What's weird is you're the only gay tit man on earth

Picture this. Maria and I are stripped to our underwear - well, actually, I'm in her scarlet scanties and she's in my Calvins, which, as I remind her, is the only way we're ever going to get into each other's knickers - and we are indulging our favourite unnatural practice. Now, there's no way to say this except to say it, so, OK, right, ready or not....

We ... we ... we writhe about her front room pretending to be Cher in the "If I Could Turn Back Time" video.

Yes, I saw the show Oprah did on it. Yes, I realise we need professional care. Yes, I know we could be prosecuted. And, yes, I accept that we really require an aircraft carrier full of horny sailors to make the fantasy truly fly (trust me, we've tried) but, officer, we can't help ourselves. The uncontrollable urge comes, we close the curtains, retrieve the album from under the mattress, put it on, and....

Anyhow, me and Maria are straddling an occasional table, grinding our pelvic basins together, the way you do. I'm tossing my head about ecstatically, pretending my hair is long, dark, curly and made of rayon, when over Maria's shoulder I spy Pablo, a little something she picked up in duty-free on her last visit to Madrid. I was unaware he had a key and I didn't hear him enter, thanks to Sonny's ex-wife mourning the passing minutes at the top of her lungs. I start, stop, tap Maria on the shoulder I'm staring over and point, so she can turn and see, too, what a Spanish weightlifter looks like after he's been smacked across the face with five pounds of fresh mullet.

Maria shrieks. Pablo growls something fast and furious in Spanish. Maria turns off the music. Pregnant pause. Through clenched teeth she mutters, "Say something, John!"

Curiously enough, I can't think of a damn thing, though I've been in this position three times before. When Jim came home and found me massaging Sarah. When Adam turned up and there I was, forever blowing bubble bath with Tina. When Martin visited unexpectedly and discovered me under the Laura Ashley covers with Felix.

Maria hisses like a leaky radiator: "John, c'mon, speak, speak, speak!"

All right. I take a deep breath and say, in perfect, quavering imitation of Judy: "This is Mrs Norman Maine."

Silence. Pablo doesn't get it, of course, but Maria convulses. Completely. She's sniggering, I'm sniggering, then we're howling, bent double, tears streaming, incapable of coherent speech.

Pablo glares, turns on his Cuban heel and leaves, slamming the door. He believes the joke is on him when it's on all of us. Just as well, probably. It takes Maria and me a good 10 minutes to regain adult control.

We're spread over the sofa, wrapped around one another, heaving for breath. Maria smacks me with a cushion: "You'll have to ring him." Why me? "Do I look like the Minister for Overseas Trade? You call him." Whack. The cushion is definitely her weapon of choice: "Someone has to explain." I chortle. "Sure. I'll explain what you're doing wearing my boxers and what I'm doing in your tacky red frillies." Maria is triumphant. "You bought me those tacky red frillies." " I did?" I did. Last birthday. "Gee, even my bad taste is impeccable."

The cushion again: "Explain our relationship, dummy." I think about it. And I'm flummoxed. "Maria, prompt me, because I'm not sure how it works." She slips under an arm, snuggles into my chest, plays with the hairs. "Like this. Tell him that we shop and cook and club, and even sleep together, but that it's not sexual. Tell Pablo some men don't make passes at girls with..." "You don't wear glasses..." "With vaginas. I was about to say vaginas."

We're off, chortling and gasping. I recover first: "Pablo knows I drive on the other side of the road." "You've probably noticed that that doesn't stop him from getting jealous." I tell Maria that Jim, Martin and Adam were seething too, for absolutely no reason. Maria muses. "There's a reason. We're close in a way men and women aren't supposed to be." I scramble to head off the terms fag hag and hag fag: "We are meant to be this close. You love me, and I love you."

And I do. I love most of my women friends with hopeless devotion and unfeigned heart. Other men take work, effort, strategy. They may be tasty, tasty, very very tasty, but women are my ... platonic ideal. I'm in awe of their minds and stricken by their difference, their beauty, their soft, fabulous foreign bodies - though as objects of contemplation, not engagement. Maria doesn't want to hear my question about whether that's sexist or not. Not again: "What is weird is that you're the only gay tit man on earth."

It's a fact. I adore breasts. Big breasts. Go figure. So I return what may be a compliment: "You have the most magnificent chest." Maria knows a cue when she hears one. She clambers on top, pins me down.

I'm unfazed: "Is this the biannual pounce?" The biannual pounce is complicated. We paw each other, peer over the brink and then back pedal, telling each other that going all the way would spoil what we value: if only I was, if only she might. Tragic glamour. Tears before bedtime. Delicious.

Maria nibbles my ear. I squirm, splutter, give in and go with it. "And if it was a blatant sexual demand," she whispers, feigning innocence, "you wouldn't ... you wouldn't think any less of me, would you?" I'm shocked: "Maria, how could you insult me with such a question, you dirty slut."

We're still on the sofa, still laughing when Pablo lets himself back in.