His world was still a mess, but she seemed surprisingly content, lying beside his t-shirted body in the darkness. She didn't intend to stay over, but they had talked for hours - the first time for a while they hadn't argued about anything - and he said it was too late for her to drive home. She reluctantly accepted his offer to share the only bed - platonically, of course.

It was only two weeks since they had broken up, the end result of an exciting crashing together of their two very different worlds, full of passion and sex and shouting and make-up sex. It was only three months since they got together - the warped mind of Tri, a mutual friend thinking that the fireworks they'd produce would be worth watching. Tri was right: his wit and intelligence appealed to the pretty woman who was sick of just hearing that she had a great body; her passion and lack of inhibitions appealed to the cautious man who had only ever been with like-minded women. He helped her realise she had something valuable to say; she had helped him loosen up considerably - and both of them had maximised the benefits of jumping into the unknown without a thought.

He lay still, thinking back to their first date: the tentative meeting on the beach, pre-arranged by Tri, that turned into dinner at her place — which wasn't part of Tri's plan — that became a soft kiss on the sofa before she dragged him into the bedroom and removed all of her clothes. He smiled at the memory of her unashamed nakedness, wearing just a coy smile as she told him he was staying the night, despite his stuttered yet gentlemanly protestations that they didn't have to do this. She could only smile at his words with her hands already unbuckling his belt, already knowing that his treacherous organ had quite different ideas.

They only had sex once that night - and it wasn't anything like the mind-blowing marathons that peppered the next few months of their lives. They had fumbled and bumped and kissed and groped; they had squeezed too tight or not enough; he tried to stroke her small breasts, but she admitted that his fingers didn't do much for her there. Her hands did their best on his rear to pull him tight, but he just felt uncomfortable. They had kept their humour though, and this got them through those first failed fumblings until their wine-relaxed bodies allowed it to just happen. Of course, it was over too quick, but she was pleased that he kept going long enough after his climax to help get to hers. And after that, they surprised each other by allowing themselves to wallow in the aftermath: clothes creased up with the sheets, their orgasmic fluids happy to make their slow, sticky path over their curves and onto the bed beneath them. He remembered being impressed by Kate's laid back approach - and he still didn't know how she was thrilled that Matt was happy to go along with it. Her previous lovers had all been too quick to get up, to clean up and to get out. Not that she was the kind of woman that needed holding all night - far from it, she required a lot of her own space, but Kate couldn't remember the last time she was allowed to keep the fires burning. For some people, there were things they would only do in the fog before orgasm, but Kate's passion kept going long after each climactic cry.

She remembered the one-night stand before Matt, where she had licked him from the tip of his very large penis to its base, around his balls - and kept going to wriggle her tongue into the puckered hole. Coming back up his body, trailing her saliva up his torso, she reached his lips to kiss him hard and open-mouthed - and he happily wrapped his tongue around hers. He had jabbed it harder into her mouth whilst her hands stroked him to orgasm and he had no complaints when she moved back down so that he could fill her mouth with his soggy mess, even when her poor aim meant she got more on her lips than between them. But when she tried to resume her passionate kiss, he pulled back in disgust - and Kate didn't have time to work out what was wrong until she found herself half naked outside his front door.

Matt just wasn't like that. Even now, after two weeks of realising that he was not the man she had told her mum she was going to marry, after two weeks of trying to be "just friends" which only resulted in yet more arguments and tears from both of them, she was content knowing that this man, a rarity with his acceptance and respect of her, remained a friend. She turned to tell him - but she was surprised when her relaxed body rolled into Matt's rigid frame.

He was terrified that she would discover the result of his pleasant memories - a painfully stiff erection throbbing against the loose cotton of his shorts. She saw the anxiety, but not yet its source, so whispered anyway:

"You know you're an amazing man," she started - and this was sufficient for Matt to relax enough to hear her continue: "I know that we can't be more than friends, but it's really important to me that we are friends."

She meant it: despite the fact that he made her crazy with his idiosyncrasies in his house - even in her house - and that he didn't click with her friends, he was a confidant, an unusual man who seemed genuinely interested in knowing all of her, not just what was behind her underwear. In their relationship they had talked about everything: politics and current affairs; crappy soap operas and terrible foreign films; and sex. They talked a lot about sex. She remembered the night that had started out with them snuggled together on the sofa, watching something French on television. She had got bored, slid to the floor between his legs and before he could protest, had her mouth around his growing erection. She felt the power of reducing this articulate man to a stutter, just with a flick of her tongue — then he recovered to telepathically continue her thoughts by questioning out loud who really had the power in oral sex when the woman was the one on her knees?! She still couldn't believe that the evening had ended with them engaged in a passionate debate on sexual politics, the physical act itself put aside for that night.