Ordeal by chocolate

Under the counter

It was only after I'd finally managed to dispatch my parents back over the Border 10 days after Christmas, that we plucked up courage to try the chocolate body paint.

I, too, had considered this over-hyped little stocking filler, but had rejected it on the grounds (practical, I know) that if I couldn't get muddy paw-prints out of my Egyptian cotton sheets, what the hell was I going to do with chocolate?

However, there it was now, nestling in the toe of my stocking along with the satsuma.

It was all terribly titillating at first - hee hee hee. But the chocolate emerged from the tube with the rapidity of year-old toothpaste, and in exceptionally unappealing thin strands reminiscent of Primula or Polyfilla. It took some squeezing before any coverage at all could be achieved - he was blue in the face. He said he wished he hadn't been such a skinflint, and had bought the tub instead. Charming.

Things did seem to look up when the paint-brush came out, and the chocolate was spread and moulded in caressing strokes over my body. However, instead of moans of pleasure, he was gleefully breathing, "Hah - rag-rolling! And look! tortoise-shelling!"

Any hint of eroticism I might have hoped for died as I looked down at this DIY freak having his way with me in a Paint Technique Frenzy.

Suddenly his mind moved on to other things and he claimed to have reproduced a silhouette of Brian Lara executing a perfect off-drive, then asked me to wiggle from left to right to see if we could produce a moving image of the shot.

Enough.

"Lick!" I ordered, which didn't seem to release him from the field.

"Look! The least you could do is lick this off."

This did attract his attention for a moment, and his tongue tentatively explored an area of chocolate, but then just stopped.

"What?" I said, "What's wrong?"

"It's too sweet," he said, "I only like dark chocolate, love."

I hate stocking fillers.

Spencer & Fleetwood Chocolate Body Paint, 150g tube with brush, pounds 3.99, from Knutz, 1 Russell Street, Covent Garden, London WC2 (0171-836 3117)