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my desk. ‘Do you do much sport?’
    ‘Football sometimes,’ he said. ‘Walking, does that count?’
    ‘Depends how fast you walk. I think it would be a good idea to tape your back.’
    ‘Tape it?’
    ‘Sit up straight, shoulders here.’
    I positioned myself behind the chair, rested my hands lightly on his shoulders and pulled them backwards, so he was in the correct posture. ‘We aren’t designed to sit, I’m sure the occupational therapist has told you. We’re designed to lie down, stand and squat, that’s it. Sitting isn’t natural and if you slump like you do… I’ve checked your neck and your shoulder girdle; now I want to take a look at your joints. Would you raise your arms please?’
    I get sleepy in the afternoons if my office is warm so I always keep it a little too cold for patients. He had goose pimples on his upper arms. His biceps were taut – he must have weight- trained at some stage.
    ‘How’s my posture generally?’
    ‘Terrible, but that’s common with tall people. I’m going to check your soft tissue.’
    He had a lot of fine dark hairs across his shoulders and back. They were quite curly, which surprised me because the hair on his head was almost straight. There was a substantial scattering of white amongst the black: a premonition, as it turned out. He was to go grey not long after Betty was born. ‘Okay, you can put your shirt back on now.’
    He looked at me as I went back behind my desk and picked up my biro. ‘I thought you were going to tape my back.’
    I looked back at him as he picked up his shirt from the back of the chair and pushed his arms into the sleeves, shrugging it on to his shoulders. ‘You’re very hairy,’ I said.
    ‘Thank you,’ he replied with a smile.
    I smiled back. ‘It wasn’t a compliment, Mr Needham, it was an observation. Before I can tape you, I need you to go home and shave. I can tape your shoulder blades in place and it will improve your posture, but it’s sticky tape. When you take it off, it will be like ripping a plaster off.’
    He pulled a face. ‘How much of this tape do you put on?’
    I stood up again, slowly this time, and walked around the desk that stood between us. He stared at me, not yet the hot- eyed stare but something that was moving towards it, something that was observing me. I walked toward him. He was silent. I stood behind his chair, and paused for a moment. Then I lifted my hands and placed them lightly on his shoulders – very lightly. He had stopped buttoning his shirt mid-way and was quite still. It was an office shirt, a blue one, short-sleeved, the optimistic remnant of a summer wardrobe. Even though I had already touched his naked torso, there was something about the firmness of his shoulders through his clothing that was almost unbearably arousing. I loved his shoulders, not too broad, but sinewy. For a man who claimed not to exercise there wasn’t an ounce of fat on him. I rested my hands there for a minute, then let them dribble down his shoulder blades, fingers splayed, as if they were two cascades of water. ‘I place two strips here, going from top to bottom of your shoulders, like bra straps…’ I paused. He didn’t move or speak. I wanted him to turn around in his chair, put his arms tight around my waist and bury his face in my stomach – no, more, I wanted him to push me back on to the examination table and raise my skirt. My God, I thought, I’m sexually harassing a patient. ‘Then I take another piece, and get you to sit upright, in a good posture, and I place it horizontally across here.’ I drew a line from one imaginary strap to the other with the tip of my finger.
    ‘Will this involve my nipples at all?’ he asked quietly.
    Phew, I thought. Now – technically speaking – he is sexually harassing me.
    ‘Your nipples are quite safe,’ I said quietly. I paused, removed my hands from his back, then walked back behind my desk.
    He watched me but didn’t speak. I sat and made a note on