‘I thought that’s exactly what you were looking forward to with Neve?’

‘Yes, but the intention is very different. With Neve it’s for pure eroticism and mutual pleasure. With Lyssa it’s for years of sleepless nights, family-sized transport and hideous expense.’

‘Call me perceptive, but do I detect that becoming a father has lost some of its attraction?’

Jake rubbed his hands over his face. ‘I didn’t think it would be so hard.’

‘Isn’t this supposed to be the fun bit?’

‘I think it probably is when Mother Nature deigns to take her intended course. It’s when you have to get a bunch of doctors involved in the process that it all goes a bit cockeyed.’ Jake could feel himself getting a headache—which was ironic because it was something he’d tried to feign several times over the last few weeks. ‘It’s so horribly mechanical. It’s all injections and hormones and specimen jars. If I’d known it was going to be like this, I’d never have agreed to it in the first place. It completely undermines all you believe about manhood.’

‘Is it trouble with…?’ Pip jerked his head.

‘With what?’

Pip glanced round the room furtively, before saying: ‘Getting it up.’

‘Good grief, no. Do you think ‘‘Nymphomaniac Neve’’ would give me the time of day if that was an issue?’ It seemed strange to be using the derogatory office nickname now that it referred to his girlfriend rather than just a work colleague, and he wasn’t sure that he was comfortable with it even though he’d never overly concerned himself with office sexism before.

Pip shrugged. ‘I suppose not.’

‘That’s the problem, mate. To the casual observer the whole thing functions perfectly well. It’s just when you come down to the nuts and bolts of it, there’s a slight difficulty.’

‘Are your sperm still sluggish?’

‘Sluggish sperm,’ Jake sighed. ‘What does that say about me?’

‘How the hell do they get sluggish? They can’t start out like that.’

‘I don’t know. I did eat a lot of curry at college,’ Jake confessed. Maybe that was what had taken the sting out of their tails. ‘You know, I have this vision of them sitting around in a comfy chair with their feet up, doing the Daily Telegraph crossword when they should be out there swimming for England. Still, you can’t blame them. Every time they’ve popped out over the last year, their performance has been criticised for being sub-standard by some suit in horn-rimmed specs. I just don’t think they can get motivated anymore.’

‘Sounds like one of our creative meetings.’