While Shearson lay on his back, she climbed on to him, straddling his thighs first, and then leaning forward, so that his erection was touching her stomach. She held it in her small fist, her small fist with the thin gold rings on every finger, and she slowly rubbed it up and down, until the head swelled purple and glossy, and the slit in it began to gape the same way that Shearson’s mouth was gaping.

‘Good girl,’ breathed Shearson. ‘Good girl.’

She lifted herself up a little, and from where he was lying Shearson could see the gingery pattern of pubic hair through the transparent nylon of her panties. But then she reached down between her legs, and pulled the nylon aside, exposing the glistening pink flesh of her vulva. And with an easy, rhythmic motion like a rider settling herself in a saddle, she couched the head of Shearson’s erection between her open lips, and sat down on him, quickly and easily, and right up to the hilt. He let out an odd chuffing sound, like the air brakes on a large truck.

‘You big pig,’ Della told him, with that same hooker’s smile. ‘You great gross hog of a man.’

Shearson didn’t make love like other men: he was too fat for that. Instead, he expected his lovers to gallop on top of him, while he responded with a kind of wallowing undulation. But he was big enough to go very deep, and to stretch his women to their utmost, and while his body may not have been agile, he had hands that could twist and squeeze, or could just as arousingly touch and tickle and tease. While Della moved up and down on him, sliding up and down with ever-increasing excitement and tension, he gripped the round soft cheeks of her bottom and parted them like a diner breaking a soft bread-roll, and then sent his middle finger on a dark and erotic exploration of the doughy interior. Della, in spite of herself, in spite of everything she felt, found herself pushing her hips harder and deeper on to Shearson’s cushioned thighs, and it was only on the very brink of orgasm that she had a vivid and uncompromising insight into what she was actually doing, and that she saw Shearson’s fatness for what it was.

Then – it was too late. Her body was already quaking; her breasts were already shuddering; and Shearson was ejaculating inside her in measured, laconic spurts of sperm.

She climbed off him too quickly. He sensed her distaste. But he stayed where he was on the ottoman and watched her with dispassion as she stepped across the room and picked up her wrap. She found it easier to face him once she had covered herself up, although he had left her with a slimy reminder of his appetites which was sliding down her thigh.