“Maybe if we dim the lights a little it might help?” said Wendy, her cheeks flushed.

“If we dim the lights, Wendy, I won’t be able to see the pictures. It’s important we get this right. Cam said you can pull a muscle very easily.”

Wendy rolled onto her back, sounding a bit like an asthmatic rhino.

“Maybe we should put the telly on and eat chocolate instead?”

“No, Wendy, Cam said we need to explore new things together. There’s no point in paying for a relationship therapist if you’re just going to ignore his advice and eat chocolate instead.”

“Can I eat chocolate afterwards? Did Cam say that would be ok?”

“Wendy, I can hear that tone again. What did Cam say?”

Wendy let out a long sigh.

“Wendy?”

“Cam said my tone isn’t always helpful.”

“And?”

Wendy rolled her eyes.

“And I need to tone down my tone.”

“So can you tone it down please, Wendy, you’re killing the mood. Now, back on all fours if you wouldn’t mind, please, Wendy, I need to check the picture to make sure we get this right.”

Wendy rolled over, sounding not completely dissimilar to a steam train pulling into a station.

“Let’s have a run through. Is it warm enough in here, Wendy? I can turn the heating up if needed.”

“Yes Gerald, it’s warm enough.”

“Splendid. Have you stretched appropriately? Some of what we are about to do is going to require a lot of flexibility.”

“Yes, Gerald, I’ve stretched and I’m flexible.”

“Excellent. Do you like the music?”

“Honestly, Gerald? It sounds like an elephant giving birth . . . to triplets.”

“Wendy, it’s whale song. It’s supposed to relax our chakras so what we are about to do together flows the way nature intended. Cam says he uses it all the time with his girlfriend, Annika. She’s Swedish. Cam says when she’s not modelling they do it all the time.”

Wendy closed her eyes and pictured Annika wrapped in a Swedish flag getting hit by a bus.

“We could change it to the jungle one with the frogs croaking,” said Gerald.

She took a long breath in and pictured a Black Forest gateau dripping with cream.

“Honestly, Gerald, I don’t mind which animals we listen to. Can we just get started, please? I want to watch The Great British Bake Off this evening. It’s semi-final week and the contestants have to construct a Victoria sponge in the shape of a member of the royal family. They’re allowed to add shortbread to capture some of the trickier features like ears. Now, can you just tell me which position we’re aiming for?”

Gerald traced his finger over the diagram in the book, tapping it to confirm it was the right one.

“This is it, Wendy. I’ve skipped the intermediate stage and gone straight in at semi-pro. I’ve used a highlighter so we can see it with the lights dimmed. No point mucking about. Cam only does the advanced moves now. He said that’s how he and Annika achieve maximum satisfaction.”

Wendy knew how she could achieve maximum satisfaction and it was currently chilling in the fridge with a cork sticking out of the top.

Gerald flipped the pages to the end of the book. His eyes flicked around the images.

“We’re definitely not ready for the advanced moves yet, Wendy, I can assure you of that. I can feel my old football injury throbbing just looking at the picture.”

“Are you still calling it a football injury, Gerald?”

“It was a football injury, Wendy.”

“Getting hit by a football kicked by a seven-year-old in the park, then falling over a bin and twisting your ankle does not count as a football injury, Gerald. And besides, the damage was pretty minor.”

“Cam said it caused significant soft tissue damage. He said it was similar to an injury he sustained competing in an iron man contest he won a few years back. Him and Annika run them together now. She sounds very supportive, Wendy. Very supportive indeed.”

Wendy clenched. She could feel her Lycra shorts starting to chafe. Small beads of sweat were forming on her forehead.

“How long is this going to take, Gerald? My program starts in ten minutes and my elbows are starting to ache.”

“We’re supposed to do it for at least half an hour, Cam said. That’s what he does just to get warmed up. He and Annika do it for two hours sometimes.”

Gerald squinted, turning the pages slowly, trying to find the highlighted images. Wendy shuffled up the bed and rummaged under the pillow, producing an unopened packet of jelly babies.

“Bingo!” she said, stuffing a handful in her mouth, dribbling on her pillow. She reached across and swapped Gerald’s pillow with her own.

“Cam says Annika performs the splits, sometimes, completely by accident because she’s so supple. He showed me a video of them demonstrating an advanced technique. It’s Swedish. He says it’s called the Flønkensträp. Everyone’s doing it in Stockholm.”

He glanced at Wendy, whose lycra-clad buttocks were blocking the light from the bedside table. She was munching on a mouthful of jelly babies like a pig at a trough.

“Cam says they usually do it completely naked. Especially when they visit her parents in Sweden. You’ve got to love that about the Scandinavians; so free and liberal.”

Gerald hesitated before slowly closing the book.

“I’ve invited them round on Friday night so they can demonstrate the Flønkensträp in our living room. Annika’s bringing her famous pickled herrings with meatballs. All homemade, of course.”

A wet sticky jelly baby popped out of Wendy’s mouth and hit the pillow. She hoovered it up and licked the pillow case before slumping onto the bed with a thump.

“Gerald,” she said, feeling the sugar rush into her bloodstream. “The Flønkensträp sounds like a Swedish sex toy. As far as inviting Cam and his skinny Lycra-sprayed girlfriend into our living room to perform god-knows-what on our shag pile, followed by a side order of pickled herrings and meatballs, you can Flønkensträp off!”

The sweat was dripping from her now. She swung her legs from the bed and stood up, making a sound like peeling sellotape from an overripe melon.

“I’m going downstairs to the fridge now, Gerald, to perform a move I like to call the menopausal corkscrew, followed closely by another favourite of mine; the flatoutonthesofawatcingbakeoff. And I can assure you I’ll achieve maximum satisfaction, Gerald. I might even do I naked.”