“Now you have to say what you want.”

“There’s nothing I want beyond seeing you.”

“Sweet, but don’t be silly.”

“All right. I know why you’re worried about this but I really, really would like to treat you all, regularly. It would make me happy to spend money on all of you, if you could feel happy to receive it.”

“You mean hoovering Nicole Farhi and Karen Millen each weekend? I could just force myself…”

The which being agreed, we stepped out of the bath and dried each other, slowly and tenderly. We glided to my bedroom and I had a sudden, unfamiliar dilemma.

“Howard, I’ve actually never had a man in here. I’ve had affairs but always away from here. Do you … need to sleep on one side or the other? Do you like a glass of water? Do you need a reading light?”

He crashed onto my bed and lay face up. “I need you to get comfortable.”

Which I did, in his arms. “But not too comfortable. Because I’d like us to paint each other. With our bodies. We’ve just had a water colour but now let’s try a big painting in oil. Like the Pointillistes. You know them, Seurat and Signac. Tiny dots of paint. Like this.” A series of very light kisses. “And like this.” A series of very light touches. “And we’ll find that some of these dots explode into light and colour and some are subdued.”

So we explored, but long before our canvases were completed they took a very different direction. “My God, Howard, that’s not Seurat that’s Jackson Pollock!”