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.

If I were in possession of an art collection like Axel's, I would also want a housekeeper as scary and sour as Gertrude. Even a pleasantry would invite her disdain so I decided to ignore her and, delightfully, Axel was fine with that. Gertrude has a frown draped over her face, her lips are as hard as pressed rubber. It's probably not her fault. One can sense  generations of repression had gone into that frown but I did wonder why the presence of so much erotic art and sculpture had not made her more accepting of human foible. If I didn't know Axel better I would think there was a blood tie. But as a professional homosexual who considers himself to have evolved beyond blood ties I know he would never be seen dead with a relative in the house. Nevertheless, I let Gertrude take Thom down to the basement. To meet the scullery girls, said Axel, with a grin. I grinned back. I was here to have a conversation and it wasn't the time to be over protective.

A few magisterial nudes by Cranarch the Elder led the way into the library. A male Rodin served as a hatstand. Was that a Vallotton? Axel indicated to the left. There was an oversize Man Ray study, Natasha, nude. It also served as the door into the backroom for the antiquarian erotica. To push open the door I had to place my hand over Natasha's breast and, as I did so, I noticed Axel close his eyes, solemnly. This was his most private place, a room filled wall to wall with thousands of books about sex. And on a small table in front of me was Walter's My Secret Life, all eleven volumes, immaculate in blue quarter leather. One of only two known copies. I gasped for air. I had never seen it before. And yet, entering the room I had also glimpsed, just prior to My Secret Life, a copy of Nicolas Chorier's Aloisiae Sigeae Toletanae Satyra Sotadica de arcanis Amooris et Veneris, the first edition of 1659 and, after, a shelf full of other editions of the same up to the 18th century, including one with plates by Elluin. I was stunned. I was meant to be amazed by My Secret Life but I had spotted the Chorier. Not wanting to disappoint Axel I started sniffing the eleven volumes on the table. I caught my breath. It seemed to point to some perversity in my soul that I had ruined my moment with Walter's Secret Life. In my infinite greed, I had found something else. Was it just the unending lasciviousness of man? Or was it a defence against the hurt of merely one book? I recalled all the names that Karen had called me that summer day. I heard them raining down on me all over again and knew I deserved every one of them.

I want you to write a book, said Axel.

Coming off the plane we were met by a man carrying a sign with the name 'AXEL'. A small man, heavy with moustache. I walked towards him, half aware that Axel, in his occasional dementia, may have told his driver that my name was also 'Axel'. The man had no English, we had no German. I decided to smile as if he were my greatest friend, then a word came to me. Reeperbahn, I said, Reeperbahn. Ja, ja, he said. We followed him to the Bentley. It was while staring out the window, considering how to explain to Axel that not everyone is called  ' Axel', that Thom delivered his first shock. The driver had opened the ice box, offering us a beer, and Thom was responding in German. Stop the car, I said. The car kept moving. Did I have no control over anything anymore? I asked Thom why he was speaking German. Because I've been learning it, he said. Well, when was that? Why didn't you tell me? I don't know, he said. I wasn't thinking. It's just that I find French so easy that in French lessons I secretly teach myself German. To be honest, German is really easy, too. I think all European languages are just regional variations of each other. Maybe Chinese would be a challenge. He sipped his beer.  The hot stink of the leather hit me. I tried to open a window but couldn't. I swiveled round to Thom: so, what's the driver saying? He says that Axel is very sorry that the beer is warm. It's because the ice box is broken. He said that Axel has been thinking of nothing else all day. So what does beschamt mean? I disctinctly remembered hearing the word beschamt. Mortified, said Thom. He feels mortified about the beer. I felt dizzy, and hurt. I came to Flughafen thinking I was showing Thom the world. Clearly, he was showing it to me. And if he felt any pride in this, he wasn't letting on and I was doubly hurt by that. Did Serena know? It was a ridiculous question. I was casting around to find someone else as stupid as me. I tried to picture it. Was he hiding his German dictionary inside his French dictionary? Yes, that is exactly what I do, he said. Some momentary relief. But then I felt the sting of his isolation. Was this normal schoolboy behaviour? Surely there were pranks, some mischief, someones ears he could ping? Or was that isolation mine, at his age? As we turned into the Reeperbahn, I tried to imagine Thom and a whole gang of his mates, secretly whispering German to each other in their French lessons.

To Auschwitz!

First, two nights in Axel's townhouse in Hamburg, on the Reeperbahn. Thom should be packing his case but in fact he is googling Hamburg and has already discovered the Erotic Musuem. He doesn't yet know that Axel owns nearly all the exhibits in that musuem. He even has sleeping quarters in the basement.

Axel  is now in his late seventies and, as one of his older friends, he once asked if I would be executor of his will after his death. I demurred, envisaging the rest of my life as an eternal battle with scholars of erotica and musuem curators with no discernible reward for me. Axel said nothing for a few weeks and, as ever, I was invited to the boat party. Feeling under the weather and not fully partaking in the activities upon the boat, Axel drew me aside. Well what about Walter's Secret Life, then, surely that interests you? In what sense? Of course, this was the greatest and longest work of Victorian pornography and I had read every word. Dear boy, I am talking about the first edition. I didn't know he owned a copy.  One of only two copies, of course. Axel was planting a seed and I knew better than to try harvesting it that night. I remember taking a keener interest in the party, all the while wondering what Axel would expect of me. And I still don't know.

It will be a private conversation. If I am to inherit Axel's copy of My Secret Life, then it will be prudent if Karen doesn't hear about it. This will mean having a few hours alone with him and I am concerned as to what Thom will do without me. I called Axel. He said that Gertrude, his housekeeper, could look after him. I was hardly expecting a soft play area and a shelf of lemonade but Gertrude sounded a bit starchy and formidable, no matter. Thom won't regret it when I am gone. He can sell My Secret Life and buy himself a second home. So could I, come to that. He rang me before bed. He's glad that England were knocked out and that we'll be seeing Italy v. Germany. Italy play more beautiful football, he said. I went to sleep happy, certain that my sons scrupulous aesthetic sense will serve him better than any patriotism.

To Auschwitz!

Client L., 8 am.

As warned, she is in love and, certainly, she displayed all the physiological symptoms of that condition. Normally containing herself within a narrow range of feeling and self consoling, today she was wider eyed, alert, somewhat giddy.  The absence of her beloved was everywhere and within seconds I was exhausted watching her. I found my rug interesting. I wondered if I needed a pee. And yet what should have been the clearest road into her soul soon turned into something more concerning. As a materialist, an atheist, as a neuroscientist working for a pharmacuetical company, client L. has no use for the soul. She calls it a poetic construct. The only reality in town is her own, and its cellular.

I'm in love, she said. I met him at a Pharma conference and we sat together for a week. But Roger's gone back to Australia. So, not unrequited, but impossible.

Not impossible, no. We Skype all the time.

Then the most extraordinary thing. Her eyes dimmed, she narrowed into her shoulders, and began speaking.

Of course it is. How often will I see him? Once a year? It is impossible. But you see, that's what love is. It's a madness, a divine madness. We are supposed to try and make love into a concrete relationship, but maybe it has nothing to do with relationships. It's not about making a perfect life. Love is an event of the soul. It has one foot in this world and one foot in eternity. Love is an initiation into experience, that is all. It has nothing to do with a man called Roger. Do you know what Ficino said? What Novalis said? He said love was not made for this world. And Ficino, he said love was the desire for union with a beautiful object in order to make eternity available to mortal life.

And do you believe that, I asked? No answer, just a faint smile. I stretched my shoulders and yearned for the window. I imagined clambering out and sliding down a drainpipe. This was the most inauthentic shit I'd heard in two hundred years of therapy. Where was the anguish, the agony of her love? And her, quoting Ficino to me? What was my Renaissance master doing in her laboratory? Although every word she spoke was true, it's expression was entirely false. Our time was up. I lifted my eyes slowly from the floor and nodded goodbye to the back of her head. She was gone. I threw open the window, desperate not to breathe any of her air. It was then, on impulse, I went and sat in her chair. I looked around me, noting the books on the nearest shelf, and there it was: Care of The Soul by Thomas Moore, 1st edition. Client L. has been reading Thomas Moore. I opened the book and turned to the chapter on love. In fact, she had been quoting him almost verbatum. Ah, client L, the cleverest girl in the class. She had been doing her homework.

George called, saying he had waited thirty-five years for this phone call.

What, this one? My mind was racing with every misdemeanour, until I remembered I had only known him six years.

No, with my sister. She just called and said sorry, at last! After all these years.

The quiver in George's voice was something new, a fearful crack.

What's she sorry about?

The past, he said, the past. I should never have given up teaching. I could be Head of Department by now, I know I could! Why did I do that...? Why was I so stupid...?

Having answered his own question, he was silent. What could I say?

We soon hung up but the crack in his voice stayed with me, like the awful noise of an animal that does not know it is not dead.

I went to bed alone knowing, as ever, that while capable, I must have as much sex as possible. After a few moments that felt like nonsense, but I don't remember why.

I have been working with Thom on the itinerary for Poland and, in his excitement, he is at last talking about life with Serena and his mother. Apparently Serena has take over the kitchen which Thom doesn't mind because, actually, her cooking is a bit better than his mother's. What a heresay! As he lay flopped over my sofa, it felt as though he had, at last, crawled out from under their special love. And guess what? Serena has to pay exactly half of the phone bill. We paused in our laughter. It was a detail that didn't bode well for their relationship but we said nothing. He was staring at his shoes. But I can't wait to go to Austwichz, he said, you know why? Because I really want to see the art that the prisoners made.