Interesting question in email:

>I wonder, seeing as most people don't know who you are, how many girls
in London are pretending to be you with their clients?

It hadn't occurred to me someone might do so. The people who have met me 'as' Belle are the agent, the editor, someone who works for the agent, the fellow I described having lunch with, the other fellow I described having coffee with, an accountant, Rowan Pelling and One Other Person. Almost none of these people know Belle as me, if that makes sense. Which is to say they know neither my name nor where I live. And Belle is not the name I use for working, so none of the clients (to my knowledge) know.

Hello, One Other Person. I will refer to you as OOP from now on unless you've any objection.

Has anyone met someone claiming to be me whom you did not initially contact through this email address?

If so, was she hot?

Also in email, regarding Tiger Tim,

>OPEN YOUR EYES! he looks like the devil and is ugly with bad teeth! And kinda skinny legs. Plus he's dull.

I know, that's the real shame... there's just no accounting for taste, is there?

And finally,

>Gonna be in New York come July?

Apparently strippers and working girls the world over are converging on that city during the Republican convention.

Tempting. Donald Rumsfeld is top man-totty.

I have succumbed to the most dangerous ailment of the English summer.

This is not, before you wonder, the tendency to expose acres of white flesh ripe for the burning as soon as the sun so much as peeks from behind a cloud, nor to complain when the weather is warm for longer than three days. It is not the heady, yet sick, desire to cram myself in to the Harrod's and Selfridge's sales along with a significant portion of the rest of the city, nor to lament about the price and relative value of a 99. I am not overcome with the feverish need to attend a music festival nor go surfing down Cornwall way. No, it is a more malignant and incurable disease than that.

Watching the tennis with friends yesterday, I suddenly thought, 'my, but that Tim Henman is rather cute.' And I sat through his excruciating match until well past suppertime.

If someone knows an antidote, please advise.

Morning post - a taste of today's Inbox.

>I notice that in your blog you paint yourself shallow and snobbish. That's simply an
>observation, each to their own and all that. I only point this out to give you some
>indication on how you're coming across.

Thank you, Samantha. I notice that in your email, you paint yourself as hectoring and superior. Simply an observation. Each to her own.

To reply to your observation, I paint myself as shallow and snobbish because I am, and believe people who say they are not with straight faces are ignorant or lying. I am an alumna of fine public schools ('private' to North Americans), where 'shallow and snobbish' might well have been the motto.

Now, from the comparatively sublime to the ridiculous:

>I think its a real shame that you will lower yourself to such depths to get a shag
>and then be so triumphant about it. Trust me honey...you didn't get one up on
>anybody. Why don't you stick to fucking rich clients and being a professional slut?

Thank you, Lion Pumper. I didn't mean to paint myself as a hero in any of that. Unlike a lot of people, I'm willing to share episodes in my life even if they are ill-advised, regrettable or plain stupid.

Did you initialise a Hotmail account specifically to send me this email? I think it's a 'real shame' anyone will lower himself to the point where scoring points off an anonymous blogger is worth such effort.

(Readers: you would be correct in assuming that by writing about my email rather than the weekend, nothing of import happened. Lovely morning, though, isn't it?)

There's no why to ex sex, there's only the how (long it will last, soon it will be over, fast can I leave). Most of my exes are friends, and most of my friends are exes, and I don't fuck them afterward as a rule. But there are one or two who fall out of touch, usually because there was little in the relationship worth building a friendship on, and this was one.

The morning he left he offered me a lift to a meeting - the literary agent if you must know. Before we could go, though, he asked if I had any money on me. I didn't. Except when working, I usually carry less spare change than the Queen.

He drove us via a cashpoint. So I could make a withdrawal and pay him back for the tomatoes he had bought me (n.b., these were replacing tomatoes I already had that he had helped himself to. So, I was paying for my own tomatoes twice. Nice.).

I emerged from the car shaking my head. Walked to the cashpoint. Withdrew a crisp tenner - the tomatoes hadn't cost that much, but who knows, maybe he was going to impose a surcharge on my own bog roll, or something - and walked back to the car. Put the note in his hand.

Closed the door. Kept on walking.

A text came through a minute later:

Am just filling up with petrol if you still want a lift come back and meet me.

I didn't reply. He rang. Did I want a lift, he asked. Yes, if you can act like a normal person, I said. I described the direction I was going, said if he wanted to drive me, he could pick me up. He rang again a minute later. Said he was at the end of the road now and didn't see me. I said it was because I was still walking. Hung up. He rang again, asked where I was. Described the road I was on, the building I had just passed, the route I was taking. Hung up.

He sent another text:

This is really stupid, I'm just 10 meters behind u the whole way. And as per usual, is exactly what I knew would happen.

A minute later, his car came up on my right. I stopped walking. He reached across and opened the passenger side door.

'I just got your text,' I said.

'And?' he said.

'Goodbye.' I shut the door firmly and walked on. His car lingered a minute until someone beeped a horn, and he drove up to the next roundabout and disappeared. And that was it. Put on headphones. The next song was about someone walking out the door, and I felt good, and smiled so hard it brought tears to my eyes.

So, yes. Sex. With someone I honestly expected never to have sex with again.

Still sorting it out. It's a mess. But I would like to confirm, that at least before the slightly tipsy postcoital glowing phase ended and the horrible, horrible veil of Oh-Dear-Me-Not-Again descended, it was good.

Better than good. He sat on my chest and fucked my mouth, he took me behind, above and below. I smiled and asked how he'd gotten so good with his tongue, thinking there must be some genius tart showing him the ropes now. "I don't know," he said. "I just think about it a lot." I came harder, faster and longer than usual, and for a brief moment I thought, 'if he never said anything stupid again, I could be quite happy with this'.

Sod's Law Mark II: he will open his mouth and say something stupid within thirty seconds of thinking that. And it was raining outside so I couldn't make some excuse to vacate the flat, walk around for a bit, and come back when enough time had elapsed to be certain he'd gone.

I can, however, change my phone number (which is the same as when we were dating) before he thinks to ring me afterward.

The benefits of sex with an ex:

1. No chance of being shocked by what he looks like naked the first time. That horrible mole is right where you left it.

2. Not having to awkwardly ask for contact details after. If you don't have them, it's not by accident.

3. He knows where your buttons are, how many there are, how long they need to be pressed and whether they should go side-to-side, up-and-down or in little circles.

And the drawbacks:

1. There's probably a good reason you're not together anymore. A very good reason.

2. One of you will think this means the relationship is back on.

3. There is absolutely no way you can tell any of your friends without coming off as the world's biggest prat. After all, they had to live with you post-breakup, right?

Cripes. I'm going to commence a head/wall interface now. Back later when I have knocked some sense into myself.

Went away for the weekend to visit friends in the country. Sod's Law: if in the city with no escape, the days will be blazing hot and sunny; the minute I step foot outside this urban sphere it will chuck it down endlessly. And I will be wearing open-toed shoes with white trousers. So if you experienced unpleasant weather this weekend, be assured that it was my fault entirely.

How the book happened, another installment in an increasingly drawn-out-for-effect series:

The third person I met I haven't actually met yet. It was Mil Millington (hi Mil, can I say that without you slapping me with a libel suit? No? Ah well too late then). Mil has since been asked by journos and the like whether he knows me in person, to which he answers no, for reasons along the lines that his children deserve to grow up with a living father in posession of all of his fingers.

I mentioned Mil en blog, and he emailed me later with some useful contacts in the publishing biz. So you see, it really is all about secret handshakes and inner circles. And standing at its epicentre is a man with fuschia-coloured hair.

Mil passed on the details of two editors he knew. Unlike my own profession, meeting someone in publishing does not include a discussion of bra cup sizes first (sorry to disappoint everyone). I rang the first woman he suggested.

Morning Post (i.e. can not be arsed with content today):

Dear Belle,

What do you do when you can't get to sleep? I've been trying since midnight and nothing works. It's getting light now and I'm confused to what time of the day it is.

Best wishes,
A reader in Croydon, Surrey


Dear Reader,

I refer you to yesterday's entry. We know sex is a soporific; luckily, there's one kind where you're not obliged to stay up and cuddle afterward.

xx
Belle

But you don't come here for the politics, nor the pottering-in-garden anecdotes, nor even the replays of fascinating conversations with London glitterati (read: mostly drunken rambling monologues with my nondescript friends).

You come here for the sex. And dear reader, I am afraid that the only sex I have been having is of the appliance-aided variety.

Masturbation is great fun, but I've neglected my onanistic skills. In the last few years I've been more likely to do it for an audience (phone sex, boyfriends) than alone. When, I wondered a few weeks ago, was the last time I touched my own g-spot? Nurturing my non-exhibitionist side has been daunting, not least because the last lights-out self-sex I had sweating under the duvet was circa fifth form. Rubbing one out in a dark room only leads to the vague fear that someone (namely my mother) might come through the door unannounced at any time (impossible, yes, but this is paranoia, not reality) and ask if I would just go to sleep already (it was a scarifying experience).

Getting jiggy with missen clears the pipes but doesn't make for much of a satisfying time. So I borrowed a suggesting from the Em & Lo book and took myself out on a date last night. Came home with a nice bottle of wine, listened to some mood music (Wilco's A.M.) and put the moves on myself. Instead of heading for the upper right drawer, the light switch and a pillow, I took my gelatinous, almost life-like friend to the bathtub where we made the beast with one back. And I didn't have to put on a nice dress or anything.

Weekend? Sunny. Tiring. Friends here, friends there. It's a good season to have your daytimes and midweeks free. Indulging in my favourite summertime snack, Pink & Whites and cold mint tea. And walking everywhere. Spending the greater part of the winter in the back of a black cab has not done wonders for my legs.

Last year I was asked to contribute an article to the Labour Tribune on the subject of prostitution. What I thought of the laws as they stand, where I thought they should go, and so on. I won't retype that here. But I did think it needful to mention the proposed changes in legislation, if only in passing.

The idea of tolerance zones in cities where street soliciting will not be prosecuted sounds compassionate on its face, but is ultimately misguided and unsafe. Driving vulnerable women out into the light industrial areas on the outskirts of a city is potentially very dangerous to them. By caving to the NIMBY brigade and pressure from homeowners who do not want to see their property vales drop (because that, it seems, is all we care about in the UK in the 21st century - property prices), girls who are already potentially abused in large numbers will be put in a situation where they have less recourse to protection, not more.

And not forgetting, street soliciting is only a fraction of the sex business.

You probably have already guessed: I think brothels should be legal. I think there should be a chain like Spearmint Rhino for working girls. I think what consenting adults want to do should be their business, and the way to crack down on traffickers, pimps and abusers is not to put the girls out of sight of the public. The suburbanites who imagine moving trade elsewhere will slow the flow of business are wrong. The people who think criminal charges for buying sex will stop the punters are wrong. Those who believe there is any one story of prostitution, that a 16-year-old heroin addict on the street, or a posh hooker writhing on the sheets in Claridge's, is the representative of all working girls and that everyone just needs a little self-esteem workshop and some useful pamphlets on the dangers of drug use, are wrong.

If people are indeed being trafficked into the country for sex work, then surely the solution is better passport control - not putting the girls in harm's way.

It's the world's oldest profession. It won't go away. But we can be sensible about the approaches to managing it, instead of consigning girls to a makeshift flesh zoo.

A few thoughts. Nothing like a cohesive statement. I'm not certain 'spokeswoman' suits me.

These last few warm days I've been spending time in the garden putting off a dozen or more inevitable tasks. There's a corner that is essentially hidden from view, but provides a thrilling semblance of being in public, and I have been gently roasting myself in the most abbreviated of swimsuits. I did put something more substantial on to go vote yesterday, though.

I wonder if tan lines are better than no tan lines.

I wonder if the grey morning clouds will develop into afternoon rain.

I wonder if I should bring something sweet or savoury to a barbecue this afternoon.

I wonder if it's time to start considering incalls.

I believe it was ErosBlog who first complained about people sending form letters to ask for reciprocal links. Or was it Drew In The World? At any rate, yes, while I do tend to read all my email, any which start,

'Dear Webmaster, I came across your "blog" while searching the term "sex" in Google...'

immediately goes to the bin.

That, and other minor computer annoyances, are what fill my mornings of late.

(Also - the comment about Italian pronunciation yesterday wasn't a dig, nor a request for an inbox of comments on the subject. I thought his way of saying it was strange. Different to how I would say it. I did not say, nor think, it was wrong. It's simply a detail of the lunch that I remembered.

But this does answer my question of why Eats, Shoots and Leaves sells so well in the UK.)

Back to book goss.

The second person I met was a publisher. This was about a fortnight after meeting the producer. He was from a small firm known for translations and highbrow erotica. We planned by email to meet at his office. This was dicey - they Boy was around that week (it was the week we split, in fact), and I had him in tow. So we rode the tube together to Finsbury Park and he went to buy a radio while I walked to the office.

It was a small place at the end of an alley. The publisher answered the door himself. The rooms were full of books. He talked through to someone in another room, someone I couldn't see. He seemed a little scattier in person than he had come across in email. For a second I wondered if he was quite sure who I was.

He suggested we walk to an Italian restaurant around the corner. It was empty but for a man sitting at a table alone. The man at the other table looked over at me. I was well paranoid about the attention the site was getting now - was that man tipped off by someone? It didn't matter. What could he possibly have done? I'm not a man and I'm not a known face, so setting someone in the same room to sniff out who I was would make little difference. I was probably imagining his interest in our conversation anyway.

We ordered food. The publisher had bruschette (which he pronounced, I thought, strangely - a soft sch instead of hard ch). I had an artichoke salad. We talked about books, a book he was about to publish in translation. A little bit about films. He'd sent me a sample contract, asked what I thought. I said I'd have to think. I think I need an agent, I thought, but didn't say. The other authors in his stable seemed like a good fit, though.

After an hour my phone was buzzing - the Boy was back, he was waiting outside the publisher's office! I made my excuses and stuck the publisher with the bill. Went back, collected the Boy and hurried off. We stopped at a middle eastern cafe on the way back and ate heavy sugared patries washed down with hot mint tea. He showed me new orange pair of headphones he'd bought.

All manner of important events going down here. Bombarded with descriptions of the magnificent astronomical event visible in Europe today, I went outside with a cardboard box, a piece of white paper and a sharp implement to witness the transit of Venus for myself.

Lesson learned today: covering your head with a box in which a pinpoint hole allows you to view a small blob moving across a larger one, is neither a good way to beat the heat nor the way you want your neighbours to see you of a Tuesday morning.

Pussy Ranch has hung up her spangly thong, Washingtonienne is way, way out, and I am currently getting less sexual healing than an armless fat kid, so I bring you:

Sex Bloggers: Careers To Try Next

1. Boutique jewellery designer. If Jade Jagger can slap some beads on a strip of leather and call it 250 quid, so can I. I'll even model them topless.

2. Journalist. If you were a politician or footballer, wouldn't you respond to a cold call from an ex-whore? Thought so. I won't ring your house, promise.

3. Representative to Italian Parliament.

4. Fashion Muse. Requires much the same upkeep as prostitution, but the men who request your services are gay. Score!

5. Spokeswoman for DFS Sofas. I can sit on a leather settee as well as the next person, and no one I know has done anal with Linda Barker.

6. Phase Shift. A humble plan wherein I move to the States and open a Senator's post, Pussy Ranch takes up residence in London and entertains business travellers, and Washingtonienne impales herself on a jelly vibe in the Twin Cities. What say you, ladies?

7. Children's morning television host.

8. Assistant to Dr Who. Because they were always for the fathers anyway.

9. Author. Who says dead tree is dead? Oh wait, I suppose we already are (authors, that is. Not dead trees).

10. Hoover.

Had a call late last night. Not work - A1 was having some sort of crisis. He left four missed calls and a garbled message. When I tried to ring it went straight through to the answerphone. Boys. It was late, but I put myself at the mercy of the London Underground and went to his.

The tube route between my place and A1's involves two changes. And I worry that time of night of missing the last train and being stuck in Earl's Court with a Travelcard and distinct lack of clue.

The tube is, by far, the most antisocial mode of transport yet invented. On the bus, you can shield others from your germs by sneezing into the back of their heads. On the tube you are forced to share breathing space with every phlegmy disease vector from here to Uxbridge. And in spite of being nose-to-armpit with complete strangers and mingling more viruses than a Crichton novel, you are Not Allowed To Stare.

In normal circumstances this would not be hard. City dwellers are past masters of the Appraisal Glance, in which a person is sized up and dismissed in the split second they come into view. But when you're trapped in a hurtling canister on a bumpy track to Dollis Hill, the eyes literally have nowhere to go. You have to stare. But you're not allowed to. This is why paperbacks are so popular; it gives you a shield to hide behind as well as an excuse to not hold on to the rail and stumble over the snowdrift of Metros cluttering the aisle.

Waiting for a District Line train I was aware of someone looking at me. I pretended to check my watch and look up and down the track. Some youngish man, wearing a suit. Probably just idly checking out everyone on the platform. Fair enough. I needed a shower and some sleep and probably didn't merit a second glance.

The train arrived. I sat down. The man sat opposite me. Was that another look? No. Ignore it. I looked at his hand. It was a fine, well-shaped hand. Very attractive. I rested my forehead on a side handrail.

In peripheral vision I could see him looking me over a couple more times. Definitely more than necessary. But he didn't seem predatory. Probably just wondering why I'm out, as I do with people all the time. Probably drunk. Who rides the tube in a suit this time of night sober?

I looked up. His blue eyes were staring at me. Cool as. I couldn't help myself and grinned like a loon. He didn't crack a smile. We both looked away quickly.

Argh, I thought. Giddy moron. But I can't help it; if someone looks at me and I'm not expecting it, I laugh. I must have seemed a complete idiot.

Two stops. His head turned back toward me. I looked at him. Smiled. Stuck out my tongue.

And he laughed. Looked away again.

Right. Two more stops. Both looking obviously in other directions. Quite obscene
eye-avoidance, actually. My stop was approaching. I stretched. I could see him glance at me but refused to meet his gaze. What was he going to do? I could wave as I stepped off. I could say something.

I stood up. The train slid into the station. The doors opened. Go on, at least nod, I thought. Then: follow me off, follow me off. I stepped on to the platform. No, wait, don't. He didn't. Just some drunk lad in a suit, going home. The train moved into the night.

(A1 was fine, by the way. A bit tired and emotional is all. By which I mean drunk.)

Why don't I tell you a bit about the book? As it's taking up so much of my time of late.

When the Guardian Weblog awards were announced, I was not exactly inundated with well-wishers and congratulations. Neither was I struggling under the weight of book deals and film offers. The fellow from the Guardian had said something about being 'on the brink of media stardom,' but as far as I could tell, the initial responses were all from webloggers grumbling about how they could have done it better, how they were sure I wasn't for real, and how they had been around so much longer and were 'real' weblogs and so on.

Tiresome. Not fruitful. No one was knocking down my door with interview requests or handfuls of cash. I reckoned that was it for the media flurry, and put it to the side.

Someone made contact with me in email - a film producer, a reasonable name, some respected projects under his belt. I wasn't sure expanding beyond the weblog was a good idea (I was already paranoid of people finding out), but agreed to meet him.

He let me choose the place and time. It was a crowded cafe. He asked what I looked like. I made a ridiculous claim to resemble a well-known actress. He said he looked like Adam Sandler, a little. I thought if nothing else it would be interesting to see if he was for real, and I wasn't obliged to sign anything or give my anonymity away.

I arrived earlier than expected, bought a paper and two magazines and sat at a table in the crowded restaurant. The producer arrived spot on time, and he did indeed resemble Adam Sandler, which made me feel slightly guilty about my own exaggerated claim. Especially as I was wearing nondescript jeans and a jumper.

He gave me a gift, a book - tangential to one I'd mentioned in the blog. We talked about films, music, iPods, things like that. I liked him. He wanted me to write a screenplay based on my life. I said it didn't really have an ending. He said it didn't need to. I said I'd think about it. He was cool, and in spite of myself I started imagining pointless details like what the opening credits might look like, what should be on the soundtrack, who should play me. Things that, even in a best-case scenario, wouldn't be my decision. But it was nice to think about.

We finished cups of tea and went our separate ways. Exchanged friendly emails in the weeks after.

I suppose the initial lack of interest in the blog after the ocmpetition must have been a holiday-related blip, because one morning I woke to find my inbox full of dozens of offers from producers and agents.

Yikes. Time to think more seriously about what I wanted, how I wanted it, whether I wanted it at all. Would it be implausible to say I had no idea what was going to happen? Because I did not. How was I going to keep a low profile and keep working?

The joys of a bank holiday weekend...

I love everything about them: the weather (always disappointing), the entertainments (usually disappointing), the food (burnt to a crisp in someone's back garden, but strangely not disappointing) and the name itself. Bank Holiday Weekend. It's so straightforward, so to-the-point, I'm surprised it's not called Monday in May When Things Are Shut. I received a volume of correspondence from the States this week alerting me that they have a sister three-day affair, called Memorial Day, though in memory of what no one thought to say. Our holiday is in memory of banks.

On Saturday afternoon I sat with friends at a pub and watched the riverboats and pleasure cruisers pass through Kew, ducks and geese bobbing in their wake. One or two were old Dunkirk boats. And the rest of the weekend wasn't even remotely as energetic. The roses in my front garden, pale pink, are in full flush at the moment, threatening to overpower the walkway. There are in fact roses all up and down the street, making negotiating the pavement as thorny an issue as dropping the subject of Gaza in conversation. I snipped a few blooms for inside and plan to save the petals. I'm playing at being a lady of leisure, and it's nice for now.