6.30pm

Hi.

Sorry, I've not been around recently.

It's all got a bit - oh, I don't know.

Move up a bit.

Listen, you don't think I'm a shit, do you?

No, I'm not joking. Am I?

I mean, I want to have a good time, but I don't want to hurt anyone.

And Terry, she's really nice.

She's open and warm and passionate.

Don't snigger, I'm not only talking about that.

It's just that - oh hell.

It began with the bloody cafetiere really.

I wish I had someone to talk to, really talk to.

6.35pm

Someone who'd listen and not judge me and understand.

It's hard when you can only talk to yourself.

Lonely.

Sometimes I stand in front of the mirror and look into my own eyes and speak about what's going on, and I try to see it all through the eyes of a friend.

What would a friend - a real friend who had my best interests at heart - tell me to do now?

It was going so well.

I was so happy.

We met again two nights later, and this time we went back to his place.

After, he cooked us scrambled eggs on toast - he said he had three things he could make and this was one - and I stayed the night.

I had my toothbrush in the bottom of my bag, but I didn't tell him that.

It was lovely.

6.40pm

It felt like being a real couple, waking up in the morning together when his alarm went off, sitting in the kitchen, drinking coffee. 

Later that day, I went and bought him a cafetiere, because he didn't have one, and two nice mugs.

He seemed very touched by it.

He went all speechless.

I wonder how often people have given him presents. 

I know it was nothing, but it felt so domestic and cosy and, well, you know.

Oppressive. That's the word.

We'd been out twice and she went and bought me a cafetiere and two mugs for my kitchen, as if we were a settled couple.

6.45pm

It was the two mugs that got to me most.

His and hers.

It made me feel itchy inside.

I wasn't spying on him.

I was just curious to see him when he didn't know I was seeing him. 

When someone thinks that they're all alone and no-one is watching them, then you see them differently - more purely, almost.

It's like at work when I look in through the glass door and he's at his desk, with that little frown on his face, biting his lower lip and concentrating, and a shiver of pleasure goes through me because he doesn't know I'm looking at him, or that anyone is.

6.50pm

He's become, for a moment, an object of desire, an intimate stranger.

It was like that, nothing else, not to start with anyway.

I followed him after work and of course he didn't notice me.

He kind of meandered along, looking at shop windows, buying an evening paper, stopping for a minute to light a cigarette.

Then he went into a food shop and came out with a carrier bag.

Nothing out of the ordinary, just him leading the life he has when I'm not there.

He didn't go home, though; he went into the pub near the river and I didn't follow him in there, but I still went on waiting outside, sitting on the low wall at the corner.

Or not waiting exactly, just not leaving.

6.55pm

It was a gorgeous evening, and the sun was still warm even though it was low in the sky - and after all, I didn't have anywhere else to be.

I really wasn't spying on him.

I met Stephanie for the first time in months.

Did you ever meet her?

We split up a few years ago but we've mostly stayed in touch.

The break-up was awful.

She didn't want to carry on and made it more and more obvious but I just didn't get the message.

7.00pm

I tried to win her back.

In some insane way I actually tried to bargain with her.

If I became more like the sort of person she wanted, I thought she'd change her mind.

Of course it doesn't work like that.

When I look back, I can't believe how badly I took it, how much I humiliated myself.

The funny thing is that we then became friends, better friends than we were when we were together.

We email each other and we meet for a drink every now and then.

7.05pm

She's easy to talk to.

Maybe it's because she's seen my at my worst.

She's definitely seen me at my worst.

She's been going out with this guy for a couple of years.

He doesn't deserve her.

Arrogant sod.

She rang me and we met up in the pub where we used to go years ago.

It turned out they'd split up.

She was quite upset.

A bit of me asked myself whether I was pleased: now she knew what it felt like.

But it wasn't like that.

7.10pm

I really felt sorry for her.

I had the idea that I might go into the pub and buy myself a drink and pretend not to notice him and then he would come up to me and I would be startled and it would be one of those comical experiences you look back on years later and laugh about.

One of the stories you share. 

But when I peeked round the door I saw he was with someone.

I didn't mind.

It clearly wasn't a girlfriend or anything like that. 

They were obviously having a serious conversation.

It looked businesslike.

Steph rang me again the next day.

She was crying on the phone.

She sounded awful.

7.15pm

I said she should come round for a coffee and talk it through.

Yeah, yeah, I can see your expression and you're right - we did.

But it's not the way you think.

It was like comforting her.

It felt so easy.

We were comfortable with each other's bodies.

It was like it used to be.

No, I don't feel guilty. 

Why should I?

It's not as if I'm in a proper relationship.

I won't tell her.

It would just create a discussion or an argument about something that there shouldn't be an argument about.

She won't know.

7.20pm

I won't tell her.

It won't make any difference.

It's none of her business anyway.

I saw her leave. 

It was ten past two in the morning.

She checked her reflection in a car window as she left.

She was smiling.