A Night In With Marilyn Monroe

‘Oh, right.’ She’s lost interest. ‘See you tomorrow then.’

‘Sure,’ I tell her. ‘Love you, Cass.’

‘Hmph,’ she says, which – and I’m translating again here – is her way of saying she loves me too.

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Lack of sex aside, things are going sufficiently well with Adam that he’s let me know the code for his key safe, which is hidden under an artfully disguised fake rock in his tiny front garden. He’s told me to let myself into his house on a few occasions since we’ve been dating, mostly when he was running late and wanted me to go in and tell Fritz he loved him, and missed him, and hadn’t forgotten about him. So I’m just sort of hoping he doesn’t mind that I’m going to use the key to let myself in this evening, this time without his explicit say-so, to lie in wait for him in absurdly sexy lingerie and give him a wild night of sex that he’ll never forget.

Or, that if he does mind that I’ve let myself in without his explicit say-so, that the absurdly sexy lingerie and the wild night of sex will go quite a long way to making him not mind any more.

After a great meeting with a new client (a freelance stylist who’s keen to use a few of my pieces in an upcoming shoot with a Sunday supplement; how about that, Jonathan Hedley, Barclays Business Development manager, Clapham branch?) I’ve reached Adam’s house, a stunning Edwardian terrace in the middle of a street of stunning Edwardian terraces in Shepherd’s Bush. I’ve just let myself in through the gate, when I hear the front door of the neighbouring house open.

And then I don’t hear anything else at all, because there’s such a thunderstorm of barking that a small bomb could go off nearby and I don’t think I’d notice.

It’s Fritz, Adam’s German shepherd puppy, who’s just on his way out of the house with James Cadwalladr, Adam’s next-door neighbour.

I’ve never actually met James Cadwalladr in person before, and this moment – as Fritz leaps the fence and starts inserting his nose gleefully into my groin – isn’t the ideal one for it to happen.

I mean, I’m fairly accustomed to coming face-to-face with very, very handsome actors – I woke up next to Dillon O’Hara several mornings a week for the few short months of our relationship, didn’t I? – but James Cadwalladr has that whole arrogant Old Etonian thing going on, which is a lot more intimidating. He’s staring at me over the fence now, looking even more icy-cool and unimpressed than he does when you see him as that toff, cricket-loving detective on TV.

‘Sorry,’ he says, ‘but who are you?’

‘I’m Libby,’ I say, breathlessly, trying to shove Fritz’s nose out of my groin and, when that doesn’t work, squatting down to meet him at doggy eye-level, in the hope that he’ll nuzzle into my neck instead. He doesn’t. He just goes lower and tries desperately to reach my groin again. (I can only hope his owner is equally determined, when he gets home for his surprise sex-fest later.) ‘I’m Adam’s girlfriend.’

‘You’re not.’

‘I am.’

‘You can’t be.’

‘I … er … am?’

‘You’re serious?’ He rakes back his posh-boy floppy hair and stares at me some more. ‘I didn’t know he’d got himself a girlfriend.’

‘Well, he has!’ I give up fighting Fritz and get back up again, whereupon he instantly loses interest in my groin (hurray!) and starts sniffing round the other side of me – to be precise, my bottom – instead. ‘I, um, know your wife, actually.’

Posh James doesn’t look that much more interested in this. ‘Oh, yeah?’

‘Yes. She stocks some of my jewellery in her store.’

I have Adam to thank for this, after he very nicely introduced me to Lottie Cadwalladr when she stopped to make a fuss of Fritz in the street one warm evening. She owns Ariel, an amazing and very hip independent boutique with a branch in Westbourne Grove and a branch in Spitalfields. We got to chatting, and she admired the bracelet I was wearing, and for the past couple of weeks, Ariel has stocked a small selection of my bracelets and earrings in the Westbourne Grove branch. It was a huge coup for me because, even though the orders through my website are nice and steady, it really helps to have a real-life stockist, too. Not to mention that seeing my jewellery in those glass display cases, actually being admired by shoppers the day I went to visit, has given me all sorts of dreams about maybe even managing to open a tiny store of my own one day …

‘Right.’ Posh James slaps his thigh; I’m not quite sure why he’s doing that for a moment (pantomime rehearsal?), until I realize he’s trying to call Fritz. ‘Here, boy! Over here!’ He looks irritated when Fritz ignores him. ‘He likes you,’ he says, in an accusing tone of voice, ‘doesn’t he?’

‘Oh, that’s only because I stupidly sneak him tastes of stuff when Adam and I eat together. You know, I don’t think he looks at me and sees a human woman. I think he looks at me and sees a walking, talking wodge of chicken liver pâté.’

Posh James doesn’t laugh.

‘Here, boy!’ he adds, more commandingly this time, and follows it up with a whistle, which finally persuades Fritz to stop nuzzling my private areas and to jump the fence to join him again. ‘Are you going into the house, or something? I thought Adam was still away. I’m not quite sure why Lottie’s saddled us with this fur-ball for another night otherwise.’

‘Adam’s not back until later tonight. I’m just … er … dropping something off,’ I say, because I don’t want a complete stranger to realize I’m going into my boyfriend’s house to lie in wait for him in my undies. ‘I know he’s really grateful to you for looking after Fritz.’

‘The kids love him,’ Posh James says, with a shrug, as he grasps Fritz’s collar and clips on a lead. ‘Well. Good to meet you, anyway,’ he adds, in a voice that implies it wasn’t so much good as deadly dull and totally tiresome. ‘And good luck.’

Which is an odd thing to say.

But I won’t ask why he’s said it, partly because I don’t want to bore him any more than I already have, and partly because Fritz has started barking again, rendering any attempt at further conversation impossible.

They set off along the street for their evening walk, and I crouch down to tap in the code for the key safe, then let myself into Adam’s house.

As ever, it’s an oasis of tranquillity.

An oasis of ever-so-slightly sterile, obsessive-compulsive neat-freak tranquillity, perhaps, but an oasis nevertheless.

I mean, if I ever ended up living here with Adam, there’s so much I’d do to make the place a bit … well, a bit less like an absolutely stunning show home, and a bit more like a place to really live in. I’d funk up the cream-and-grey colour scheme for starters, put up a few pictures on the walls in the hallway in place of all the space-enhancing mirrors, make the chrome and grey marble kitchen, where I’m just heading now, a warm and welcoming place to hang out in with our friends, rather than like a photo in a glossy interiors magazine. I’d replace the steel kitchen table with a nice big wooden one, like the one Olly has in his kitchen, and I’d replace the Perspex chairs with mismatched painted chairs, again just like Olly’s chairs, and I’d redo the smart, slightly soulless patio area you can see out of the bifold doors at the back; turn it into a proper garden, with grass and flowerbeds and a barbecue … The cosiest part of the whole kitchen is Fritz’s den, in a little nook on the far side of the range cooker (for maximum warmth), and even this is still stylish enough to feature in a doggy version of World of Interiors, with its custom-made safety gate to close him off from any hot-fat-spitting danger when Adam is cooking, and its selection of Kelly Hoppen cushions for him to rest his weary rump on.

But it’s not the time to stand here mentally remodelling Adam’s beautiful home (not to mention that we’re not yet anywhere near the moving-in stage), because I’ve no idea what sort of time he’ll be getting back, and I want to make sure I’m all ready in my sexy lingerie for when he does.

Or rather, my downright slutty lingerie.

Because I’m pulling out all the stops tonight, I’ll be honest. I’ve already ramped up the raunch factor on the lingerie I’ve been wearing for most of our snogging-on-the-sofa nights, in the hope that something – the lacy, plunge-front bra; the tactile silken camisole; the wispy, semi-transparent knickers – might get Adam going enough to override all the perfectly good reasons why we haven’t done the deed. But none of it has worked, so tonight I’m breaking out the Ribbony Elasticky Thing.

I get it out from the bottom of my bag, now, where it’s nestled since I left my flat earlier today.

You know, I’m still none the wiser as to what kind of garment it actually is.

I bought it half-price in the Myla sale at the very height of my relationship with Dillon, and though it provided for several extremely pleasant evenings, its precise definition remains a mystery. It’s not a basque. It’s not a corset. I suppose the most accurate description would be ‘playsuit’, but I’m not at all sure it contains enough material even to fall into that category. It’s just a collection of very, very small pieces of black lacy fabric, held together with strings of black satin ribbon, or lengths of wide black elastic. It requires either a degree in mechanical engineering or nerves of steel and the patience of a saint to get the thing on – though funnily enough Dillon never had the slightest difficulty in getting it off – and tonight, ladies and gentlemen, I shall be hoisting myself into it along with my highest heels, a cheeky smile … and absolutely nothing else.

Oh, well, obviously the ‘Marilyn collection’ earrings Adam admired so much earlier. Just in case all the black lace and general sauciness doesn’t get him going, my fabulous accessories, with any luck, will do the job.

The only trouble is, as I find when I start to hoick myself into it now, that the last time I wore the Ribbony Elasticky Thing, I was a good half-stone lighter (it’s not that Dillon pressured me into losing weight, or anything – in fact, he was always superlatively appreciative of my distinctly non-model-worthy curves – but you try sharing a bathroom mirror with a man as impressively fit as Dillon for more than a couple of occasions, and see if you can resist the temptation to cut out pudding. And bread. And chips. And lunch). The Ribbony Elasticky Thing goes up reasonably smoothly over my thighs, requires a bit of jiggling to get it up over my hips, but when I get to the bit that (barely) covers my stomach, which is where the majority of my regained weight has generously portioned itself, it starts to become a bit of a struggle.

In the war of Libby Lomax versus Ribbony Elasticky Thing, Ribbony Elasticky Thing is definitely winning this particular battle when my phone rings.

When I reach down to grab my phone from my bag, I can see that it’s Nora calling.

Well, at least it’s a call that’s actually worth the temporary defeat to a piece of lingerie.

A regular call, not FaceTime, thank God, because long-time best friends as we are, there’s no way I’d subject Nora to the sight of me half in, half out of my sluttiest underwear. I know she probably sees more disturbing sights on an average shift in her work as an emergency medicine registrar, but I wouldn’t actually put money on it, or anything.

‘Hi, Nor,’ I say, as I answer the phone. ‘Everything OK?’

‘Is everything OK with you?’ she replies. ‘You’re not … exercising, are you?’

It speaks volumes about my affection for physical exertion that Nora sounds so astonished as she asks this.

‘Christ, no. I’m just putting on some … er … clothes.’