“Let me see it on him, please,” asks Maureen.

“I think it would be best worn over stockings with a suspender belt, don’t you?” is the reply. “Sinead, put Master Melvyn into this little belt and roll a pair of white nylons up his legs for his mother to see the effect.”

A surge of shivers overtakes Melvyn as Sinead stands behind him and clips together his suspender belt. Her fingers are cold and soft, almost caring as they slip down his bare legs. “Hold onto me,” she says, and he has no option but to rest his fingertips on her shoulders as she stoops at his feet and rolls one, then two stockings up to his thighs.