In Bed With Lord Byron

You’re going to have
to wave the white flag.
    ‘I mean, sometimes I just don’t know if it’s going to work,’ said Kerry.
    ‘Well,’ I said curiously, rolling a Malteser between my fingers, ‘why don’t you tell me all the good stuff and all the bad stuff?’
    Her face lit up: she seemed to like the idea of the game.
    ‘Well, the good stuff is – well, he’s obviously got lots of money, and I love the way he’s so hard-working. I mean, I love a guy who just wants to go out there and make
it happen, y’know?’
    Funny, I thought. That isn’t the good stuff I would have picked up on.
    ‘And the bad?’ I tried not to sound too eager. After all, if she was making him happy, I ought to try to help them.
    ‘Well – he has terrible pyjamas,’ she said, smiling when I laughed in agreement. ‘And he has this lousy sense of humour. I mean, he’s always trying to be funny, and
he’s just, like,
not
.’
    ‘Oh.’
    ‘And . . .’ She paused, pondering, and then crunched full into a Malteser. ‘Sometimes . . . sometimes I feel he’s not totally what I want in bed,’ she blurted out.
Then, immediately realising that this was a case of too much information, she clapped a hand over her mouth. ‘Forget I said that.’
    ‘Don’t worry,’ I said, bemused. I instantly had a flashback: of lying in bed together, and Anthony pulling me hard against him, and I felt a flash of heat curl in my belly and
a shiver ripple down my spine. ‘Everyone has different sexual tastes, right? I mean, let’s be frank.’
    ‘Yeah – well, you know – Anthony’s a good kisser and all that, but I . . .’ She giggled. ‘I kind of like guys who are a bit, you know, animalistic. My
ex-boyfriend said that maybe it was because I like to be in control all the time in real life, so when it comes to the bedroom I like having someone in control of me.’
    I quickly hid my surprise and my smile. Here was Kerry, sitting with her beautifully polished nails and demure little smile, and she wanted a
beast
.
    ‘One good way to really figure out if you fancy someone is to play the going-to-bed game,’ I said without thinking.
    ‘What’s that?’ she cried.
    ‘Well – it’s silly, but you have to work out that if you could go to bed with anyone, I mean anyone, but only one person in the world, who would it be?’ I laughed, and
Kerry squealed with laughter too, and we both grinned, aware that just when we’d given up on each other, we were bonding.
    Kerry seemed quite excited. ‘Oh God.’ She clapped her hands to her mouth. ‘If you were to ask me this question and I was to give an honest, honest answer, I’d choose
Casanova. I studied him at uni. I even wrote a thesis on him. He was just totally untamed.’
    I smiled. ‘Obviously. You can have a top three list, by the way.’
    ‘Well, my second choice would be Jon Bon Jovi. Or Ozzy Osbourne. I mean, they’re both so
wild.’
She looked worried. ‘So Anthony’s only third. What does that
mean?’
    Suddenly the front door banged and I jumped. Kerry blinked. I knew at once that it was him – I could tell instantly by the telltale jangle of his keys hitting the table. How many times had
I heard that sound? In the early days, the moment his key was scraping the lock I would jump up and dash to the door and he’d play Tarzan and pick me up like a ragdoll and spin me round, or
else make me scream by hauling me over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. Towards the tail-end of our relationship, I had tended to sit watching TV when he came in and would pretend not to
notice him, and he’d come up behind me and lift up my hair and kiss the back of my neck. Then his kisses would trail over to my cheek, and if I was in a good mood I’d twist my head and
give him a proper kiss; if I was in a bad one, I’d shake him off irritably. I tensed miserably at the thought, wondering how I could ever have pushed him away, ever denied him a kiss.
    But kisses aside, the point was that Anthony was meant to be in some watertight mega-important late-night meeting. I looked at Kerry in suspicious confusion, and she looked back at me with a
slightly shifty expression.
    ‘I thought you said . . .’ I began.
    ‘Oh, darling, you’re back!’
    She jumped up and flung her arms around him. Anthony didn’t swing her around. He looked surprised, and then even more surprised when he saw me.
    ‘Lucy!’
    I pulled my T-shirt down self-consciously, horribly aware that I was looking