from The Butcher, The Baker, The Candlestick Maker: An Erotic Memoir
My friend Michelle says my men shouldn’t get a name until I’ve slept with them three times and, using her criteria, most of them remain nameless. That doesn’t bother me. I’m not looking for a boyfriend. I’m looking for sex. It’s my weekend retreat. That’s where Rio’s comes in.
My kids-free weekends always start with me in the car. There’s the rush out of my office at 5.30 p.m., the zigzag through the Hampstead back streets to avoid the rush-hour traffic, and the quick hello to the kids, who are usually so immersed in the latest PlayStation game they barely notice my greeting. I yank clothes out of the laundry basket, making sure I’ve got enough tops, pants and pajamas, adding something heavy for a sudden cold snap and something light for a rare British heatwave. I got divorced almost five years ago and my kids still don’t keep any clothes with my ex, so we operate on a rotating wardrobe scheme whereby every other week, when my ex has the kids, I ferry a bag of stuff over to his spotless penthouse flat, which he will later wash and return to me on Sunday when I collect the kids.
Weekends start off well if I’ve got the kids in the car by six-thirty and over to their father a few minutes later. If I make it to Rio’s by seven, I get fucked for free. Otherwise, the admission fee kicks in, and I’m paying £11 for the privilege of getting laid. Until Sunday evening, when I cross London again to pick up my sons, it’s “me” time.
Many Friday evenings I’m tempted to stay home, pour a glass of wine and put my feet up, rather than serve as a human shuttle service. It’s a struggle to get ready to go out on the town. I’m tired after a busy work week. My super king-size bed is calling, calling, even if I’ll be jumping into it alone. And yet I think, Stop being so pathetic. You’re only 44, for fuck’s sake, and there are many men out there. And I’ve only got four days and two nights a month to meet them. When my ex-husband has custody, I have my freedom. And freedom means sex.
The temptation to stay home is short-lived tonight, bested by the temptations to be found at Rio’s and the opportunity to be seduced by an anonymous male and serviced by him. I’ve got a web date and, although, as usual for a Friday, part of me wants to take the easy option and send him a text to call the whole thing off, I can’t. My date has travelled from Winchester to see me. Calling it off so late, and after his two-and-a-half-hour drive, would be rude. I was brought up to be a good girl.
His picture and his profile on TotallyGorgeous.com look pretty good. His photo shows off fair hair and broad shoulders. He is wearing a blue Lacoste shirt—public-schoolboy vanilla—but he looks tall and athletic and his broad shoulders stretch the cotton at the collar and sleeve. Nice. Not as “totally gorgeous” as the site’s name promises, not a super- model, but good enough for one evening. He said he works in finance, which, since he lives too far south to work in the City, makes me wonder if he sells pension plans: boring.
“What are you into?” he asked, after a few email exchanges, when we spoke on the phone. “Do you ever go out clubbing?”
I told him I went to fetish clubs from time to time, and that excited him. He actually gasped, which made me wonder just how extensive a sexual history someone in a Lacoste shirt really had in his life. I always get worried when guys think going to a fetish club is the height of decadence. Anyone who’s ever spent ten minutes in Torture Garden knows these places are costume parties for grown-ups. There’s always the same middle-aged man in chaps being spanked by his overweight dominatrix partner, while hotties hover on the periphery, watching the show.
“I wouldn’t mind being your companion at a fetish club if you’re ever short of a date,” Mr Lacoste had said. He seemed disappointed when I told him I had a regular partner for fetish-club nights, but we agreed to get together anyway.
The only other guy I’ve met on TotallyGorgeous was also in finance—a banker with a penchant for talking dirty but who had bi-polar disorder. Halfway through a blowjob he said to me, in his upper-crust English accent, “You know, I haven’t had an orgasm in ten years.”
I took this as a challenge, the equivalent of climbing Mount Everest to make him come. I failed. He was on lithium. While I was on Everest, he was in the clouds. I got a nice steak frites from the banker, at least.
Tonight I’m hoping for three courses and a sexual aperitif...

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