'What was the use of living in a porn film now, at her age?' pondered Peyton Amberg, alone in a glamorous Hong Kong hotel room. At twenty, when she could have pulled a film star, she'd had no sex drive at all. Then she - and her mother - had wanted love and commitment so she married the 'nebbishy Jewish dentist' who thought she was a goddess but left her cold.

Now she is on a world tour of past loves and lusty last stands which are getting to feel painfully insalubrious. As the young man she pursues in Antwerp says: 'You must be as old as my mother... Lady, you must be fifty.' From Hong Kong to Rio, via Milan and an English country house, Peyton has pursued her flings. And now what she wants to know is, when had women taken over the man's role, and why is the whole set-up so goddamn humiliating?