And now, here she was, in his super-king-sized bed. She looked over at his side which was empty. Perhaps he was fixing them a drink… while watching TV. Simi wondered if Meagan was having similar issues on her teetotal date with AJ. All Simi wanted was for Mo to come back to bed so they could get on with falling head-over-heels in love. While she awaited his return, she star-fished under the duvet, the brush of the silk sheets making her squeal. She looked around the room again, her eyes now adjusted. Where was all his stuff?? They’d basically had sex in an IKEA showroom. Simi spotted her crumpled dress against the cream carpet and her bra, which had somehow hooked itself onto the door handle. She sighed. If Mo wasn’t going to come to the mountain, perhaps she would have to get dressed and take the mountain to him. Unsure she wanted to be the mountain in that analogy, she kicked her feet around under the duvet trying to loop a toe through her knickers. Above Simi’s head she saw the time, projected from a digital alarm clock on Mo’s night stand. 11.05 p.m. They’d only had sex an hour ago and she’d already been abandoned. Maybe it wasn’t time to move mountains. Maybe it was time to leave – once she’d found her knickers. Simi clambered out of bed and unhooked her bra from the door handle. Any romance she’d experienced at the start of the date had been shot to smithereens, and really, she only had herself to blame. She’d been so excited about her date with Mo, checking her phone on the hour every hour waiting for his text arranging their meet-up. Her dress was fresh from the dry cleaners that morning and she’d washed and twisted her hair two days earlier so it would be at its most afro plumpness. And for what?

She peeped down the hall where she could now see the television in his living room. As the first-person view of a machine gun bounced around the bottom of the screen, she heard gunfire and a drill sergeant’s pained yelp. Simi’s jaw slackened. Was he playing a computer game? She leaned back onto the cold, bedroom wall. After kissing the frog in search of her prince, so often she ended up back at his lily pad. She did it because intimacy was supposed to be the start of something yet, once again, for the guy, it was just the happy ending. Was Mo the same? Was this what Meagan’s whole boundaries speech had been about? And now Simi had surrendered something precious in the hope he valued it as highly. But he hadn’t. He was playing shoot-em-ups next door while she manned a search-and-rescue for her underwear.

‘What would Meagan do?’ she whispered, pacing.

Quickly, Simi grabbed her phone from the bedside table and fired off a text.

I’ve lost my knickers! Help!

Why was this so much easier for Meagan? When she slept with a guy it made him want her more – like poor Todd. But when she did it, they disappeared off to shoot alien insurgents. Simi tossed her phone aside and crouched down to look under Mo’s bed, staring at a jumble of shoe boxes. She pushed a couple aside noticing a price tag. $400.