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company, of course. I had reported accordingly to my paymasters and my sidekicks were still tailing her husband, although there was also little evidence of him being in contact with anyone suspicious. At any rate, it was useful to know his whereabouts at all times. Maybe I was secretly hoping he was conducting his own affair somewhere. Would have given me the right impetus to force Callie permanently into my arms. Sadly, he was a boring man and never strayed. Too ambitious and mindful of his career prospects, I assumed, from what Callie had told me of him.
    Later that evening, we were having a drink in a pub somewhere along the South Bank, far enough from her home, we thought, to be safe. I couldn’t tell her that I was aware Mark was still on his assignment in Finchley where a large theatre chain was opening a new multiplex.
    â€˜I love you,’ I said.
    â€˜I know,’ she said, sipping her gin and orange.
    â€˜No. I mean, for real, I want us to be together. Leave him. I’ll move out, find us a place. We could travel together.’
    She knew I was married too. Somehow, I’d have to explain what my job actually was, explain earlier white lies. I was confident I could.
    â€˜You’re going too fast,’ she replied, surprising me. ‘We’ve got to give it time.’
    Right then I had the awful feeling we were not going to make it.
    That things would not work out.
    And it began to kill me inside.
    Back home, I carefully composed a letter to her husband, revealing our affair. It was illogical, I knew, but it was a compulsion I could not resist. I slipped the letter into an envelope, and the next day at my office, stuck the letter at the back of a drawer, knowing that one day I would use it as a weapon of vengeance.
    We stayed together, so to speak, another three months. Every time we made love, I drew a small star with the letter C in my diary. Looking back at those pages today, it’s like a monotonous parade of distracted graffiti strung out between cryptic notes of things to do or telephone numbers, a private milky way leading to my own death by a thousand shards of longing.
    The sex became even more frantic, as the despair inside me took a firm hold and her coldness became more apparent every time the subject of our future was broached.
    All the time, the ticking bomb inside my desk was on its fatal countdown.
    But the sex was good, oh yes, Callie. As if the contact of our skin turned us into incredible two-backed beasts capable of reinventing the flesh like no one had ever done before. With all the energy I was putting into our encounters, I no longer had to worry about my waistline. And sweet Callie bloomed into a sensuous flower of the night, sex vibrating all around her as she walked away to her night train, still full of my seed, her long legs eating up the station concourse, the eyes of every man in the immediate vicinity automatically turning towards her, this creature of sheer lust. Mine.
    One day. Summer coming to an end.
    Another pub somewhere in the no man’s land that separated both of us from our real lives and relationships.
    â€˜Joe?’
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜It’s still going too fast ... I need some time to think. I don’t want us hurting anyone, you know.’
    â€˜What do you mean?’
    I had carefully not raised the subject of our getting permanently together for a few weeks now, hoping she would come naturally to the idea.
    â€˜I think of you too often. It’s not good. It’s affecting my work. I just don’t know how to act when Mark’s around. We don’t talk much any more. He’s going to suspect something soon ...’
    â€˜So what?’
    â€˜We must spend some time apart.’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜A few months maybe. Then we’ll see how we feel about each other.’
    I knew all too well this was a recipe for disaster.
    We negotiated. I pleaded. The time apart, its length, remained unsaid. I