THE SEX DIARIES: I kissed him everywhere. But it was over quickly…

Eliot and I had been together for ten months, but he hadn’t stayed with me until now.

When we spent the night together it was always in his flat in far north London, while my ex-husband Simon came to the family home to look after the children because he had no room for them in his rented flat.

It worked fine, but Emi, six, and Maude, twelve, hated to see me leave (Hector, at fifteen, was quite happy to see me go).

It was Emi’s bath time that convinced me it was finally time for Eliot to spend the night at my house.

She always played with her Mermaid Barbie doll, gracefully diving into the water while her colorful tail flashed. But on this particular night, Emi pushed Mermaid Barbie underwater, turning one side of her tail into a fin and cutting through the surface.

Eliot and I had been together for ten months, but he hadn’t stayed with me until now

Emi was writer and director of these bath scenes. I voiced the more boring and anatomically realistic Lottie doll. “I’m a bad pink shark,” Emi said. ‘Imagine you’re going for a swim and it starts to wave.’

“Oh, it’s going to be wavy!” I parroted dutifully.

“Imagine if you can’t really swim.”

“Oh, help!” I said.

“Imagine being all alone because your mom is out with her boyfriend.”

“You’re not all alone!” I protested. “Daddy’s here.”

She ignored me. ‘Imagine you’re all alone and the angry pink shark comes for you.’ Mermaid Barbie flashed menacingly through the water and hit my arm.

Her father Simon was also dating someone much younger than him – and he liked to show me pictures of her when we were in the middle of an argument.

Nevertheless, he didn’t seem to be on the pink shark’s hit list. And he left Emi and her two siblings “all alone” with me six out of seven days.

But I was her mother; different rules applied. I was often furious about it, but powerless, like mothers everywhere.

I had carefully chosen the neutral area of ​​Borough Market when I introduced Eliot to my children a few months earlier.

The two eldest were doing fine – Eliot was closer to them than me at 28 – but Emi studiously ignored him and spent the entire hour screaming for Bubble Tea. The night Eliot was due to arrive, I cleaned the house, changed the sheets, and prepared a complicated eggplant dish for us to cook while we drank a glass of wine.

As he entered my narrow hallway, he filled everything, and I experienced my usual giddy desire to kiss him, long and hard – but the children were standing behind me in the kitchen.

I was looking forward to Eliot spending the night. I hadn’t had a man in my bed for three years – Simon and I had stopped sharing a bed long before the official divorce.

But fulfilling the role of mother and friend at the same time was always a struggle. There was no quiet glass of wine. Emi spilled her bead kit all over the kitchen floor and demanded we help clean up.

No one liked the eggplant cake I made. And as we ate, I heard myself talking in a false voice, asking about Hector’s Taekwondo and Maude’s kickboxing, as if I were putting on a show. It was hard to keep it all together when Eliot was radiating heat out there, in pale jeans that clung to his thighs.

Eliot asked the kids all the right questions, but I could tell he was feeling self-conscious – and so were the kids.

When it was time for bed, I didn’t rush Emi. I didn’t want her to think I had less time for her because Eliot was awkwardly waiting downstairs. But it took her hours to brush her teeth and even longer to choose a story.

When I finally tried to leave, she clung to my arm. “Just a little longer, please!” she shouted.

“You will always be first in my heart,” I finally said at the door. “No matter what.”

But she sank back into her pillow in despair.

I tried not to feel guilty sitting with Eliot. What was I supposed to do, become a nun?

I snuggled closer to him and enjoyed the feeling of his wide thighs next to mine, his muscular arm around my shoulder.

And when we were finally in bed, he felt wonderful. We saw each other less than once a week, so even though the kids were at home, I wanted to make love.

Eliot wasn’t having it, but he gave in when I crawled under the covers and kissed him all over. However, he was terrified that the children would burst into the bedroom. He struggled to act, his eyes glued to the door, and then it was all over quite quickly.

In the morning, Eliot got dressed quickly – he had to go to work. I didn’t want to be sad because he was leaving; I had to run the school.

I loved him dearly, but it was a painful love, limited by both of our situations.

• Annabel Bond is a pseudonym. All names have been changed.