“A chore? I thought you enjoyed sex with me?”“I do … did. I used to love making love for hours with you – couldn’t wait for it. Now, I jus... think about all the things I am behind on and should be doing and can’t relax and get into it at all. I feel like I would need to rush through it once we started. I can’t clear my head of the kids, work, the house.”“You don’t even want to kiss me anymore though? You stopped sleeping naked,” I ask.“I would love kissing you, but kissing leads to sex, and I. It was a very pleasant surprise when he didn't. I think Karen knows I have fancied him for years.”“About the only person who hadn't worked that out was Quentin.”“Exactly what did I not work out.” They had been so busy head down in conversation that they hadn't seen him come into the restaurant and over to there table..The maître d' came over the moment he saw Quentin and signalled a waiter for another chair.“You are eating Monsieur Quentin?”“Well the ladies seem to be at the dessert stage.”“If. Well, without sex. But it usually turned out it was only until they found it somewhere else."I took a moment to choose my words carefully. "Gerri, I don't think we'd have gotten together in the first place if I was like that. You haven't made any secret of how you feel about it. As long as I get first chance if you decide you're ready (I gave her a wink), I'm totally fine."She didn't look very comforted. "Are you sure?" she asked. She finally broke eye contact and began picking at her. Now the mindlessly bawling woman truly was being boiled alive from the inside and outside. Her shrill shrieks turned into inhuman, intermittently sounds of outrageous agony, signalling that she was past her limit of endurance. Then something snapped inside her, her eyes glazed over, the horrible echoes of her own screams seemed to reach herself from a growing distance. Her drugged up circulation broke down and her vision went monochrome.Cold water for her head, then more stimulant. Terrible.