Suzanne Portnoy

The Rules is a book that sits by my bedside, mainly unopened alongside Sexual Energy Ecstasy, Is There a Bitch in the House, the recently acquired Bonk and a biog on Willie Donaldson. I’m not a big believer in The Rules as it so happens, having managed never to follow any of them throughout most of my life and still end up very happy but nevertheless I am a believer in My Rules.

Let’s face it, we all need to have rules, even rules that we may bend from time to time.

Take last night. I went out to dinner with a fan. Now, for one, I don’t normally meet fans. In fact, one of my rules is that I don’t like to meet anyone who has written to me for no other reason than I don’t want to destroy their fantasy of me. I know that even though I’m a perfectly attractive, middle-aged, Jewish mum, that once you’ve read beyond page 10 of either of my books, you’ve probably morphed me into your own verson of a MILF. And that’s the way I’d like you to think of me, as whatever sort of woman turns you on. But occasionally, I do break this rule and last night was one of them for no other reason than we worked in the same field, and honestly I needed a bit of business advice. He being senior and I suppose from what he told me, a bit well known, was in a good position to help me and help is help at the end of the day. I don’t really care where it comes from so fan or no fan, we met for dinner even though it was Monday and generally I have a rule about not going out at the start of the week.

Obviously I knew that he was not meeting me for business advice. No man that has read both my books, my blog and seemingly everything I have ever done, would write to me for business advice. Nevertheless, he managed to contain his desire to know whether I was wearing knickers or not until the pudding came which I thought was very gentlemanly of him. He was a nice enough guy. In fact, he was a very nice guy and the conversation flowed all night. He was the kind of guy my parents would be delighted for me to have a relationship with - successful, attractive, articulate, with grown up kids. In fact, were it not for the fact that he was married, he would be close to my perfect package.

But he was married and, well, I have a rule about married guys. I don’t go out with them. Sure, from time to time, I may shag one in a swinging club and there’s even a man that I’ve known for a few years now that takes me out for dinner once a year and then comes back to mine but that was before I set the rule, so he doesn’t count. That’s the thing about my rules. They’re not fixed. But this man last night, this married man, it was hard to see any real benefit in having a relationship with him. He lived outside London, in a lovely part of the world, but there wasn’t a room in his house for me. That meant no weekends away, no holidays abroad, no late night phone calls. Of course he said he had an ‘understanding’ with his wife. Don’t they all? Gosh, sometimes I just wish some guy would come up with something a bit more creative… like the truth. Just once I’d like a man to say, ‘She doesn’t want to fuck me anymore. I miss having sex. If we split up, I’m financially ruined. Whadya think? You game?’

After dinner, I drove him back to his hotel. I felt it was the least I could do and it was on the way back to mine. He had paid for dinner. We had had a nice time and he gave me one tidbit of advice that actually made a lot of sense to me and was what I needed to hear. I thought I’d save him the taxi fare. Usually I have a rule about not letting strangers in my car but he didn’t seem like a serial killer.

Not really knowing my way around the back streets of Paddington, I drove around in circles for a while until after about 20 minutes I finally pulled up outside the front door of his hotel. We kissed and again, I guess he thought there was a possibility that I might break my ‘No married men, no sex on a Monday’ rule but I couldn’t. Then he said what was possibly the worst thing that any man could say to me, ‘I’m great at oral sex.’ This is like me saying to Ron Jeremy that I give great head. If he had said, ‘I have an original Monet hanging in my room, would you like to see it,’ I would have been more excited.

I’m not a woman who has not had a man give me great oral sex. In fact, only the other week, in that Windsor Hotel, a man gave me such great oral sex that when I came I thought I woke up half the hotel. Once I had a boyfriend who loved oral so much that he made me read a book just to see how long I could hold out without coming (45 minutes, if you’re interested). I have had so much great oral sex from men that the idea of a good, long fuck is infinitely more appealing. Not to mention that sometimes when a man says he gives great oral what that often means is that he either a) has a small penis or b) has erectile dysfunction. This is not a universal truth but only my experience. But more to the point, I want to be surprised. I don’t need the announcement on the platform that the train is coming when I can hear it entering the station.

Nevertheless, I did kiss him and yes, I did allow him to find out if indeed I was wearing any knickers. Seemingly satisfied, he went to his room and I drove home, laughing and listening to the Foo Fighters turned full volume on the CD player. I have a rule about playing music too loud in the car but last night I let that one slip too. What the hell.