Extract: Taken from 'Hot House'.

Simon Conrad is an English Literature 'A' Level resit student. His father is rich and has an ego the size of St Paul's Cathedral. I am invisible in his presence. The knowledge that at one time he would have served at my feet annoys me more than it should. But his son is different. I can smell him; he reminds me of my classroom years, when teenage crushes pervaded the atmosphere. The family live in Hertfordshire; Laura Conrad is glamorous, and Simon has inherited her good looks. My rules include the caveat that an adult is always in the home at the same time as my student and me; it protects us all from inconvenient issues.

The boy needs four 'A' grades to be accepted by his first choice college. I have been hired to hot-house him and make sure he achieves his full potential. That's the easy part. It's my private hot house I'm worried about; it seems to burn in his presence and warms my solitary bed at night.

I've never been particularly interested in younger men, but then, I've never been sixty-two before. Everyone seems younger these days. To me anyway. That's how it feels. That's how I feel.