No one was more astonished than Terence. He almost didn’t know what had hit him: he was an expert in sex, not love. He had known Nicky at the Academy of course but there had been a kind of boringly intense aura around her; it hadn’t occurred to him that Nicola Abbott was a sexual being at all. Fascinated beyond belief with what came across on stage as he sat there in the audience, stupified, Terence Blue fell in love for the first time in his life.

He babbled some incoherence of farewell to the older actress and went backstage by himself. Nicky was alone in the Number Two dressing room – the Number One dressing room was occupied by the actor who played her husband, who was very much more well-known and infinitely better paid.

She was sitting in front of the mirror in a dressing gown, the top part of an old stocking held back her hair from her face, the wig she had been wearing stood on a wig block beside her.

‘Oh. Hello Terence,’ she said quite shyly, smiling at him in the mirror that had light bulbs all around it as she removed her make-up. And she stood up.

For a moment Terence stood there too. And then slowly he walked over to the dressing table.

‘Nicky,’ he said.

He took the tissue from her hand and very carefully wiped off the rest of the make-up. Then he searched on her dressing table for something, found some rose water lotion and a piece of cotton wool and smoothed it over her face, removing the last vestiges of the cleansing cream. He took the stocking top from her hair with one hand, with the other he fluffed up her hair slightly where it had lain flat. Nicky didn’t speak, just stood there, her face totally inexpressive while he did this. Then he very gently took her face in both his hands and kissed it: the eyes, the nose, the cheeks and, finally, the mouth. He put his lips on hers, waited until he felt them relax, then very gently opened her mouth slightly with his tongue. He ran one of his hands down from her face to her neck to the opening in her dressing gown. He felt her tense but, as he kissed her still, he stroked just the top of her small breast very very lightly with his fingers until he felt her relax again and this time she put one of her hands up and very uncertainly touched the top of his back. A voice called Goodnight Nicky love and footsteps went past the dressing-room door, but Terence held her as she jumped slightly at the sound. Still he stroked the top of her breast, still he kissed her. Then very slowly, very carefully, still standing beside the mirror with all the lights around it, he moved his hand down, took her nipple between his fingers.