I shake out the tangle of blankets, turn over in the bed and thump the pillows. The sexual frustration is compounded by personal frustration with myself. I am a joke, a laughing stock – lying in bed alone and feeling tragically desperate. An idiot, a fool – if I had asked you here you would have said yes, but I didn't.
I had my reasons, they seemed like good ones at the time, but I can't even remember them now.
Instead, I remember the lines from Edna St. Vincent Millay:
I, being born a woman and distressed 
By all the needs and notions of my kind,
Am urged by your propinquity to find
Your person fair, and feel a certain zest
To bear your body's weight upon my breast.
Fucking poetry.
For a long time I didn't think of you much, perhaps in passing once or twice. If someone had asked, I would have described you as ‘a nice guy' or ‘a cool person' or some other bland term to denote someone you like, but not in any particular way. But that was before I knew better; and you are many things, but you are not bland. If you were, you wouldn't be keeping me up now, thinking about you.
Asked to describe you I could have done so with ease – your height, weight, the way you hold your body, the angle of your jaw – I'm good at the details. "Very attractive," I would have conceded, nodding my head like an art collector at an exhibition, because my appreciation was aesthetic not sexual.
It's not beauty that turns me on – it's imperfections, the dents, flaws, vulnerability, the humanity. I needed to see that.
Show me yours and I'll show you mine.
It began, like so many Irish tales of romance or debauchery, in a pub. We were just talking, flirting a little, yes, but not in any real way, just because you're a man and I'm a woman and that's what people do. I was amusing myself. I had no intentions; I'm not sure you did either.
You offered me a drink. I could have walked away, I might well have crossed the room to chat to someone else, but I accepted because I liked your self-deprecation, your considerate behaviour and because you made me laugh.
Perhaps the light shifted to reveal a different angle of your face, or maybe it was the way you smiled at me, or it may was nothing more mysterious than hormones, oestrogen, testosterone, but as my eyes travelled up the length of your body to your face I realised I wanted you.
From the look in your eyes I thought you might be thinking the same thing. But my sudden awareness of my desire for you made be fearful that all I was seeing was my own hunger reflected back at me. At the end of the night, we parted pleasantly, friendly, platonically.
I told my friend: "I'll have to get drunk and let him take advantage of me."
"Isn't it normally the other way around?"
I laughed and shook my head: "That's only what men think."
Another night, another bar, I decide to have another drink although I know I probably shouldn't. Your smile is friendly, but not just friendly – like the wolf smiling at Red Riding Hood.
You turn to me to say something, your fingers lightly skimmed my back and the bones of my spine responded like piano keys.
The next moment your lips were on mine.
I should never have let you touch me. You're like crack cocaine, heroin, kryptonite. Bad for me, but I want more.
I get out of bed. I need a distraction. I try reading, but my book, non-fiction, dense with political theory and righteous indignation cannot hold my attention.
Facebook? Newspapers? Sudoko? Bad porn? Nothing like bad porn – fake tan, fake tits and fakes orgasms – to put me off sex.
Write the column? That's what I should be doing. It's past my deadline. I read and re-read what I've written, deleting whole chunks. That part is too personal; this one's too x-rated. The editor won't mind, but I do. A girl has to have some secrets.
I imagine whispering in your ear, describing my dreams of you, telling you want I want to do to you, what I want you to do to me. I would like to see your reaction.
Then again, by the time I see you I will have regained my composure; chances are I will be too embarrassed to be honest and you may never know of the tortures you are putting me through tonight.
Sometimes I get shy – a good girl with a wicked streak.
I imagine you reading this and wondering if I'm talking about you or someone else, and what I would do if you were to ask. A wry smile, perhaps? A denial? I may shrug my shoulders and say nothing at all. Who knows? Given the time lag between my writing this and the column appearing in print, perhaps no explanation will be needed. We could be lying in my bed, arms and legs wrapped around one another, slick with sweat and satiated; or I could be bored with you by then.
Lust – it's an all-consuming, wonderful, terrible but frequently fleeting thing.