Case Histories

"Be bold," she thought and invited him round for "a cup of coffee, one evening," she was pretty sure that both of them knew what that meant but if it turned out to be just that – a cup of coffee – then she wouldn't look too stupid. She bought a woman's magazine that had a sealed book on the cover announcing that it contained "Sex Tips to Drive Him Wild" and tried (and failed) to learn some of them off by heart. She felt as if she were preparing for an exam that she was bound to fail. And why would anyone want hot candle wax dripped on their nipples anyway? Would he do that to her? Surely not. "Undress slowly," the book advised.

"All men appreciate a sexy striptease." Amelia had rather hoped that they might keep their clothes on throughout the whole process. Nonetheless, she shaved her legs and armpits, although for the life of her she couldn't see what was wrong with body hair, and painted (rather badly) her toenails, and showered and perfumed herself with something French that Julia had left behind after a visit. She felt as if she were preparing herself for a sacrifice. She kept ready a very good bottle of Bordeaux and bought stuffed olives and peanuts as if she were readying herself for a Tupperware party. She had been to a Tupperware party once, at the invitation of a woman who was a tutor in the beauty and hairdressing department, and had bought a very useful cereal dispenser. It was the only party of any description that she had been to in five years.

The olives and peanuts were not a sex tip, although the book did suggest doing something with popcorn that Amelia considered belonged in a blue movie, not a front-of-counter woman's magazine. You would never think that sex was meant for procreation of the species, that it was simply about male and female organs accommodating each other for a biological purpose. Certainly not according to the authors of "Sex Tips to Drive Him Wild," for whom it seemed to be a case of stuffing every orifice with anything that came to hand.

For five nights in a row, she waited. By the sixth night Amelia began to wonder if she had misheard him, if he had offered to "oblige" her with something else, the loan of a book or a computer program. In the staff room, no mention was made between them of coffee or sex, the only conversation of any kind they had was about how you had to pretend that the slaters had fulfilled all their criteria-based topics of learning in order to get them through the course and off your hands. She stopped preparing herself every night, her legs grew bristles, and she had forgotten all the sex tips, so, of course, Sod's Law, Andrew Vardy turned up at the door when she was in her oldest clothes, painting a little bedside table she had bought in an auction.

No flowers, no chocolates, no wooing – she had rather expected some wooing – and when she said, "Would you like a cup of coffee?" he actually smirked and she offered the good wine only because she knew she couldn't go through with the experience in a cold-stone-sober state. She emptied the peanuts and the olives into glass dishes and put them on the coffee table. Is this what other people did? Other women, preparing for a lover? Didn't they rub themselves with perfumed oils and unguents and comb out their hair, lie down on silken sheets, and present their pomegranate breasts for their lover's kisses? Not put out hors d'oeuvres, surely?