Hi Mum,

I'm very good and miss you, as always. See, I’m even writing to you a week ahead of schedule. How are you? How's Dad? I hope his leg's better. What do the doctors say?

Don't worry about Margie and my feelings towards her: I'm sure that in a year she will’ve become a distant memory to me – no less, no more.

And my Mideast trip has been delayed: my paper thinks that I'll better serve audiences at home, covering glamour events – you know, celebrity stuff, etc. – the reason for that being my interview with one of the models I told you about in one of my previous letters. So, you can load off your mind now and relax in full.

Love you,

Rob.

He phoned her a couple of days after the party.

During the conversation, he was imagining the disappearingly tiny mobile in her hand – and this image alone made him weak. But he pulled himself together and asked her to come up to the newspaper office for a photo shoot prior to the interview.

Unfortunately, he couldn't be there at the time: he was covering a huge rally in Central London. But when he came back, an email was waiting for him, sent by their staff photographer. Apparently, the guy was extremely excited: he wrote to Robin that the girl was “absolutely amazing,” not only because of her height, “which itself is a priceless asset,” but also because of her professionalism: “she should definitely try herself in the fashion industry.”

Then he called her again, and the next afternoon they met at a restaurant for the interview. Robin’s choice of location was determined by his wish to make her feel relaxed in an informal environment so that she could speak openly about different things.

Once at the table, he – off the record – finally asked her full name (it is essential for the story, you know), then her age, and after that – breathlessly – her exact height. He learned that Breta Sorenssen, 26, was born and grew up in Sweden, and that she stood (oh god!) seven feet, eleven and a half inches tall; that (fortunately) she had ceased to grow five or six years ago; that she was a professional model; that she had met Nick in Japan; and that they had some sort of romantic relationship, but it didn't last because, after they came back from Japan, Nick immediately fell in love with her younger sister, who’s still a minor. He also learned that, unlike himself, Nick was a huge fan of tall women – and this fact could have been a reason for him to dump Breta, because while her sister was still marginally shorter than herself, she has yet to stop shooting up.

The interview was an explosion. In full compliance with Robin’s expectations, it provoked a lot of feedback – and even a cash bonus in a sealed brown envelope, signed by his editor-in-chief. But, more importantly, it made him famous. No journalist before him had managed to get an open conversation with an eight-foot-tall beauty (Ms. Sorenssen included), let alone expose her dreams and feelings of being – quite literally – head and shoulders and more above the whole world.

The material was not published as a text-only version. The front page featured a full-height colour picture with a scale superimposed on it – and promised more inside, including a close-up; Breta with members of the public; Breta with a tall man in a business suit (up to her armpits); Breta at the entrance to the underground car park at London’s Park Lane, with the crossbar reading “Headroom 6 ft – 183 cm” right under her breasts.

The latter one was Robin's favourite: somehow, he got an instant turn-on whenever he looked at it – and he would take a look at it every now and then. It was easy for him to imagine himself in the picture, as the crossbar was precisely six inches higher than the top of his head.

Do I have something in common with Nick's fetish? he thought. He didn't know the answer and didn't want to know. He just enjoyed the picture – and Breta's company time after time, when both happened to be in London and had time to spare in each other’s company.