AMBER STEPHENS

Confessions: A Secret Diary

With special thanks to Tom Easton.

Contents

Title Page Dedication Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven More about Mischief Copyright About the Publisher

Chapter One

‘Every now and then you should sleep with someone considerably less attractive than you.’

Shelley looked up at Briony across their cluttered, back-to-back desks. ‘Er … what?’ She hadn’t really been properly listening to her friend twittering on, but sometimes Briony said stuff you just couldn’t let by. ‘Why?’

‘You’ve got to give a little bit back,’ Briony said, flicking over the pages of a magazine. ‘Haven’t you heard about that Random Acts of Kindness movement?’

‘Yes, but that means buying someone a cup of coffee, or helping an old lady across the road,’ Shelley pointed out. ‘Not yanking your pants down at a Star Trek Convention and shouting “Get it here, Scotty!”’

Briony was about to say something else but Shelley held up a hand.

‘What’s up with you?’

‘I’m totally bricking it.’

‘About the announcement?’

‘Of course. How come you’re so chilled?’

Briony shrugged. ‘Que sera, sera.’

Shelley bit her lip. The office was wired tighter than Joan Rivers’ face. A general e-mail had been waiting for all the staff that morning from the Chief Operating Officer of West End Magazines, their parent company, requesting their punctual presence at eleven o’clock for an important announcement about the future of Female Intuition, the magazine Shelley had been working on for nearly four years.

Shelley tucked her unruly brown hair behind her ears and picked up a Styrofoam coffee cup, clutching it in two hands as though she feared it might escape. ‘Do you think Kate’s sick or something? She’s been so quiet lately,’ she said.

‘Don’t be a div, Shell,’ Briony said, rolling her eyes. ‘She ain’t coming back.’

‘Isn’t coming back,’ Shelley corrected. She could never let a grammatical slip go by. She knew it was sad, and was convinced she’d end up alone, with a dozen cats, writing letters to the Guardian admonishing them for typos and punctuation clangers.

‘She’s been given her P45,’ Briony said.

‘You don’t know that,’ Shelley replied.

‘So why is there a padlock on her office door?’

Shelley looked over at the glass office Kate had been in for two and a half decades. The office must have had cutting-edge décor back then, glass and steel everywhere, midnight-blue carpets, pastel vertical blinds, open-brick walls. Female Intuition had been the first London magazine to give computers to all the editors.

Now the décor looked shabby, many of the vertical blinds were lying horizontally amongst the mouse droppings on the faded carpet, and Shelley sometimes wondered if her computer were one of the original ones handed out – it was practically steam-driven.

Shelley sort of knew it must be over, but didn’t want it to be true. Kate Hurley had given Shelley her first job in journalism, straight out of university, or at least her first job writing for magazines, which is not necessarily the same thing. She’d been editor here at Female Intuition for as long as anyone could remember and was legendary in the business.

‘I need a drink, fancy anything from the kitchen?’ Shelley asked.

‘I have a splitting headache,’ Briony replied. ‘Get me a strong coffee would you?’

‘Coffee’s not good for headaches,’ Shelley replied.

‘Who says?’

‘Everyone says. It’s a diuretic, isn’t it?’

‘Don’t give me any of that Scientology crap; get me a double-strength aspirin and a triple espresso.’

Shelley wandered off to the manky little kitchen to get the drinks. She passed Freya Wormwood’s desk on the way back and the Fashion and Lifestyle Editor looked up, catching her eye. Though pretty, and with a figure to die for, Freya made the mistake of going with whatever hairstyle was currently in vogue, regardless of its suitability for her. Freya currently sported an enormous fringe that made her look a little like the Dulux dog.

‘Not nervous are you, Shelley?’ Freya asked in that sly, sardonic voice she used with people she felt threatened by. Other women, to be specific. Shelley glanced at the myriad photos of her perfect boyfriend, Harry, on her desk, so many it looked like a shrine.

‘No,’ she replied, trying not to sound defensive and failing. ‘What would I have to be nervous about?’

Freya looked away, but not before Shelley caught the beginnings of a smirk on her face. Freya was one of those women who claim moral superiority simply because they have a boyfriend when you don’t. Not that anyone in the office had ever been allowed to meet the saintly Harry. Briony suspected he didn’t exist and the photos in the frames had already been there when she bought them. Harry bought me a divine new coat the other day – far too good for work, though. Harry’s whipping me off to Bruges on the weekend, first class on the Eurostar. Harry’s such a sensitive lover, unless I ask him to treat me roughly, that is!

‘Have you heard something?’ Shelley asked, immediately regretting it. If there was something Freya loved even more than Harry, it was knowing something that other people didn’t.

‘I’ve heard a few things, Shelley,’ she said. ‘But I’ve been asked not to share them with anyone else for now.’

Shelley didn’t believe a word of it, and slumped down back at her desk. Briony arched an eyebrow.

‘I wonder who’s going to take over?’ Shelley said. ‘They might close us down altogether.’

‘Oh don’t worry about that,’ Briony said, putting down her magazine, which Shelley couldn’t help but notice was a rival publication with considerably higher circulation. ‘They’ll just get a new editor in who’ll make a big fuss about New Beginnings and a Radical New Focus before changing the logo slightly, adjusting the font size and putting the handbags section on page 240 instead of page 170.’

‘Really?’ Shelley asked hopefully. ‘No redundancies?’

‘Nooooo,’ Briony said, shaking her head vigorously. ‘Apart from firing a couple of columnists, maybe.’

‘Briony!’

‘What?’

‘I’m a columnist!’

Briony paused. ‘Oh, yes. So you are. Oh don’t worry; I think there’s at least two columnists more likely to go than you.’

‘Who?’ Shelley asked, coolly.

‘Oh erm, Robin and, um … um …’ Briony cast her eyes around the open plan office desperately. ‘Erm, and Toni.’

‘Toni left three months ago.’

‘Really? Oh …’

‘Never mind,’ Shelley said, saving her from further embarrassment. ‘Maybe redundancy is exactly what I need. Sometimes one needs a kick up the bum to make one sort one’s life out.’

‘Oh does one?’ Briony asked. ‘What needs to change in your life then?’

Shelley thought it over. She was twenty-five and had only ever had one job. She wasn’t at all sure she was particularly good at being a columnist. How could she have anything important to say to women when she’d never done anything with her life? She’d postponed her gap year until she had some money, and had never got around to going now that she had. She’d never really had a proper long-term boyfriend, unless you counted Rob at university who she went out with for six months before sleeping with him, only to discover the next day that he’d been having a string of affairs, including a quick shag with her best friend in the toilet while Shelley was in the kitchen studying for her Eng Lit exam.

She rarely went out and had no romantic interests, apart from a crush on the fit South African behind the bar at The Crown where they drank after work. In two years she’d ordered fifty-seven bottles of Pinot Grigio from him but never plucked up the courage to ask his name. She was sure she wouldn’t be his type anyway. Antipodeans were used to wildcat lovers with bodies supple as springboks, according to Briony’s magazine. Shelley was as timid as a springbok and the only thing wild about her was her tousled, shoulder-length hair.

‘You just need a good shag,’ Briony said, interrupting the reverie. ‘You need to be fucked till you fart.’

Shelley went bright red. ‘Briony!’ she hissed.

‘You’re hung up on sex. You need to face your fears.’

‘I don’t have a hang-up about sex,’ Shelley said, primly.

‘Sure,’ Briony said. ‘Have you ever thought about therapy?’

Shelley looked up at her friend sharply. ‘Read my lips, Briony. I. Do. Not. Need. Therapy! We’ve had this before.’

‘Mmm, touched a raw nerve I think,’ Briony said, tight-lipped.

She would have gone on but was interrupted by the arrival of Sonia Bailey. The Chief Operating Officer came bustling in, exuding a no-nonsense, bottom-line kind of attitude.

Bailey was the sort of person, and Shelley suspected there was one in every large organisation, who was never happier than when delivering really bad news, and her heart sank as she saw a glint of joy in the COO’s eye. Cutting out ‘dead wood’ and hiving off unsuccessful parts of the business were what she excelled in, having little knowledge of the actual business of publishing magazines. Briony claimed she got off on it and could only gain sexual satisfaction when she was firing people.

Bailey cleared her throat to get the room’s attention, which was unnecessary as everyone was waiting, hearts in mouths, wondering if they’d have time to gather the photos off their desks before being shown to the lifts. Shelley had looked up the employment terms last week when the latest circulation figures had come through. ‘One week’s pay for every year I’ve worked here, plus one month’s notice period, plus unused holiday …’

‘Now people,’ Bailey began, ‘I have some bad news. Kate Hurley has taken early retirement with immediate effect. The Board of West End Magazines were saddened to hear of this …’

Briony snorted, then fought to disguise it as a cough.

‘… but we have accepted her decision. Kate’s contribution to this magazine and to West End has been immense over the last 25 years and she will be sorely missed, but …’ and at this Bailey’s eyes narrowed ‘… it has been evident for some time that Female Intuition has been haemorrhaging readers and making a net loss for the Group which is deepening month on month, year on year.’

As she spoke, Shelley noticed Bailey’s breath getting heavier. She was almost panting now.

‘From a height of nearly one million in 1986, the circulation has dropped to less than seventy thousand, and many of those are giveaways. People just don’t know what the magazine is trying to do anymore. It has lost focus and the numbers don’t add up.’

She took a deep breath, taking her time, cheeks slightly flushed.

‘This magazine has become no longer sustainable and the Group can no longer support it.’ Her eyes were nearly closed as she reached the climax of her speech. ‘And so it has been decided that …’ but at this point she paused and came back from the brink. When she opened her eyes, Shelley saw with interest that the glint was suddenly gone. Bailey looked disappointed. Deflated. This is the part of the speech she hadn’t wanted to make.

‘… the magazine will be re-branded, with a radical new focus.’ Briony gave a flourish and a bow in Shelley’s direction. ‘Female Intuition will be given one last chance to re-invent itself.’

Bailey picked up a phone on the desk next to her, dialled and spoke. ‘Could you come down now please?’ she asked and returned the receiver. ‘We’re going to discuss the new direction of the magazine. I wish you all the best and know you can make this work.’

Bailey made a gesture with her hand.

‘Was that a fist pump?’ hissed Briony.

There followed a couple of minutes of awkward silence, then the door opened and in walked Aidan Carter. Shelley frowned. Aidan was the Marketing Director for the Group.

Only fair to consult on the new direction, I suppose.

Not that she was disappointed. Aidan was easy on the eye and so, well … big. The way he carried himself made him seem even taller then he was, and he must have been 6′ 3′′. Carter was notorious for his brash management style and forceful opinions and had apparently had several stand-up rows with other board members, at the actual conference table. He was the sort of man who, when he came storming into a room, eyes flashing, you both feared and at the same time secretly hoped he was coming for you.

Shelley watched as he walked over to Sonia, confident and long-limbed. Freya just happened to be in his way and simpered sweetly at him as she moved aside. Carter took the COO’s proffered hand and clasped it in both of his.

Briony kicked Shelley under the desk, trying to get her eye but Shelley ignored her. Briony had been convinced Aidan fancied Shelley ever since the Group Christmas party last year. She had tried to explain that just because someone dances with you didn’t mean he fancied you. ‘He’s just about the only decent prospect in a company made up of eighty per cent women and could have his pick of the ladies. He was only being polite in trying to dance with as many women as he could. He did the “Macarena” with Sonia Bailey for God’s sake,’ Shelley had pointed out.

‘So why did he come back later to dance with you again?’ Briony asked, knowingly. ‘When “Careless Whisper” was on?’

Shelley had just blushed and got on with her work, not wanting to think about it.

Now Aidan stood tall, next to the tiny Bailey who, Shelley couldn’t help noticing, sneaked a look at his crotch, to her at eye-level. She spoke again.

‘Ladies … and err gentlemen,’ peering over at the post-room boys, the only other males on the floor. ‘You probably all know Aidan Carter, Group Marketing Director. Aidan has taken a keen interest in the fortunes of Female Intuition over the past few months, and has personally determined to turn this magazine around. I give you your new Editor-in-Chief, Aidan Carter.’

A set of gasps escaped around the room like timed pistons. Aidan had no experience as an editor, he was abrasive and demanding, he already had another job and worst of all …

He was a man.

‘Thank you, Sonia,’ Aidan began, putting a hand on one hip, which had the effect of brushing his suit jacket open and offering a glimpse of his chest muscles through an ever-so-slightly too tight shirt. Another chorus of appreciative breaths.

‘Firstly a couple of words about Kate Hurley,’ Aidan began. ‘A hero of mine. One of this country’s finest journalists, and a pioneering feminist. She had a mind like a razor, a heart like a lion, and balls of steel. She will be missed.’

Though unsure about the third simile, Shelley found herself muttering ‘hear, hear’ along with everyone else.

‘Do you know? My mother used to read this magazine,’ Aidan continued, lifting the latest issue and waving it at the team aggressively. ‘She loved it. This magazine helped her through some difficult times.’ Freya nodded sympathetically and put her head to one side, blinking those doe eyes. Bailey nodded sagely.

Aidan walked over to the windows and everyone swivelled to follow. ‘She read this magazine in hospital when she had breast cancer,’ he continued, gazing meditatively out over North London. ‘She read this magazine at home after my father left her. She read this magazine in the nursing home as she watched over her own mother dying.’

He turned back to face the group, hands at his sides, his face simultaneously full of loss and warmth. Shelley felt a little funny, and squeezed her legs together and glanced around the room. Even Briony was staring at Carter, mouth open. Freya looked like she was about to have an orgasm.

‘Unfortunately my mother doesn’t read this magazine anymore,’ he said. ‘Do you want to know why?’

Briony hissed and mouthed ‘Dead?’. Shelley frowned back in distaste.

‘She thinks it’s too boring,’ Aiden said.

Grumbling and shaking of heads.

‘Things have changed. My mother has changed. The world has changed. She wants more from her magazines these days. More stories about having fun and not so many about illness, more stories about love and not so many about heartbreak, more stories about life and less about death.’

‘Fewer,’ Shelley said automatically.

‘What’s that?’ he said.

‘F-fewer stories about death,’ Shelley stammered. ‘Not less stories about death.’ Why had she said that? Was she to get herself fired just as the magazine was being saved?

He stared at her hard, a strange look on his face, then he snapped out of his trance and walked off towards the window again. His square-jawed, brooding face shadowed before the May sunlight pouring in.

‘My mother is tired of sickness, sadness and saying goodbye,’ he continued. ‘That was the past. People choose life these days. People choose … happiness … and people choose sex.’

He spun for the finale.

‘Ladies and gentlemen, let me introduce you to your new magazine.’ And with that he stepped over to an old ad board lying against the wall and flipped it to reveal a blown-up magazine cover.

Briony had been wrong. The new editor wasn’t just going to faff about with fonts and page orders. He’d changed everything, including the name.

The cover was an almost naked Mimi Corvair, the model recently dropped by most of her sponsors when she was filmed having a coke-snorting threesome with the boyfriends of two other models. Her days as a cover-girl had been declared well and truly over, and now she was relegated to the name-and-shame pages only. The lads’ mags still wanted her, but for what her agent considered the wrong reasons.

If Aidan wanted her on the cover it meant he was trying to make a mark. He was trying to kill Female Intuition and get the revamped mag back in the press. That was shocking enough.

But it was the new title that hit Shelley hardest.

In hot pink, and crowding the raunchy image beneath with huge letters was the new, bold title.

VIXEN.

Aidan paused for a moment, and then continued: ‘I can’t let this magazine die, I owe it to West End, I owe it to you and I owe it to my mother.’

A solitary clapping from Bailey was taken up by the rest of the room, and soon even the post boys were joining in.

But Shelley reckoned she wasn’t the only one who was totally terrified. If sex was the new direction this magazine was taking, then she wasn’t at all sure it was the right place for her. Sex wasn’t really her thing. She’d only done it a few times, and if we were talking, y’know, proper sex, she’d only done it with two different men.

As they stood and applauded, she wasn’t thinking about the future of the magazine, or the fresh opportunities she was being presented with.

She was trying to remember if she’d even had any actual sex at all in the last year.

Chapter Two

Briony and Shelley went to Dino’s for lunch, like they always did. Shelley toyed with a salad while they talked about the events of the morning. Aidan had told them that after lunch he was going to speak to each of them individually and define their new roles. Dishy as he was, Aidan was still management, and he used lots of phrases like ‘going forward’ as in, ‘We’ll roll out these new synergies, going forward,’ or, ‘We’ll revise our budgets quarterly, going forward’. The editor in Shelley wanted to point out that you could hardly do these things going backward.

‘Do you fancy him?’ Briony asked.

‘Do you?’ Shelley replied.

‘Yes, of course. The question is, do you?’

‘Why is that the question?’

‘Because Aidan’s obviously not interested in me, he’s interested in you.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ Shelley said. ‘If he looked at anyone today, it was Freya.’

Briony snorted, ‘Only because she hung off him and kept getting in his way. Aidan Carter wouldn’t go for a girl like her anyway.’

She chased a troublesome cherry tomato around her plate with a fork as she spoke.

‘Why not?’ Shelley asked, intrigued.

Briony speared the tomato savagely, splattering juice over the plate. Then she looked up and eyed Shelley mischievously.

‘Because he’s the kind of man who likes a challenge.’

Shelley shivered.

‘So I suppose that’s why he wouldn’t be interested in you,’ was the best comeback she could manage.

Briony laughed. ‘Yes, I suppose so. So what are you going to do about it?’

‘Nothing,’ Shelley replied, pouring herself more Diet Coke to avoid having to look at Briony’s smirk. ‘Anyway, how do you know so much about Aidan?’

‘I’ve been looking at his CV.’

‘What?’

‘Don’t play the innocent, I know you googled him after the Christmas party.’

‘Don’t be disgusting!’ Shelley snapped. ‘I did not!’

Briony sighed and rolled her eyes. ‘I mean you looked him up on Google.’

‘Oh … yes. Yes, I did,’ Shelley agreed. ‘I thought googling meant something else in that context.’

Briony looked puzzled for a moment.

‘People these days like to write about themselves on social networking sites, you know, like Facebook or MySpace. If you want to know about someone, you just look them up. Aidan Carter’s MySpace page is very revealing.’

‘Really? What does it say?’

‘It says he’s single and looking for love. His ideal woman is his intellectual equal, someone who gives as good as she gets, in the office and the bedroom.’

Shelley wilted.

‘Well that’s me out then,’ she said.

‘You’re not his equal in the office?’ Briony asked, smirking.

‘I meant the bedroom,’ Shelley replied.

‘Nonsense,’ Briony said. ‘You’re just out of practice.’

‘Fat chance of getting any of that in the near future, the hours I’m working,’ Shelley said.

‘You’re making excuses. Your problem is that you don’t put yourself out there enough, you never go out these days, you’ve had three dates in the last two years … how many times have you had sex in the last year?’

‘I had sex at my birthday party,’ Shelley retorted a bit loudly, drawing interested looks from the neighbouring tables. ‘With that accountant,’ she went on, in a hushed tone.

Briony went back to smiling. ‘So that was a fumble in the cloakroom at Jerusalem, with a spod, two days after your 25th birthday, and when was the time before that?’

Shelley had to think hard. Then it hit her. ‘It was at my 24th birthday party. With the guy from the video store.’

‘Which was a week before your actual birthday,’ Briony said. ‘So that means …’

‘I didn’t have sex once during my entire 25th year,’ Shelley completed, now thoroughly miserable.

As a coup-de-grace, Briony whipped out her magazine, already open at an article titled ‘Women’s sexual peak now at 25’.

‘That’s not true!’ Shelley cried. ‘Everyone knows it’s 40 for women. I was looking forward to it.’

Briony shrugged. ‘Sorry, Bird. Scientists are never wrong about these things.’

Shelley took a mouthful of lettuce and munched thoughtfully. It wasn’t that she didn’t like the idea of sex, it was just that … well, just she had never been any good at it. As soon as she got naked with someone, she just froze up. She’d read all the magazines. She had a collection of steamy novels and she even had some videos. She knew the theory, but that almost made it worse, she knew the things she was supposed to be doing, and the fact she wasn’t doing them preyed on her mind and caused her to seize up even more. All she could think about was how awful the man must be finding it. There had even been times back at university where men had made excuses and left without finishing. Even back then Shelley had known that for a man not to finish was a pretty big deal.

Briony interrupted her thoughts. ‘So what about Gavin?’

Shelley stared at her, outraged. Realisation crept in.

‘So that’s what this is all about? You still want me to go out with Gavin?’

‘Actually, Shelley, I want you to stay in with Gavin and fuck him till his cock breaks off.’

Gavin was Briony’s ex-boyfriend’s best mate. Shelley had been introduced to him at a party. She suspected that, being slightly geeky herself, she was paired off with him in the way that one might pair off the only two estate agents at a magazine launch. They’d better fancy each other cos there’s no-one else. Shelley had fumed. Didn’t they appreciate there is a geek hierarchy? Shelley was slightly geeky, Gavin on the other hand was an ubergeek. He looked the sort of person who’d designed and built a robot to cut his hair. And he was positively chubby; not that looks were everything. Gavin spent the evening following her about talking about Manga, which, as far as Shelley was concerned, were misogynistic Japanese comic books with terrible punctuation.

Briony had apparently told him that Shelley was single and a real Manga fan.

‘Why did you tell him that?’ Shelley hissed at her while Gavin was off on one of his regular toilet breaks.

‘I didn’t know Manga was comics,’ Briony had said in self-defence.

‘What did you think it was?’

‘I thought Manga was a Spanish film director,’ Briony replied sheepishly. ‘You’re into that kind of thing, aren’t you?’

To make matters worse, Briony had given Gavin Shelley’s phone number and told him to call her to arrange a date. Shelley and Briony had had a falling out over this that involved ashtrays being thrown and the subject was still raw.

Briony went on. ‘I sort of told him you might like to see him tonight.’

‘You did what?!’

‘Well you told me you weren’t busy. He said he had tickets to the Abba thing, you like musicals …’

‘I don’t like musicals.’

‘Course you do, you’re always off down to Theatre Land.’

‘Yes, to the theatre, I like going to the theatre. Do you ever actually listen to what I say?’

‘Theatre, musicals, same thing. Anyway, I thought that since you can’t seem to get your act into gear then I’d have to do it for you. I’m going to make sure you get some sex soon, and I’m not fussy about who you do it with.’

The man at the next table was definitely interested now. He kept trying to catch Shelley’s eye. She shook her head in disbelief. ‘Honestly Briony, you’re a good mate and you’ve always stood by me, and I know you’re trying to help, but not Gavin. There’s just no way. Sorry.’

‘Look, he fancies you. What more do you want? How many other men have asked you out lately?’

‘Oh God,’ Shelley groaned, head in hands. ‘You know you’re a minger when only other mingers ask you out.’

‘You’re not a minger, Shell,’ Briony said. ‘You’re actually very pretty and you know it, but you need to start off on mingers until you get your groove back, then you can play with the big boys again. You know, work your way up through the grades.’

‘You sound like a boxing coach.’

‘That’s how you should think of me. I’m your coach, I know what’s good for you and I’m going to make sure Gavin gets into your ring.’

‘Oh you’re vile, Briony. Stop it.’

‘It’s not as if he’s an axe-murderer,’ Briony pleaded. ‘We know him.’

‘Yes we know him,’ Shelley hissed, ‘and may I just remind you that it was only a couple of weeks ago that you yourself referred to Gavin as a “cartoon-reading salad-dodger”. Now let’s drop it.’

‘Okay,’ Briony said grabbing her bag. ‘Let’s pop to the pub after work, you can see if you feel the same way after a couple of bottles.’

‘I’d feel the same way after emptying Oliver Reed’s drinks cabinet,’ Shelley said as she marched past Briony and out the door.

After lunch, they were too nervous to do any work. Shelley didn’t see much point in continuing with her column – ‘Noughties Loving’ – if everything was going to be changed around. And as far as she knew, she might end up getting the sack after all, especially after correcting Aidan’s grammar during his grand speech.

Aidan had posted up a schedule on the notice board giving everyone a 15-minute slot for an individual meeting in his office. Shelley was about half-way down, just after Freya who in turn was straight after Briony. She and Briony sat and watched as people filed in nervously and came again a quarter-hour later, some looking happy, some looking glum but most just looking gob-smacked. Stella Stargazer, who did the horoscopes (real name Moira something), stormed back out to her desk, packed up her things in a cardboard box and stomped straight out muttering ‘disgusting’ under her breath every few seconds.

Shelley looked on wide-eyed.

‘She didn’t predict that,’ Freya reflected as she passed, then giggled at her own joke. Shelley watched her go.

‘What a cow!’ she muttered. ‘And why is she so confident?’

Maybe Freya did know something.

‘You know what else I read about him on MySpace?’ Briony said, out of the blue.

‘What’s that?’

‘He has a back, sack and crack done every three months.’

‘What!’ Shelley spat. ‘He wrote that on MySpace?’

‘Well, as good as. His blog said he visited Jen’s Unisex Hair removal salon last week for his quarterly treatment.’

‘That’s not necessarily to have his … ball-hair torn out,’ Shelley protested.

‘What else would he go for? His nostril hair?’

‘Why would someone write that on a blog? Is there no personal space anymore?’

‘Not everyone is as prudish as you, Shell, Aidan has over two hundred friends on his space, he can’t possibly keep up with all of them all of the time, so he writes a blog letting everyone know what he’s up to. Anyway, the reason he mentioned the trip to the salon was to recount an amusing anecdote about what happened while he was there. I don’t think he’s one of those losers who keep a meticulous log of his every waking move.’

Shelley wasn’t really listening though, she was thinking about Aidan’s sleek, well-muscled back, his rock-hard, hairless buttocks, and two shiny-smooth …

‘Bollocks!’ someone shouted from Aidan’s office, which happened to be situated right behind Shelley. Then the door was flung open and Maya, one of the subeditors, marched out. Then she turned around and shouted back through the open door. ‘It’s all bollocks, Aiden Carter, and I’m not having it!’

She followed Stella Stargazer down the stairs.

The other subs went back to checking copy. It was Briony’s turn next; Aidan popped out before she went in and said:

‘I’d love a coffee, anyone else want one?’

The room went as quiet as a library. No editor had ever made even their own coffee, let alone made one for someone else. No one replied except Briony.

‘Yes. I would, thanks. White with three,’ she said.

‘Righto,’ Aidan said cheerfully and disappeared into the kitchen.

Shelley looked at her quizzically. ‘You already have a coffee,’ she pointed out.

‘I know. I want to see how well made his coffee is. Is he just trying to create a good impression by offering to make a cup? Is this the first cup he’s ever made? Or does he make a habit of it? If it’s shit, we’ll know he’s a fraud. If it’s good, we know we can trust him.’

Almost without thinking Shelley answered. ‘I trust him.’

Shelley surfed the net absently while she waited for Freya’s interview to be finished. Briony had come out of Aidan’s office looking thoughtful, but told Shelley she wanted to think things over before talking much about it. All she’d say was that Aidan had presented her with a challenge, an assignment tougher than anything she’d done before.

‘We’ll talk about it tonight, yeah?’ Briony said absently, checking her phone for messages. This of course made Shelley even more nervous and she tried to do some work to take her mind off it.

She was half-heartedly researching an idea she’d had for her column, which she was sure would never see the light of day again, at least not in its current form, but she needed to do something. Her column was supposedly about twenty-something singletons looking for love in the big city, but she was no Carrie Bradshaw and sometimes wondered if she should rename the column ‘Sad in the City’. For the past three issues she’d written pretty much the same column, how difficult it was to meet a man who wasn’t gay, hygienically-challenged, socially inept or carrying more baggage than a kleptomaniac Sherpa. She needed something new.

She had an idea to write about the new craze supposedly sweeping the singles bars – Nude Speed Dating. The reasoning was this: why go through all the trouble of spending five minutes finding the right life partner, only to find when you got them into bed that they had an unpleasant mole somewhere intimate? Or that the blonde hair came out of a bottle? It’s the future after all, who has that kind of time?

Shelley clicked on the site of one of the companies that organised the evenings and waited for the page to load up on the crappy old Mac, only to be greeted by a full-screen, hi-res image of the naked torsos of a man and a woman, each holding a drink. Shelley stared in horror at the well-toned bodies, the woman’s perky breasts and the man’s only partially flaccid penis. She stabbed with the cursor to close the image, but the computer was old, and had to think a while before attempting to perform the simplest tasks.

The door to Aidan’s office opened behind her and Shelley turned, feeling her face turn crimson. Aidan stepped out first and turned to wait for Freya to emerge, glancing curiously at Shelley’s monitor as he did so. Freya came out afterwards, beaming and shook Aidan’s hand warmly.

‘Thanks so much, Aidan,’ she said ingratiatingly, ‘I really appreciate this opportunity.’ She walked back to her desk, swinging her hips and looking very much like the cat that’d got the cream.

‘I hate her,’ Briony whispered. Shelley nodded.

‘Come on then Shelley, let’s be having you,’ Aidan said. Briony snorted as she walked into Aidan’s new office and the door closed behind her.

‘Now we have met before, haven’t we?’ Aidan said as he ushered Shelley into a comfy chair.

‘You held the lift for me yesterday,’ she replied. ‘Such a gentleman.’

Oh God, she thought, who do I think I am, Elizabeth Bennett?

Aidan smiled, then immediately frowned, ‘Yes, but I’m sure we met before that, properly …?’

‘Yes,’ Shelley confirmed, ‘at the …’ and she blushed again. What was wrong with her? ‘… at the Christmas party last year.’

‘Yes of course,’ Aidan said beaming, ‘“Macarena”, wasn’t it?’

‘I … no. That was …’ she said.

‘Good,’ he said, looking down at the sheaf of papers in front of him. ‘Now, I’m going to cut to the chase here, we don’t have much time. Your column, though well-written and very funny, is not going to be suitable for the new look of the magazine.’

Shelley was disappointed, even though she’d been expecting this. She’d half-hoped Aidan would say something like ‘Yours is the only bit I’m not going to change – it’s brilliant!’

‘Instead,’ Aidan went on. ‘I’d like you to do more investigative work. There’s no point having you stuck in the office writing … well, what you have been writing. I want you out there on the streets, undercover, getting me some grade-A hot stories.’

Could it be true? Could Aidan really want her to do hard-hitting investigative reporting? This is what she became a journalist for. This is what she’d dreamed of as a girl, and throughout university. She imagined herself hanging around the bars in Westminster looking for ministers willing to speak off the record, or blagging her way into the retinue of a gangsta rapper crime lord in South London.

‘I’ve already arranged your first undercover role,’ said Aiden.

Shelley sat forward in her chair.

‘It’s a lot of work. I’ll want a few thousand words a day.’

Shelley raised her eyebrows, but nodded. She could do that, she could do anything.

‘There’d be a bonus in it if you deliver,’ Aidan went on.

Shelley tried not to think in terms of bottles of The Crown’s finest dry white. ‘A few thousand words on what?’ she asked.

He sat back in his chair, grinned broadly.

‘The Secret Diary of a Sex Addict!’

A lengthy pause followed. The tick-tock of Kate Hurley’s ancient clock counted the treacherous seconds away as Shelley stared at her boss.

This couldn’t be right. ‘I’m sorry, I think I misheard you,’ she said. ‘You said Secret Diary of a … What Addict?’

‘SexAddict,’ Aidan repeated, gazing back at her steadily.

Shelley was floored. She’d been hoping to move away from love-soaked frippery and gossip; she desperately wanted to do hard-nosed, real journalism. Instead Aidan seemed determined to take her backwards. How could she, of all people, write a column from the point of view of a sex addict?

‘I need you to pretend to be addicted to sex.’ Aidan said, leafing through some pages on his desk. ‘We’ll come up with some convincing story for you. You can join a group, I already have most of this arranged, by the way. You’ll take a week to put together some stories. Feed them through and I’ll put them up on the blog site, when the next issue comes out we’ll run the best. We want them sexy, you understand? We want details.’

Shelley’s head spun. Was Aidan testing her? Or was he hoping to get rid of her? Did he want another walk of shame? Should she follow Stargazer and Maya the Sub down to Benny’s wine bar to drown her sorrows and draft her resignation?

Aidan didn’t speak.

No, she couldn’t bear the thought of walking out now. She wouldn’t let smug Freya have the satisfaction, for a start. They’d given her a challenge they thought she’d fail, because they thought she was weak. But she wasn’t weak. She was a tough journalist, she could handle any assignment.

Even sex ?

‘I’ll do it,’ she said, firmly.

‘Great,’ he said looking down at his papers again. ‘The course starts on Monday but you have to be at the centre on Sunday for orientation. Take a BlackBerry, you’ll need to smuggle it in. You’re to use the BlackBerry to e-mail your copy in and to communicate with us if necessary, but only by e-mail please. The IT department tell me they’re bound to notice if someone starts using a phone, but they’re unlikely to monitor wireless e-mail communications.’

‘You make it sound like I’m infiltrating the Kremlin,’ Shelley protested.

‘The centre’s clients are strictly forbidden to contact the outside world, Shelley,’ Aidan said, earnestly. ‘They’re very clear about that. They will be watching you closely and if they catch you they’ll throw you off the course, we’ll lose the story and a lot of money.’

What Aidan left unspoken was what exactly might happen to Shelley’s job if this happened.

‘Thanks for your time, Shelley,’ Aidan said, signalling the end of the interview.

She left the office feeling about as confused as she’d ever been in 25 extremely confusing years.

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