Before I got married, I worked, rather desultorily I admit, as a production assistant at the BBC, where I met Dan, a producer who makes documentaries all over the world. That’s what appealed to me about him, I suppose, the fact that we wouldn’t be together all that much. I like my space.

I don’t really know why I got married, only that I had a vague desire to quit full time work and that sex with Dan was spectacular. He has this amazing ability to make me come with just a bit of rudimentary foreplay and a few thrusts. Maybe my G-spot and the contours of his cock are mysteriously aligned. Maybe we just have that thing they call chemistry. Who cares? He can make me come and gives me space (he's away filming in Istanbul at the moment), so who am I to complain?

My best friend Alison raced round this evening. She has long black hair tumbling about an olive hued face, long legs, gorgeous cleavage, and the worst luck with men I’ve ever known. She’d brought a bottle of Chablis and a huge bar of dark chocolate with her. I was headed for another of Alison’s dramas, I reckoned. Without a doubt it would concern some new bastard. I guessed correctly. This time, as always, she can’t seem to help herself. She says he treats her rough, sexually degrades her, but she loves it. He’s a novelist called Richard. She’s a freelance journalist who went round to his house to interview him. They ended up doing it in the marital bed. Oh, did I not mention he’s married?

“Piss off, I don’t want to hear any more,” I said, but she continued.

“What am I going to do, Jane?”

“How long has this been going on?”

“Two months. I didn’t want to tell you because I thought it was just a fling.”

“And it’s not?” Oh Christ. I reached for the Chablis. “You’re not in love with him are you?”

“Well no, not exactly, no. Infatuated is maybe a better word.”

I poured myself a glass.

“So you are?”