When you think your man might be gay...

This morning, at about 8.30am, I get woken up by a phone call from my friend (I'm going to change names here, because while I'm sure she won't mind me writing about the incident here, she probably would object to my naming and shaming her and her boyfriend - she knows who she is!). Meet Liz and Stan.

Me: "Ebluh…?"

Liz: "I think Stan might be gay."

I'm awake. "Ok. You need to back up a sec."

"Oh Chris, this is really embarrassing."

"Babes, I really don't think that you need to worry about embarrassing yourself in front of me. I have embarrassed myself in front of you plenty of times. It's about time we re-addressed the imbalance. Besides, you just called me, so clearly you're ready for some humiliation."

She considers this and says, "True."

I prop myself up in bed and rub my eyes.

So she gives me the low down, but not before going over something that she has already told me before - that her sex life with Stan has become slightly, er, limp of late. Fucking and passion has been replaced by TV and flossing.

"So we decided that we would try and correct things by adding some spice to the normal proceedings."

Oh Jesus. I can see it now. Liz and Stan have hired some gorgeous Amazonian hooker. The hooker eases herself down their plush white Heals sofa in the middle of their trendy Highbury pied-a-terre. Stan poised above, dressed only in a PVC thong and brandishing a riding crop, yells "On your knees, bitch!" Liz, in Sharon Stone / Basic Instinct mode, mock-disinterestedly watches the proceedings from the black leather armchair across the room, casually blowing smoke rings.

"We rented a pornographic video," Liz says. The way that she says "pornographic" as opposed to "porno" is so sweet and innocent that I immediately felt guilty for imagining her watching her boyfriend fucking the living crap out of some lady of the night.

"So we were in bed, doing it, and the video was on in the background. And we're both going at it, but watching at the same time. Then on the video, all of a sudden, this guy walks in on the couple screwing and sticks his finger up the other guy's arse. And then, without warning, Stan announces loudly 'Oh God! I'm gonna cum!' And then he cums."

This is far too much information for me to handle at this time in the morning. I usually love to hear about other people's sex lives, but I'm hungover and this is making me feel queasy.

"Chris! We'd been watching the video for something like twenty minutes and nothing happens. And the moment it turns gay, Stan cums! He's gay, isn't he?"

Poor Liz! I consider immediately biking her over some of Vix's Melatonin. But instead I say, "No. Liz he is not gay because he was turned on watching porn. It doesn't work that way. Occam's Razor - all things being equal? He came because he was doing you, his girlfriend. That tends to happen when you've been fucking your girlfriend for twenty minutes, with porn playing in the background."

A moment of silence.

"Yeah, ok. You're right I guess. I feel better now. Sorry to wake you up. Did I wake you up?"

"Yes."

"Oh sorry. How are you my love?"

We chat. And the whole time I want to tell her that Stan is gay. But not because of the porn. He's gay because no straight man would ever allow his girlfriend to carpet his apartment with a white shag pile.