My Secret Lover

suspect it’s the least sexy answer because the person setting it
definitely favours rock stars, otherwise why would he/she have two in this
category? Click on NEXT.
    What’s in my underwear drawer?
    This may be a question about
tidiness, rather than sexiness, because to be truly sexy, you wouldn’t have to
be someone who worries about tidiness, would you?
    Perhaps I’m getting too
psychological.
    I’d be lying if I said there weren’t
pairs of tights with ladders which I have kept to wear under trousers in the
winter, but I also have some brand-new high-waist white panties, which look
very Cameron Diaz, and a purple lace Agent Provocateur bra which I won in a
first-fifty-people-to-phone-in promotion. They sent the wrong size, and I was
too embarrassed to return it, but the slim, pale-pink box is the best bit
anyway. And it looks very provocative nestling among my nighties.
     
    I wonder why Andy 42 mentioned
underwear?
    It does make it more difficult for me
to contact him which would be only the polite thing to do.
    In fact, very impolite not to contact
him.
    In the circumstances it’s the least I
can do.
     
    A. Hello! Don't worry, not another
mad one. I just wanted to say sorry for barging into your Inbox, and thanks for
alerting me. Life is crazy enough, isn't it? Hope you have a good one. L
     
    Click SEND.
    Feel altogether better. I think this
must be what Fern means by closure.
     
    There is, almost immediately, one new
message in my Inbox.
     
    Re: Hello!
     
    I didn't mind. Did you make it up
with the other A? A
     
    Bloody cheek!
     
    He's not the other A, you are!*L
     
    Is this flirting? Maybe I’m sexy
after all!
     
    He sounds a bit dull for you. A
     
    You don't know anything about me. L
     
    I know you're called Lydia. I know you like singing, dancing, Chinese food and quizzes. I know you don't really
want to marry a man who wears a kilt, do you? A
     
    That's really unfair. L
     
    I'm sorry. A
     
    Anyway, how do you know I'm called Lydia? L
     
    I’ve just checked. All the other bits
he could have got from the text.
     
    Just a guess because your e-mail
address is thelovelylydia A
     
    It could be a red herring. Are you
really called Andy? L
     
    Would anyone call themselves Andy as
a pseudonym? A
     
    Point taken. I'm not lovely by the
way. L
     
    You sound lovely. A
     
    We should probably finish here,
because you'll only be disappointed. L
     
    Disappointed?A
     
    When we meet. L
     
    Who said anything about meeting? A
     
    Don’t know why, but I just got a
little thrill from my fingertips to the seat of the revolving chair I got from
IKEA.
     
    I think we ought to set some rules
here. L
     
    What are you like! A
     
    Can I have a think about this and
come back to you? L
     
    Sure. Good night. AX
     
    Good night. L
     
    He’s started Xing again.
    Very sensible to take a step back at
this point.
    Michelle would be proud of me.
    Not that I am going to tell her.

18
     
    ‘Here’s another starter for ten,’
says Jeremy.
    My finger hovers above the buzzer.
    ‘How many people are there in the
world called Andy? And I’ll accept to the nearest hundred.’
    The team opposite exchange glances.
    ‘No conferring,’ Jeremy warns them.
    Suddenly, I’ve got it. It has to be a
trick question. I mean how could anyone possibly know the answer unless they’ve
done a trawl through the birth registers of every English-speaking country,
which is surely beyond the remit of any University course.
    I buzz.
    ‘Sudbury Hill, Lydia,’ says a disembodied voice.
    Jeremy looks at me from beneath one
of his intimidating eyebrows. The other one makes a kind of roof above his eye
like the Pizza Hut logo. Did it always do that, I wonder, even when he was a
child, or has he developed it in front of the mirror?
    ‘None,’ I say, ‘because they were all
christened Andrew!’
    ‘You’ve got three sitting next to
you!’ shouts Jeremy in sneering disbelief.
    The camera zooms out to reveal that I
am the only girl on the team. New Andy and Andy are sitting to my right, to my
left there is a very large owl. Each has the word ANDY on the panel in front of
him.
    ‘The correct answer is, of course,
two million,’ says Jeremy.
    I wake up feeling totally humiliated.
Usually, I’m good at University Challenge. On one occasion, Andy and I
got a clean sweep. We weren’t even trying, but we were eating pasta in front of
the telly (not spaghetti, obviously, or any of those long ones) and we just
started jumping