Give me a man who is smoking and I'll be on fire

"Come to bed. I'm so cold!" I shriek in the direction of the living room with the covers swaddling me. It has reached record-low temperatures in my bedroom and I need Neanderthal to come and be my hot water bottle.

"I'm just finishing reading," he replies absently. I curse him and scrunch my toes up in frustration.

It's too cold to lie still, so I quickly jump out of bed to pull on my thick dressing gown and make myself a cup of tea.

The turn in the weather is preventing me from getting the sleep I need for tomorrow. I have a meeting about dancing at a new burlesque pantomime in the morning and want to feel fresh.

I shuffle into the living room in my Marabou-feather slippers to sit on the radiator for a minute but stop short in the doorway when I see how beautiful Neanderthal looks.

He's in his chair smoking a cigarette with a very serious face, deeply engrossed in a book.

He normally smokes out on the balcony but he's obviously been frightened in by the cold.

I feel guilty at how much I love watching him smoke. He reminds me of a villain from a Humphrey Bogart movie but he's trying to quit so I can't mention it. Sadly, electronic cigarettes just aren't sexy.

When his attention is on something else I can't resist trying to distract him. I would disrobe if I weren't so chilly but instead I sit at the bottom of his chair and give him a coy smile.

Through a cloud of smoke he stops reading and looks at me. He shuts the book, opens his zipper and carries on smoking. "Oops," I think, when he lights up his fourth.

He gets so excited he carries me into the bedroom and finally we generate the kind of heat I wanted.

The next morning I join my friend and fellow burlesque performer Octavia for our meeting at The Bridge. I haven't seen Octavia for months because she has been absorbed in her new boyfriend Brian.