Extract from: Triptych

Why don’t you take your shirt off sexy.

Susanna was startled, she leaped back from the computer as if stung. There was a little dot in the top centre of the laptop, a webcam. It was a device that she had never used, assuming that she would have to somehow go into the settings to even turn the thing on. She reached behind her and found the first thing that came to hand, a scarf that she had been wearing when she arrived home. She flung it over the computer, capturing the webcam in its folds as she might capture a Christmas beetle to stop it from leaping up and tangling in her hair. Behind the drape of the red scarf she could see the man. She put her hand to her chest, noticed the wild beat of her heart and tried to calm it with deep regular breaths.