Love by Clare Naylor

month. We’re going to New Zealand. The light in Dorset’s really bad so the producer thought we should go to Auckland.”
    â€œExcuse me for pointing this out, but Auckland and Dorset aren’t awfully similar.” Amy came over all acerbic.
    â€œIt’s a popular ploy among crews who feel like a trip. Pretend the light’s better on the other side of the world and heigh-ho, off we all go. I’m sorry.”
    â€œDon’t be sorry. I mean, not to me. It’s not as though anything’s going on, is it?” There. She’d done it. Voiced her paranoia and made herself sound like a bitter spinster.
    â€œAmy, I don’t know what to say. I thought things were going well. I thought that when I get back from New Zealand we could see a bit more of each other, if you still want to.”
    Amy was unconvinced. I’ve heard some elaborate brush-offs in my time but heading for the Antipodes at the first sign of trouble seems insane. But then all actors were insane. Professional weirdos. Amy’s warmth plummeted to room temperature and below. Icy spells.
    â€œYou don’t owe me some debt of gratitude, Orlando. You’re a free man, you can go to the other side of the world whenever you wish.” Poor bloke, and he thought it was all going so well.
    â€œAmy, I’m not asking your permission to leave, I’mjust asking if we can see each other again when I get back.”
    â€œJust as long as you don’t ask if you can kiss me.” In her general hysteria Amy got uncontrollable giggles and couldn’t believe what she’d just said. He smiled in bewilderment, not getting the joke.
    â€œIt’s just something Lucinda and I were laughing about the other day, men who ask you if they can kiss you. We weren’t sure if they existed anymore.” She wiped the tears from the corners of her eyes before erupting again. Orlando sat still, smiling benevolently and waiting for her to calm down.
    â€œI take it I don’t have to ask then,” he said, leaning over and taking her wrist. She fell silent and they kissed.
    Postcoital
tristesse
. Amy couldn’t understand who’d coined this term.
La petite mort?
No, don’t get that either. The French are so morose about sex, take it far too seriously, she thought, experimenting with little kisses on Orlando Rock’s shoulder. It was definitely a turn-on having a sex symbol in your bed. But he was Orlando, too, kind Orlando, gauche Orlando who’d looked so hurt when she pretended not to care. Cute. She kissed his chocolaty dark nipple and wished it were chocolate. Forget the old joke about women turning into pizzas after sex; if men turned into chocolate, she could die a happy, very fat woman. Forget
petite mort
. Fat
mort
, more like. She bit his nipple to test if he was awake. He groaned a bit and ruffled her hair with his hand. Amy remembered a saying she’d heard about men thinking women didn’t masturbate and that they had to be kidding, God only made men fall asleep after sex so womencould get on with it. Well, I’m not complaining about this man’s ability to deliver, she purred. After she’d looked at his lips from all angles, their almost indecently large, succulent form, she decided she wanted him to kiss her again. She slipped her hand around his bottom and pinched it lightly. His eyes flickered open and Orlando Rock, sex god, woke from his slumber. He bit her lips and she raked her nails across his back, they shook the house to its foundations and Amy bumped her head on the wall. He screwed his face up tightly and her neck stretched out, her muscles tensing. Mmmm, better than a Cadbury’s flake, she declared to herself, and sucked his earlobe.

C HAPTER 17
    H er mood wasn’t so sassy, though, a week later. She’d been there, had the hormones to prove it, basked in them, and was now officially “missing him.” Orlando Rock’s flight from the