I want all the apparatus in plastic. I want a glitter-filled IV bag wheeled in on a hot pink trolley. I want a hospital gown trimmed with satin bows and a diamond-studded cannula slotted into my vein. Lurex stitches. Powderpuff swabs. Candy-scented anaesthetic to knock me out, send me off to sweet vacuity. But before I can take a drag, in walks Ken, all heart-eyes and cold hands. No small talk. He picks up a tool, shows me its glinting tip. I know I’m supposed to like its sheen, but all I can see is the face trapped in its silver, warped to its shaft.

I know what he wants and I know not to ask. I learned to play patient a long time ago. I know what to do and I do as I’m told, lay back, heels still on, open my thighs. They don’t go as wide as Ken wants. He says he’s never seen parts this tight. Says I’m tensing. I can only smile and turn my head as he sticks it in me and I don’t feel a thing and I look at the pictures pinned on the wall of cut-out body parts, bodies no legs, bodies no heads bodies with livid organs packed in tight and this isn’t me, this isn’t inside of me. I take a deep breath, try to remember I’m seamless, picture my plastic-perfect sides, concealing nothing.

Only when he’s finished it comes – shards of glitter, a whole smashed up mirror ball in reds and pinks, pours out of me onto the floor.