Sophie woke up late—although, considering it was the same time she’d been waking for months, one could argue it was perfectly on time.

The trade-off for those extra thirty minutes of sleep was a faster, more frantic morning. She still did everything she needed to do—just quicker, and with less grace.

First came the coffee. Always. The first cup of the day was sacred, untouchable, non-negotiable. When she’d once considered trimming her morning routine to buy more time in bed, the coffee remained. It was the immovable cornerstone.

 As the kettle began its slow boil, she distracted herself by opening Twitter. Most mornings there were only a handful of notifications—likes from close friends, maybe a meme or two.

 But last night she had done something impulsively silly.

She posted a selfie.

It wasn’t meant to be anything dramatic. She just felt good—happy, even. And rather than try to explain that happiness in 280 characters, she thought a photo would do the job better. Look… there’s me… smiling.

At first, the responses matched her mood: friendly, warm, complimentary. Her small corner of the internet cheered her on.

But the glow faded quickly.

Beneath the surface-level praise, something else stirred: comments of another kind. Hungrier. Slimier. She tried to ignore them, but silence was interpreted as rejection—and rejection needed punishment.

One user, feeling snubbed, eloquently responded by calling her a “thirsty teasing bitch.”

Sophie blinked at the word thirsty just as her kettle continued to boil, stubborn and slow. She tutted at it, as though scolding the appliance might make it boil faster next time—a pointless gesture, but somehow satisfying.

She returned to her phone. Her DMs were full.

Some were polite—just a scattering of “Hi”s from men who didn’t know what else to say. Others were more ambitious.

A handful had taken her fully clothed selfie as an open invitation to become low-budget D.H. Lawrences, attempting seduction with recycled erotica and badly punctuated fantasies.

Then came the more direct offerings.

“I want to fuck you,” read one message. It was followed by a helpful clarification: “With this.” A photo arrived. A penis framed awkwardly next to a drinks can for scale.

A still life in desperation.

It wasn’t exactly what Sophie wanted to see first thing in the morning—especially not before coffee and certainly not on an empty stomach.

She stared at the image for a moment, not out of curiosity but confusion. What was he hoping to achieve?

Did he imagine that this sad, lolling bit of flesh—limp and resting mournfully against a can of Monster—would stir something primal in her? That she’d suddenly be overcome with lust, abandon all plans, and send him a breathless reply:

“Well, I was going to have a busy day at work, but seeing that your cock nearly reaches halfway up a drinks can, I’ve called in sick and want you here now, big boy.”

With her coffee finally made, Sophie sat down and turned on the TV. The morning news show was already mid-broadcast, but it hardly mattered—she didn’t watch it for content. It was background noise. If anything important had happened, she would’ve seen it dissected, ridiculed, and reposted on Twitter by now.

As the screen flickered into life, she caught the end of a local news bulletin: another woman attacked near the park. A jogger. No further details. The presenter’s tone was brisk, almost bored.

But then the broadcast shifted.

Something far more serious had happened overnight: someone had painted “See Me Now?” in pink letters across Churchill’s statue. The presenter, now visibly flushed with outrage, spent the next twenty minutes furiously condemning the act—as if the statue itself had been stabbed.

A guest was brought on to amplify the fury. Middle-aged. Confident. Possibly a politician, though Sophie had never seen him in Parliament. He seemed to exist exclusively on breakfast television, always furious about something: statues, free speech, the decline of British values.

Today he was incandescent.

He insisted that history was being erased, tradition desecrated, and—just for good measure—suggested it was probably immigrants who’d done it.

Sophie muted the TV and opened Twitter. She searched for updates about the jogger instead.

She clip-clopped her way to the tube station, heels striking the pavement in short, purposeful bursts. She slowed slightly as she passed the park—the one from the news. A few extra police officers stood around looking vaguely alert, but everything else looked exactly the same.

Sophie ducked into the station and grabbed a copy of the Metro from the stand. She wouldn’t have a chance to read it; there’d barely be room to breathe, let alone turn pages. Still, it felt like a small gesture of preparedness.

She glanced at the front page. It led with the statue story—OUTRAGE OVER DEFACED HERO—complete with a glossy photo of Churchill now dressed in protest pink. Inside, she imagined there might be a small, cropped column about the jogger. Page four, if lucky.

The platform was already heaving thanks to an earlier signal failure. Trains arrived full and left fuller. When one finally arrived with just enough room to squeeze in, Sophie joined the tide of bodies and found herself jammed against a pole.

She only had a few stops to go. She’d done this before—sardine commuting was part of London life. She shifted her weight, adjusted her bag.

Then she felt it: the soft, rhythmic pressure of a man’s groin pressing against her.

Maybe he felt awkward too. Maybe it was innocent—just geometry and physics at work.

But while Sophie tried to shift away, he didn’t.

He stayed exactly where he was.

She briefly hoped it was his phone in his pocket. Or keys. Or an aggressively shaped wallet. But the longer it lasted, the harder that hope became to hold on to.

She kept still, face passive, running through possibilities in her head. Maybe he was mortified and frozen in place. Maybe his brain was quietly repeating “don’t move, don’t make it worse, just stay still.”

Or maybe his brain had taken a different path entirely.

Maybe, in his mind, they weren’t strangers on a crowded train. Maybe the pole Sophie clung to was part of a stage, and she was the star attraction—grinding, gyrating, performing just for him.

She imagined him slipping a twenty into her waistband when she got off the train. A tip for services rendered.

 

Eventually, Sophie arrived at her station and spilled into the open air, relieved to be out of the crush and into the crispness of outdoors. A few coffee shops lined the street, and as part of her extra-time-in-bed routine, breakfast at home had been swapped for a grab-and-go bagel at the café next to her office.

The building beside it was under renovation—Victorian façade covered in scaffolding, ladders and planks crisscrossing the brickwork like a ribcage.

“Way-hey! Love, you’re alright.”

Sophie glanced up, briefly stupid enough to wonder if it was someone she knew.

It wasn’t. Just a man in a hard hat, leaning over the railing with a grin that didn’t reach his eyes.

“You fancy a real man, sweetheart?” he added, turning to laugh with his mate like he’d just delivered Shakespeare’s filthiest sonnet.

Sophie kept walking.

She was old enough to know this wasn’t how romance worked, and just experienced enough to know that responding—even to mock him—would only make it worse.

Still, she couldn’t help wondering: what exactly did he expect?

Did he think she’d stop in the street, throw down her bagel, and shout, “Well I was going to just get breakfast, but now that you’ve invited me up the scaffolding for a quick shag, let me climb aboard!”

He was joined by more men in high-vis jackets, their laughter chasing her through the shop door.

Having escaped further amorous advances, Sophie finally reached her desk. She finished the last bite of her bagel while flicking through the report she’d compiled for today’s strategy meeting.

She’d spent the previous evening reviewing it—deliberately avoiding that Netflix series everyone was talking about. She knew if she started, she’d binge five episodes and arrive at the meeting completely unprepared. This was important. She wanted to be sharp.

The meeting room was large, dominated by an oval glass table that reflected the soft hum of the overhead lights. Abstract art hung dutifully on the walls. At the far end, a giant LCD screen displayed the title slide of a 100-page PowerPoint.

Seven people took their seats around the table. Sophie was the only woman in the room. She chose the empty seat furthest from the screen.

Her boss stood at the head, ready to begin. He opened with a confident barrage of corporate abbreviations—KPI, GDPR, ROI—spoken as if each one were a conjuring spell. Heads around the table nodded sagely.

The presentation was endless. Charts faded into graphs, graphs morphed into timelines, timelines looped into bar charts again.

Sophie tried to speak. More than once. But each time she opened her mouth, someone else jumped in—usually a man—making the exact point she’d been about to raise, only with less clarity and more volume.

The meeting lasted two hours. By the end of it, Sophie estimated she’d spoken for maybe two minutes total.

And even then, mostly to agree with someone else.

The rest of the workday slipped by in a blur of emails, small talk, and quietly rescheduled deadlines. By five-thirty, Sophie was putting on her coat and looking forward to the evening she’d promised herself—takeaway, wine, and finally starting that Netflix show.

Just as she reached for her bag, her phone chimed. A message from her friend: Quick drink? I’m by the office. One glass?

Sophie hesitated.

She’d already sold herself on a quiet night. But the thought of squeezing back onto the Tube during rush hour—shoulder to shoulder with strangers, dodging groins and apologies—suddenly made a glass of wine sound like a public service.

She messaged back: One glass.

Maybe two. She’d get a later train when the carriages had emptied out. A better trade, she reasoned. No crowd. No rubbing. Just a little bit of air.

Sophie enjoyed the company of her friend more than she’d expected to. They shared a bottle of wine, gossiped, laughed, split a plate of chips they swore they didn’t want, and talked over each other like it was a sport.

The bar was busy but not unbearable. No one tried to interrupt their conversation. A few men glanced over, but no one made a move to join them. For a few hours, they were just allowed to be—two women, talking.

They could have stretched the evening out longer, but it was midweek, and Sophie didn’t want to get the late Tube. After a few affectionate goodbyes and a promise to do it again soon, they parted at the corner and walked in opposite directions.

 

Sophie turned toward the station.

“Oi, luv! Show us your tits.”

A man no older than twenty, cigarette dangling from his mouth, shouted from a table outside. His friends burst into laughter. One of them gave him a high five like he’d just won a bet.

Sophie didn’t stop. She didn’t even flinch. She just kept walking.

But her mind—always slower to move—lingered.

We live in the golden age of breasts, she thought. There are entire libraries of them online. Static, moving, enhanced, animated—breasts in every imaginable configuration.

So what was it about hers, under a jumper, on a Tuesday night, that demanded urgent public unveiling?

She didn’t think they were particularly special. No one had ever labelled them The Best Breasts Ever™. And yet here she was—apparently in possession of something so rare and precious that a complete stranger felt the need to claim it from a pub bench.

She shook the thought off as she made her way into the station.

There were only a handful of people in the carriage. That mid-evening lull—too late for commuters, too early for revellers. Sophie slid into an empty row and exhaled. The seat felt like a reward.

At the next stop, a man boarded and sat directly across from her, despite a generous number of empty alternatives. He leaned back, spread his legs, and fixed his eyes on her.

Sophie looked away. Waited. Glanced back.

Still staring.

Each time she checked, his gaze hadn’t shifted—not even to blink. It wasn’t curious. It wasn’t accidental. It was deliberate. Pinned.

She scanned the carriage: a couple kissing like they’d just met, an old woman crocheting what looked like a slightly lopsided panda. Not exactly backup, but not nothing.

She thought about moving to another seat. Or another carriage. But something about the man’s stare had rooted her in place. Not fear exactly—more a low, slow tightening of the chest.

She dropped her gaze to her lap and focused on the sway of the train. Each lurch and bump felt exaggerated, like her own body was betraying her. She didn’t want to flinch. She didn’t want to give him anything.

She counted the stops, willing the train to move faster. But it didn’t. The journey stretched, thick with stillness. A quiet little trap on tracks.

When her station finally appeared, she stood only when the train doors hissed open. As she stepped out, she hesitated—half-expecting him to follow.

He didn’t.

Relief came first. Then the realisation: she was alone on the platform. Her heels echoed across the tiles. Each step forward only deepened the silence behind her.

Her body stayed alert, scanning the edges. Just her shadow and her heartbeat, walking side by side.

Eventually, she emerged into the nighttime air.

 

A mile from home. Familiar streets, but quieter now—emptied of their daytime rhythm. Streetlights buzzed in intervals, casting long shadows that moved when she did.

She began her walk. The wine in her system had started to fade, replaced by a prickling edge of alertness she hadn’t asked for.

Then came footsteps. Behind her. Not loud, but not hers.

She slipped a hand into her coat pocket and wrapped her fingers around her keys.

The footsteps got closer.

Could she run? Maybe. But her legs felt heavy. The wine. The day. The long, slow drip of unease.

She didn’t look back. Looking back might confirm something. Looking back might make it real.

Then—just as her breath caught in her throat—the footsteps passed.

A man in a long coat. Walking ahead now, oblivious. Not her story tonight.

She exhaled. Shaky. Angry at herself for reacting, and angrier still that she’d needed to.

That’s when the car pulled up.

She hadn’t heard the car until it was beside her. A small hatchback, windows down, bass low. The passenger leaned out—a boy, maybe nineteen, in a hoodie and baseball cap.

“‘Scuse me, love, you got a light?”

Sophie tensed. Her first instinct was to ignore him, to keep walking, to act like she hadn’t heard.

But experience reminded her that silence could sometimes be riskier than politeness.

So she smiled, lightly, without warmth. “No, sorry. I don’t smoke.”

“We’re going to a party,” he said. “Wanna come?”

“No thanks.”

“Where you live? We can drop you home.”

“I’m just up there,” she lied, motioning vaguely ahead.

The car crept alongside her, tyres whispering against the curb.

She did the maths. Ten minutes from home. Too long.

She glanced to her right—there was a gate. The park. Normally she wouldn’t cut through at night, but the path would take her out of sight. The car couldn’t follow.

She adjusted her bag on her shoulder, just about to turn back toward the gate when the boy shouted:

“Oh, fuck you, you cold bitch!”

The car skidded off in a blur of laughter and smoke.

Sophie stood still, heart pounding against her ribs.

Her hands shook as she pulled out her phone. She scrolled to her sister’s number and pressed dial, slipping in her earphones as the ringtone began to hum in her ears.

Then she turned the corner.

 

Trevor woke up late. Day off. No rush.

He reached for the remote and flicked on the small TV at the foot of his bed. A newsreader spoke briefly over grainy CCTV footage and a shot of police tape—something about a woman attacked near the park a couple nights ago. No updates.

Trevor didn’t really listen. He yawned and scratched his stomach.

Then the tone shifted.

“Meanwhile,” the anchor said, “outrage is still growing over the defacing of Churchill’s statue earlier this week…”

Trevor sat up.

Finally.

A guest appeared—one of those smug academics always banging on about nuance. She was saying something about context, about protest, about voices needing to be heard.

Trevor scowled. Churchill literally saved the country, you stupid bitch!

He grabbed his phone and opened Twitter. Someone would be defending her, obviously. He didn’t even finish reading the post before replying.

Checked his DMs. Still nothing from the women he’d messaged last night. Strange. He thought at least one would’ve appreciated the confidence.

He peeked under the covers—pleased with what he saw. Thought about taking a picture, but couldn’t find a drinks can for scale, so didn’t bother.

On the screen, the debate was heating up. Defacing statues. Cancelling the past. Hating Britain.

Trevor shook his head.

It’s disgusting, he thought. Absolutely disgusting.