The Motherhood Walk of Fame. Shari Low

too busy signing up as a certified commitment-phobic to notice. It was insane, deranged, desperate and a bigger disaster than George Bush’s contribution to world peace. The ignominy of the memories is too hard to bear, so I’ll give you the pamphlet edition as opposed to War and Peace. Or should I say the Nipple Alert version, as the following story provided shame, embarrassment, disaster, and the plot for my first novel.

      First there was Nick, the man who’d taken my virginity on a hot night in Benidorm. Actually, ‘taken’ isn’t strictly true. I’d lobbed it at him at the approximate speed of an Olympic javelin. But when I rediscovered him in a restaurant in St Andrews, we discovered we had all the sexual tension of custard. Luckily, Sarah was with me, and they fell in love, married and when we’re all together now I manage to blank out the fact that I know what his penis looks like.

      Then there was Joe, a nightclub owner in Amsterdam. By the time I tracked him down he was a millionaire entrepreneur and paragon of chic–and so camp he made Elton John look like Vinnie Jones’s harder brother.

      Next was Doug, who, ironically, dumped me first time around because he caught me shagging Mark–in the days when Mark didn’t think a libido was one of those inflatable things you lie on in the pool on holiday. Anyway, second time around Doug proved that he had the thirst for vengeance of a Sicilian mob boss and totally humiliated me, so I was forced to move on to…

      Tom. Bless him. An Irish farmer with the body of a Greek God. By the time I found him again he was happily married and had the body of a Greek taxi driver called Stavros who existed on ten thousand calories a day.

      Then there was Phil. A complete honey, who was my Shanghai Surprise–never more so than when I discovered that he’d become a big name on the American comedy circuit and had married Lily, the beautiful flower who’d worked with me in a nightclub in deepest darkest Shanghai.

      So that left all my hopes pinned on Sam. Sam Morton. The martial arts expert who I fell madly in love with when I lived in Hong Kong. The one that I knew, just knew, was right for me when I set eyes on him again all those years later. The one who adored me, who said he’d prayed every moment for me to return to him–that is, when he wasn’t really busy doing other things, like shagging half the wealthy female population of South East Asia. Oh, yes, Sam had become a gigolo. A hooker. A man who could fucky-fucky-long-time for mucho dinaro. And thereafter I couldn’t look at him without thinking ‘wire brush and disinfectant’. And believe me, I tried. I even agreed to a holiday on a paradise island to heal our tortured relationship. Result? Loads of sun, sea, sand…and a clitoris that spent the whole time on its own little vacation. Yep, the passion was officially gone, replaced by friendship. Platonic friendship.

      So my great international manhunt fell spectacularly on its buttocks–as did I when the entire congregation at Carol and Cal’s wedding (except my dad, who was deep in an alcoholic slumber) found out that the man who had accompanied me to the wedding–and whom I’d begged to masquerade as my boyfriend for the day to save my embarrassment about the whole round the world/still single debacle–was actually South East Asia’s most prolific rent-a-dick.

      My mother claims she is still taking the anti-anxiety pills.

      But strangely, it didn’t faze Mark, my first love, my childhood sweetheart. He stepped in when my life was falling apart and (literally) picked me up and rescued me. That’s when I realised that throughout my whole life, through every crazy scheme, drama and disaster, Mark Barwick had always been there at the right time, said the right things and saved the day. Yep, his Y-fronts should be worn on top of his trousers at all times. He’s my soul mate and I thank God every day for sending him to me. Well, except when I’ve got PMT and could happily keep the local hitman in business.

      I wouldn’t change a thing and I’ve never doubted for one moment that we were meant to be together. Mark is my penguin. Or my swan. Or whatever bloody bird it is that only has one love and mates for life. And the thing that I love most about him? It could be that he accepts me for what I am–warts, cellulite, irrational obsession with reality TV and all. It could be that he’s a genuinely decent bloke who couldn’t shaft someone if his life depended on it. It could be that he has the best buttocks I’ve ever seen. God bless all those teenage games of footie down the park. It could be that there’s no one on earth whom I’d rather was the father of my children.

      But honestly? I love him because it just feels right. Oh, okay, the buttocks help.

      And luckily he’s the most non-jealous easy-going man in the universe, because some of my exes have become really good friends. Nick, obviously, on the grounds that he’s married to one of my best pals. Joe and his partner Claus now own nightclubs all over the world, including one in London, so they pop in regularly for dinner. Phil and Lily still live in New York and we do the whole ‘Christmas card, drunken phone call every three months’ thing.

      And Sam…Bugger, my mobile phone was ringing. ‘Don’t move,’ I screamed at Kate, still conscious of the fact that if she pulled a muscle while in that position she was going to have to have a very open-minded physiotherapist.

      I snatched it from beside the coffee machine, burning my hand in the process.

      ‘Hello,’ I wailed.

      ‘Is that Carly Cooper, literary genius and all-round sex-goddess?’ drawled those familiar transatlantic vowels.

      ‘Nope, it’s Carly Cooper, crap columnist, bored off her tits and wouldn’t know a good shag if I won it in a tombola.’ I was trying to be casual, but I have to admit, I was more than a bit freaked out. It was the second time that some kind of weird psychic synergy had cropped up that morning. And I MUST remember to stop divulging intimate details about my sex life to my pals.

      ‘Ah, well, that may be about to change, my darling.’

      ‘Which bit?’ I asked, puzzled.

      ‘All of it, my love.’ His English accent was back. The one that teenage girls lusted over, middle-aged women fantasised about, and men (except those in Joe and Claus’s very-camp camp) despised. You see, on the other end of the line was Sam Morton, male hooker turned international A-list movie star, by way of a screenplay he wrote about his life that went on to become a movie with him in the leading role. Obviously the world was ready for a male take on Pretty Woman (with the most amazing abs on God’s earth thrown in for good measure) because it grossed over $100 million. Sam had made the Big Time.

      ‘Oh yeah, and how’s that, Mr Big Shot Movie Star?’

      Kate and Carol realised who I was talking to and shouted a simultaneous ‘Hi Sam!’ in the background.

      He laughed. ‘Tell the girls I said hi. Oh, I suddenly got a twinge of homesickness then.’

      ‘Yeah, cos it’s really tough spending all day shopping on Rodeo Drive and having your ego stroked by young, pneumatic starlets,’ I retorted. ‘Anyway, enough about you, tell me why my life’s about to change?’

      ‘That’s what I’ve always loved about you–your depth, humility and your interest in the lives of your friends,’ he said.

      ‘Sam, I’m sitting in a semi in London on a cold, rainy day having a mid-life crisis about the pitiful state of my existence. You, on the other hand, have probably just disembarked from your chauffeur-driven limo after spending the night in the VIP lounge of an exclusive club, having free Cristal champagne chugged down your neck while your adoring masses worship at your Pradaclad tootsies. Forgive me if I don’t feel your pain. Now, I have to go and collect Benny from nursery, so much as I love you madly and would adore to extend this cosy chat I must leave. Go call up Julia Roberts for a blether.’

      ‘Nah, I’d hate to wake her–her twins have been giving her sleepless nights over the last couple of weeks so she’s exhausted. Anyway, I haven’t told you how your life’s about to change yet.’

      ‘Oh, I thought you were just being your usual optimistic, dramatic self.’

      ‘No, it was a statement of fact. Remember I told you that I gave a copy of Nipple Alert to my agent? Well, he