Emerald’s nipple rubbing soon had her moaning with lust. She nibbled on Alessandro’s ear and stroked him faster. Sandro half woke up and moved towards her, aroused. He looked at Emerald, his eyes as bright and intent as they had been when they were first in love, back in high school. Then, as he woke more fully, a film of indifference settled over them. He kissed her on the cheek, then patted her on the shoulder – three pats, like you would give a trusty old dog. He pushed her leg off his thigh and rolled to put his back towards her. He couldn’t have made his rejection more obvious if he’d built a Trump-style wall down the middle of the bed.

She thought back to when they’d first wed; when the sex was so great that it took up her whole life. When she wasn’t in bed, she was planning how to get back there. Oh, how Emerald craved that deranged, rip-each-other’s-clothes-off, screw-in-the-hallway-then-the-living-room-then-the-hallagain-and-then-finally-the-bed kind of sex they’d once enjoyed.

Emerald had a penchant for the wilder reaches of sexual behaviour and, over the first few years of their marriage, had introduced Sandro to a number of new concepts that aroused and terrified him in equal measure. But even before their second baby was born, she’d felt he was making love more out of a sense of duty than any actual desire.

Now here they were, two drowning empty-nesters, clinging to their sides of the bed like separate life rafts.

Determined to rekindle their passion, Emerald crept her arm around her husband’s warm, naked body and stroked his belly. She nuzzled his neck and pushed her hips into his broad, strong back. She moved her hand lower down – to find him limp as a piece of wilted lettuce. Of late, she would only be able to locate her husband’s cock with the Hubble telescope. She felt like a dog trying to nudge its dead owner back to life.

Alessandro brushed her hand away with more resolve this time. Once more he kissed her half-heartedly on the cheek and said ‘Goodnight’ with the finality of a submarine hatch closing.

Emerald lurched to her feet, feeling furious. Weren’t men supposed to be the ones gagging for sex all the time? Yet here she was, with extremely erect nipples and wet as an oyster down below, and he wasn’t in the least bit interested.