Eunice Tiptree loved bald-headed men. Like this one, who always sat opposite her in between the phallus-shaped armrests of the Bakerloo line. Full attention on his book. Always on time.

Her therapist blamed her parents (yawn). But Eunice knew her obsession was sprouted in cress. Those broken, beige, freckled eggshells on narrow school shelves: cotton wool innards and forced smiles, scratched on with red felt-tip pens. Snip. Snip. Her days of devotion would invariably end in egg and cress sandwiches cut into squares – never triangles – always squares.

Eunice leant forward, pretending to stretch her back, hoping to see what the man was reading. Nevermind. That didn’t matter. She had three more stops to gaze at his beautiful smooth head. It was perfection. Natural. Not shaved. With a fringe like a Laura Ashley valance on a seaside hotel double bed.

Lovely.