The candle flame is too hot. It flickers and dances in the over-warm breeze, a breeze that brings no respite from the heat. Soft gossamer wings flutter to and fro in the dark, sprinkling dusty scaled in the circle of light. I'm struggling to resist, but I'm drawn. And then it's to bright, and I am flying too close to the sun, dazzled by the light, fried and melting from the heat, weary in my endeavers to stay airborn. I am so warm. The heat... It's stiffling, overpowering. It wakes me.

I cannot be with someone who takes pleasure in inflicting pain on me, someone who can't love me

It's the fantasy of first love. If you've been married for 400 years, as I have, it's nice to experience first love again and you can vicariously through a book. And it is such a fantasy. It takes you away from doing the dishes and the laundry. I think of this as a contemporary romance rather than erotic fiction.

I'm looking forward to getting back to my house and my Ugg boots and not washing sometimes, and getting back to writing.

I do not look at the world in terms of black and white - and I find people who do rather scary. I think it's all shades of grey.

So you've just slept with him, given him your virginity, a man who doesn't love you. In fact, he has odd ideas about you, wants to make you some sort of kinky sex slave.

People are talking about sex. They're talking about sex with their husbands. They're talking about sex with their girlfriends. They're talking about sex with their partners. And because of all of this communication, women are having much more intimate relationships, which is fantastic.