I hear so many secrets in my professional life that I am happy for my friends ( and my wives, come to that ) to retain a little mystery. I never felt the need to probe into Axel's erotomania. If I did occassionally wonder at him I suspected a distant mother, a hint of violence, perhaps. But today he seemed rather frail and, amongst his lifetime collection of books, I felt the fanaticism of the man. It takes a mania born of great pain to have pursued these books over the course of a life. I tried to forget about the Chorier and to honour what my old friend was saying.

If my life is to mean anything, he said, it will be after my death. I will do two things. Some of the sculpture will be sold, there will be money for Gertrude, but the entire collection of erotica will go to a library. He paused. I intend to open an Academy of Erotic Studies. It will be based here, in Hamburg, and will have a curriculum covering every aspect of erotic culture. It will be the first of its kind in history and, equally, will arrive at the most crucial time for the sexual life of our species. In short, I am trying to do some good.

My phone rang. Helen?  We had not spoken for weeks but I was aware of her tendency to call me when I had least need of her. But to cancel a call from Helen felt akin to killing a small animal, so I apologised to Axel. ' HE'S BROKEN MY FUCKING HEART', she yelled. I had never known her swear. I consoled her briefly, and switched the phone off, and for a second pictured some further consolation, a few days hence.

A filthy mind is a perpetual feast, said Axel, smiling.

You see, I have lived in the greatest of times. What gay man of my age could have expected to have enjoyed, legally, such a cornucopia of dick? What woman of my age could have seen the freedom her children have? The pill changed everything. The women's movement would have curled up and died in the water forty years go without the pill. But we live in dark times, said Axel. Young girls and boys grow up awash in pornography. They are rancid creatures. He scowled darkly, as if looking around the room for Thom. But it will be the women who pay for this, it always is. So my Academy is designed to rediscover the erotic, the aesthetic of sex. And seduction, too. We'll teach the lost art of seduction.

And where do I come in?

I want you to write a book, said Axel. You will inherit my copy of Walter's Secret Life if you write a book proving that it is not a work of fiction, but a true history of one man's sexual life. I have done the research, I have the proof. He tapped on the desk. It's a conspiracy.

Wasn't there a book proving it was all made up by Henry Spencer Ashbee?

Yes, but it's lies, all of it. No-one wanted to accept that one man could give so many women so much pleasure. But what has my boat party been, if not a living proof of it? I stared rather dimly at Axel. Yes, I had enjoyed myself over several decades at his boat parties but the greater meaning of this was lost to me. Goddamit, man! Do I have to spell it out?  I am talking about female ejaculation! Why do I keep a pair of Wellington boots in the cabin of the boat? I have to wade through floods of ejaculate! And that is why they say My Secret Life is fiction, because noone will accept the last and final truth of a woman's desire! Walter did! I did ! And so do you, my friend. The greatest love is that of a gushing woman! And you know it! He paused. So that, dear boy, is the book I want you to write. Now let's drink.

With Thom in the house, I wasn't keen to explore the delicate balance between dementia and illumination within my host. I picked up one of the eleven volumes, looked briefly at the various watermarks, and decided to put the whole thing off.

Axel? I'll do it.

The scullery girls, he said,  nodding towards the door.