Or I might try and be funny about it, and pull the sheet around myself like a toga and… just a minute, what was he doing?

I swallowed with difficulty. The bastard had somehow managed to get his hand under the rigor mortis barrier of my arm and was stroking my nipples with the lightest, feathery strokes, so they were standing out like football studs.

But still I remained like an inanimate lump. He moved closer to me, lying the front of his body along the back of mine. All the better for me to feel the stirrings of his early-morning erection.

I love semi-tumescent penises, I thought dreamily. Obviously they’re not as much use as fully tumescent ones, but they feel so fat and swollen and alive, you never know what they’re going to do next, well you do, of course, but all the same…

To my surprise my groin seemed to be awake.

Not just awake but demanding its breakfast.

I couldn’t see Luke but I could smell him. Cigarettes and toothpaste and something else, something musky and sexy, a male smell. Essence of man.

And I felt the stirrings of my own arousal. He did feel good – big and solid, smooth and tender.

But he could fuck off with himself, I decided firmly. Last night had been a mistake.

He moved his legs so that his thighs were lying close against mine. I was acutely aware of the size and hardness of them. I was so sensitive to every touch from him it was as if I’d had a layer of skin removed. Nothing like a bit of desire to make me feel as if I’d spent the past hour exfoliating like mad.

To my surprise I didn’t feel fat and hideous, the way I often did in bed with a man. I held the balance of power because I knew Luke was dying for me.

I could feel his erection behind me, not quite touching my bum.

He nipped my neck again and moved his hand lower, down over the curve of my stomach (a quick suck in!), then lower still. I found myself catching my breath again, for quite different reasons.

He moved his hand over my stomach, barely touching me, circling to my hip bone, to my thigh, a quick brush over my pubic hair (I bit back a gasp and it escaped sounding like the high-pitched noise a dog makes when it gets its tail caught in a door), back to my stomach, over to my hipbone, on the inside of my hipbone, sliding down, moving in ever-decreasing circles.

But not ever-decreasing enough for my liking.

My head was telling me to slap his hand away and tell him to piss off but my groin was whimpering like a small child.

Oh keep going, I thought frantically, as he moved his fingers lower. Oh no! He’d returned to my stomach again. Then my thigh, this time slightly higher than where he’d been the last time, but not yet high enough.

I could feel the place between my legs fizz and melt, it was almost radioactive down there.

And still I lay unmoving.

The blood had left my head and moved en masse, like migrating refugees to my pelvic region, pouring in and filling and swelling. My head was dizzy and light, my crotch swollen and supersensitive.

While I lay, crouched on my side, wondering what to do, everything suddenly changed! Without any warning Luke put his arms under me and flipped me over. One minute I was in a rigor mortis foetal curl, the next I was flat on my back, Luke crouched above me.

‘What are you doing?’ I croaked. I was annoyed. Disturbed. I had to admit he was looking pretty good, the early morning stubble suited him and his eyes were dark and blue in the daylight.

I looked down and caught a glimpse of his erect member. Quickly, I looked away, appalled and excited.

‘I want someone to play with,’ he said simply. He smiled, had ever a smile been so melting? And I felt the last small remnants of my resolve totter and keel over. ‘I’m going to play with you.’

From the moment I’d woken up I’d kept my legs firmly clamped. But now he placed both his hands between my thighs and gently pushed them apart. And desire rippled through me. Ripped through me.

A sound escaped from my throat before I’d known I was going to make it.

‘Unless you don’t want to play?’ he said innocently. He bent down and bit one of my nipples, gentle but sharp, and again I whimpered with want.

I felt swollen and raw with desire for him. I could feel my clitoris throbbing, burning, as if it was both melting and on fire. Now I know what it’s like to have an erection, I thought dazedly.

He looked at me, and said ‘Well?’ Then he bit my other nipple.

If I’d tried to stand up and walk I knew I wouldn’t be able to. Everything about me felt heavier than usual. I was dreamy, dopey, drunk with desire.

‘Well?’ he said again. ‘Do you want to play?’

And I looked at him – blue eyes, white teeth, sexy thighs, big purple knob.

‘Yes,’ I admitted weakly. ‘I want to play.’

16

After it was over I stumbled out into the hall in search of the bathroom. I was badly disoriented when the first person I came face to face with was Brigit.

‘But…’ I mumbled. ‘But we’re not at home, are we?’

‘No,’ she said briskly. ‘We’re in the Real Men’s apartment.’

‘But what are you doi…’ Suddenly I understood.

‘Which one?’ I asked gleefully.

‘Joey.’ She was tightlipped and grim.

‘What happened?’ I demanded. I could have danced with joy. I wasn’t the only one.

‘Plenty,’ she muttered.

‘Did you shag him or just get off with him?’

‘I shagged him.

‘Twice,’ she added.

She looked wretched. ‘I shouldn’t have. I could kill myself. How could I? After the way he beat me.’

‘He beat you?’ I couldn’t believe my ears.

‘In Butlin’s, you thick, not last night.’

As I was leaving, Luke asked for my phone number. In silence I tore a page from my diary, neatly wrote my phone number on it, then, as he watched in astonishment, crumpled it up into a ball and threw it into the bin. ‘There,’ I said, with a dazzling smile, ‘that’s saved you the trouble.’

He was in bed, sitting with his back against the wall. Nice chest, I thought vaguely. For a fucking eejit.

He looked shocked.

‘Bye now,’ I said, with another blinding smile and swivelled on the backs of my mules. Agony cut into my heels and calves.

‘Wait,’ he called.

What now? I wondered. I supposed he wanted a fare-well kiss. He could want all he liked, it wouldn’t do him any good.