and Jamal snakes an arm around my waist and leans against the wall with his other ridiculously muscular arm. ‘So… I know this sounds like a cliché, especially when your friend’s being banged in the other room, but do you want to come back to my place?’

For some reason, I look around the room and notice Mark giving Jamal a hard stare. I never thought that Mark was into me. Awkward.

‘Sure, it’s dead in here anyway,’ I say.

I grab my things from behind the sofa, put on my jacket, and walk into the kitchen to pour out a couple of drinks into paper cups.

‘You know, I have drinks back at my place,’ Jamal tells me.

‘This is for our walk home,’ I tell him, handing him a cup. ‘I want to drown out the memory of hearing Amelia coming.’

Jamal smirks. ‘Let’s get out of here.’

We head out the door and down the spiralling staircase. It’s much colder on the stairs than in the cramped apartment and I’m glad that I have my jacket.

The pounding music follows us all the way down the stairs and out onto the street. The cold has sobered me up and I sip on my vodka and lemonade, which warms the back of my throat at least. It’s drizzling, the black night’s sky smoggy, and dull yellow lights shine down at us from grubby streetlamps.

A group of friends walk past us, laughing to each other, maybe heading to a club on their Friday night out. Jamal reaches out to hold my hand and we continue to walk down the street in silence.

‘Are we walking or taking the tube?’ I ask Jamal.

‘We can walk. It’s not far,’ he tells me.

Normally I head home this way, so I know the route, but it’s cold and my feet hurt after walking all the way from Derek’s office to Amelia’s apartment. I should have taken the tube, but I wanted to walk the streets after he broke up with me. Sometimes when I’m feeling down I like to walk in the rain, the smell of the wet tarmac and mud beneath my feet reminding me that the elements control us, perhaps more so than people.

We walk past a row of shops: all closed, no lights shining in their windows, shutters up. Redbrick terraced houses and apartments loom over us, the guttering hanging down on one home and all of its windows boarded up. A couple on their balcony look down at us, watching our path, grey smoke from their cigarettes spiralling into the sky. Their washing hangs next to them on plastic line dryers, absorbing the smell.

‘Do you smoke?’ I ask.

‘No.’

Great, he’s turned monosyllabic. It could be that he hates cigarettes; that lung cancer killed one of his parents or something. Or he might chicken out and say that he’s changed his mind about inviting me round to his. Or he’s waiting for me to ask a more interesting question. Or maybe he’s a serial killer, plotting to get me back to his so he can carve me up.

‘So where do you live? What’s it like?’ I ask.

‘It’s just a normal flat. Typical bachelor pad. It’s in Pimlico.’

Next to where I live. Perhaps we’re neighbours. Then again, only a crazy cat lady and a boring accountant live in my building, who constantly tell me to turn my music down and leave their mail piled up in our hallway.

We head down another street, more open this time, with tall glass windows and everyday clothes shops. The white mannequins in the window displays are dressed in garish seasonal colours – why is yellow still in?

The traffic has died down somewhat, but the main road is busy. Taxis make their way between pubs and clubs, or between bars and apartments. A red London bus accelerates past, braking at the last minute when the driver sees the red light up ahead.

We cross over the road, the little green man beeping angrily at us to hurry the fuck up. A drunk guy sways as he passes us from the other side of the street. He looks like he’s going to be sick, so we swerve to avoid his path just in case. His worried friend hurtles out of the pub across the way and hurries after him.

We laugh to ourselves when they’re no longer in earshot. Laugh as we continue to sip on our drinks. I finish mine and toss the cup into a bin. Jamal turns to throw his, looking like a professional basketball player as he shoots, and the cup hits the rim and bounces inside. He’s scored, and in more than one way. I think we’re about to kiss, finally, when he stops me.

‘I’m not keen on PDA,’ he says.

‘Oh... That’s fine.’

But what if it’s not? What if he’s a terrible kisser and knows it, and that’s why he hasn’t kissed me yet? That’s the worst thing, if a guy’s okay in bed but when you’re having sex he’s slobbering all over your face. They should teach guys that snogging does not entail licking other people’s faces.

‘Sorry. Are you okay?’ he asks me, taking my hand again.

‘Yeah,’ I lie. I’m never one-hundred-per-cent okay, and I feel weird holding his hand.

Soon we reach the train station and walk alongside it, under a bridge of blackened bricks, exhaust fumes and echoing noise. We cross over another road and past the shiny MI6 building with its cameras and tall spiky fence. I’ve always fantasised about being a spy. I’d make a great femme fatale.

The stench of the river is carried up to us on the wind, and the corroded railings on the bridge warn us to stay away from the edge. Across the murky water is the sparkling cityscape, the London Eye illuminated by bright blue lights, and orange round bulbs line the curving river.

We amble across the pavement hand in hand, heading towards the glass tower blocks either side of the bridge. My apartment lies beyond in a lovely white Georgian building with a stone façade, large sash windows and original wooden flooring. I wonder whether it’s quicker to walk back to mine, but I’m always intrigued about where other people live and what their homes say about them.

We cross a few more roads and I’m growing bored by this point, and sobering up. I hate having to wait. Normally I make out with a guy on the way back to his, sneaking into dark corners so we can kiss and grope each other. I love the risk of being caught, pretending to be embarrassed when some stranger notices you and you have to adjust your clothing and carry on walking with a straight face. I think I’ve made a mistake choosing Jamal, just like the mistake I made when I chose Derek.

A white couple wrapped up in scarves and coats walk towards us. The woman stares, smiles and nudges her boyfriend. He tries not to grin as they walk past. It makes me feel uncomfortable, whether it’s racism (I’m white, Jamal is black) or just a subtle dig at our height difference. I’m not sure whether Jamal notices.

We turn down my road and towards my apartment, the trees lining both sides of the suburban street. I wonder whether to tell him that I live here, but decide against it, curiosity about his place getting the better of me.

Suddenly he stops outside my building, drops my hand and walks towards the front door. I frown, confused. What the hell? How does he know where I live?

He takes out his keys from his pocket and unlocks the door. Then he steps inside after the light comes on, not bothering to turn and see my puzzled expression.

No way am I going inside. Why does he have a key to my building?

When did I last see my neighbours? Maybe crazy cat lady died or the boring accountant moved in with her boyfriend. (Who am I kidding? Dry old accountant lady doesn’t get laid.) So maybe now Jamal lives next door to me and I didn’t realise, or he’s the landlord of the other flats. Why else would he have a key?

What the fuck do I do now? The front door is wide open and Jamal’s disappeared from view, so he’s probably heading up to my flat on the middle floor to pick up the axe that he left there earlier to wield over my head when I walk upstairs.

‘You coming?’ he asks from above.

No. Definitely not… But it’s late, freezing cold out here and my feet hurt. Curiosity killed the cat. I know it’s stupid, but I walk inside anyway and shut the front door. If I die tonight, at least I’ll die young.

I slowly climb the stairs while looking out for the shiny blade that will probably end my life. But Jamal’s not hiding; instead I can see him inside my apartment, sitting casually on my kitchen counter. Serial killers aren’t hot though, right? Bizarrely I’m still attracted to him.

I shut the door (wouldn’t want to keep the neighbours up, if they’re still alive) and say, ‘What the fuck?’

‘I know more about you than I let on,’ he admits.

‘No shit,’ I say, taking off my jacket and staring at him suspiciously.

I let this fucker hold my hand! I nearly let him kiss me. And all along he was some kind of weirdo stalker?

My phone is buried at the bottom of my bag and it would be a small miracle if I found it before he tried anything on me. I should have put it in my pocket while I was downstairs. Or dialled the cops. He’s even blocked the route to my knife rack by the oven.

‘Who are you?’ I ask.

‘I told you the truth. My name’s Jamal. I have a job for you.’

‘Presumably not head.’

He smiles like he’s actually considering it. ‘No… My employer needs you to seduce someone else. There’s a lot of money in it for you if you accept.’

‘I’m not a whore,’ I tell him, walking into the kitchen to get a glass of water. I don’t offer him a drink.

‘Not technically a whore, no.’

Not technically? Who the fuck does he think he is?

‘I’ve read up about you,’ he continues. ‘You like to sleep around. You like guys to buy you presents. Apartments… We’d like you to seduce another rich fuck. He’s attractive. Married. Just your type.’

He smiles again and I want to smash my glass over his head.

‘Give me the keys back to my apartment,’ I tell him, holding out my hand.

There’s no way I’m accepting a job from this creep, and there’s no way I’m going to look scared in front of him either.

He raises an eyebrow and loses the smile. He jumps down from the counter and stands next to me. I forgot how tall he is. He reaches into his pocket and takes out his keys. He presses them into my palm and then with his other hand crushes the keys hard into my hand.

‘Ow!’ I yell, sliding my hand out and away from his grasp. So much for looking tough. The keys drop to the floor.

I glare at him and suddenly he hits the glass out of my hand and it smashes into a cabinet. He grabs me by the neck and slams me against the fridge.

‘You like it rough?’ I splutter out angrily.

I try to knee him in the balls but he blocks me and turns me round, pressing my face against the fridge door while he pins my arms behind my back.

‘You need to take this job,’ he whispers in my ear.

‘Or what?’ I dare him.

‘People don’t normally have to ask that.’

‘I’m not most people.’

He lets me go and sighs like he’s frustrated. He steps away and tries a different tack. ‘We’ve put half the money in your bank account already. And my employer doesn’t take “no” for an answer.’

‘Well, tough shit, because that’s my answer,’ I say, turning back to scowl at him again.

I look down at the glass on the floor. I’m going to have to clean it up. My cleaner doesn’t come until Thursday.

‘All you have to do is get the guy to sleep with you.’

‘I’m not a prostitute,’ I emphasise to him again.

‘It’s not like that. It’s just a simple honey trap,’ he tells me. He reaches into his pocket and pulls out his phone. He taps away on it, trying to find something to show me. Maybe a photo of the guy.

‘A honey trap? That means you’d want evidence. So you’d want to film it. I’m not a whore and I don’t star in pornos either.’

‘We’ve got cameras set up in his home and office. And it’s not like you haven’t been caught on tape before.’

I frown and then realise there’s a brown paper folder sitting on my table that looks exactly the same as the one I saw in Derek’s office earlier. The evil shit must have given Derek that article with my tits out so he’d break up with me and I’d be free to take on this ‘new job’. And now it makes sense why I didn’t see it coming when he ended things.

‘This is how much is in your bank account right now,’ Jamal tells me, turning his phone towards me.

Somehow he’s logged into my bank account and deposited a figure with an eye-watering number of zeros in there. And that’s half of what I’d get… I guess money really can make you do anything.

‘You’ve gone quiet,’ he acknowledges.

‘This is a joke, right?’ I ask.

There’s no way that anybody would want to give me that much money just to fuck someone else.

‘It’s not a joke. You have to trust me.’

Suddenly he presses his body into mine and kisses me, pushing me back against the fridge again. My head is a mess of vodka, hormones, anger and confusion. Trust him? This must be a joke or a really fucked-up dream.

He breaks away from me. ‘All the details about your new man are in that folder.’ He indicates towards the table with the stupid folder lying closed on top. ‘Sorry about the mess. I’ll see you tomorrow at 8pm, here.’ Then he bends down and picks up the keys on the floor. ‘It looks like I might still need these.’

He leaves and I stare in a perplexed stupor at the closed door.

Tonight’s a mindfuck. I don’t know whether to take on this job. With so much money at stake, it scares me. What if I take it on but can’t get the guy into bed? Would Jamal kill me for failing, or just erase the money from my bank account, as if he’d never asked me to whore myself out?

I turn the latch on the door so he can’t get back in, even with his key. Then I move a heavy cabinet against the door too, just in case. I feel safer, but minutely so.

I walk over to the folder and open it up. Shit.

Staring up at me is a photo of Thomas Matthews. Thomas, who hates being called ‘Tom’ or ‘Tommy’ (he wouldn’t want to sound ‘common’), went to university with me and sat behind me in lectures with his gaggle of white, snobbish friends. Once at a party one of the tossers made a snipe at Amelia for being smart and black and I punched him hard in the face. Amelia hated me for it afterwards. I don’t think Thomas was ever racist though; in fact, I don’t think he was there at the time.

Even at 21, he had the intelligence, ambition and money to sail through life. His father was a Lord or Earl or something, and he came from a wealthy line of upper-class, pedigree fuckwits. Because of his money, he was popular – every guy wanted to count him as a friend and get invited along on his family’s skiing holidays – but he was naïve too. Every so often he liked to rebel from his perfect path in life and get drunk and smoke weed with the guys on the hockey team.

He had a long-term relationship with a girl called Christine: his high-school sweetheart who ended up at the same college as him. His commitment to her showed when he got drunk one night and fucked me outside, up against the wall next to our halls, my skirt hoisted around my waist, legs wrapped around his bucking hips, knickers lost somewhere in a muddy flowerbed. Our heated breath fogged the air until I could just see mine curling up into the starless sky while he sucked on my neck, leaving a purple love bite for me to hide the next day.

It was his first and probably last act of sexual rebellion against the mundane conformity that always loomed over his life. A couple of months later, he proposed to Christine, and I heard that she’d popped out a baby a year after they married. Not that I cared.

I flick through the pages in the folder. He’s still married to Christine; they have two kids and live in an unreasonably expensive Victorian house in London. He’s trying to walk in his father’s footsteps and enter politics. Backing traditional policies, of course. Currently he’s junior partner at some management consultancy firm, whatever the fuck that means. A bit like Jamal saying that he’s a ‘consultant’: they make up these jobs for posh pricks.

Tall and lean, Thomas’ dark hair curls to the top of his ears in his PR photo. He has brown eyes and looks similar to Mark, but there’s something in him that makes him seem different, not as charming as Amelia’s boss. Too much money and not enough independence can give men that look. I wonder if he was ever allowed to be a child when he was growing up. I remember his laugh seemed sad.

Usually I find it easy to persuade men to do what I want (it’s what they want too and it’s not difficult to make them want sex). But I’m not so sure when it comes to Thomas. He doesn’t look like the guy I used to know: now he has some kind of darkness behind his eyes.

I wonder how Jamal discovered that I’d fucked Thomas before. And whether Thomas still remembers that night. Then I wonder whether there are any cameras hidden in my apartment too, and if so, how long they’ve been there.

I sigh, not really giving a shit. I’m not scouring my apartment this late at night. And I can’t be bothered to clean up the broken glass in my kitchen either.

I pull out a pre-roll and my lighter from a drawer. My emergency stash. I head over to the window and open it up, perching on the sill. Then I light up and take a deep drag. The weed should calm me down and make me forget about this stupid night. Then again, my thoughts begin to wander and I contemplate what I could buy with all the money that’s sitting in my bank account.