'I am married with children. And every Tuesday I have sex with a man who isn't my husband.'

On Monday night we don’t sleep well. Our middle child is awake on and off for three hours, crying with cramps in his feet, needing massages, creams rubbed in and finally paracetamol when I am too exhausted to continue the massaging.

As a result, we oversleep the next day, waking up at 7:37 when we needed to be out the door at 8 on the dot. It is Tuesday.

My husband jumps under the shower while I get the kids up. For once, they are all happy to get going – the eldest because of her horse riding camp that day, the middle child because it is his 6th birthday, and the youngest because his best friend is coming for his first ever sleep over that night.

I pour cereal whilst packing snack boxes. Carry down the dirty clothes basket, sort through it and put on a load of laundry then unpack the dishwasher and put away the pots and pans from the night before. Made sure drink bottles are filled, that my laptop is by the door instead of on the table where I had finished working late Monday night. Once my husband is out of the shower I run upstairs. Put a timer on my phone as we need to be out the door in 15 minutes. Shave my legs. Wash my hair, pulling out knots of it because I am rushing and don’t give the conditioner time to work. Briefly deliberate over what to wear, throw some clothes on. Call down to my husband to pour me a coffee and get the kids in the car. He starts organising shoes on, jackets on, while I half blow dry my hair, negotiating that fine line between looking presentable and being late. Because it is Tuesday.

“Why the fuck are you drying your hair when we are running late?” my husband asks. I mutter something about being a greaseball and it needing washing. I ask him to be the driver to his work, then I’ll take over once we were there. As he drives I put on my mascara and drink my coffee. Facetime with my mum and nephew, who wanted to sing to the birthday boy.

As my husband drives along, he looks at me. “You look nice” he says, appraising me. I see the penny drop. “It’s Tuesday.”

“Not every Tuesday” I remind him. “Just some Tuesdays”.

He tells me he loves me, and wishes me a great day. Kisses the kids and heads into work.

I turn around and drive my daughter to horse riding camp, whilst helping her remember how to name all the parts of a saddle. Then drop my boys to tennis camp, where my 6 year old birthday boy decides he doesn’t want to go that day and sobs as he begs me to stay home with me instead.

“You can’t, my love – Mummy has to go. It’s Tuesday.”

My four-year-old starts to cry too, because tears are catching, and eventually I tear myself away from them, feeling guilty and irrationally angry.

On the drive into my work, I call my sister to discuss some upcoming work news. I call a friend in another country who is thinking of moving and we talk about the school she has visited and the pros and cons of each. At traffic lights I illegally text my sister-in-law some banalities, and also chat with my aunt in Australia about whether or not this is the right time to put fertilizer on the rose she planted in our garden when she visited last year. I’m thinking about work, what needs to be done for when, and still worrying about leaving my sobbing son.

Before going into work I do a quick supermarket run, thinking through what I need at the fancy supermarket in town which I wouldn’t be able to get at our local budget one later in the day. Make a quick phone call with my husband over whether he can survive another day without the tooth flossing sticks he likes, or if normal floss will be ok. I deliberate over champagne or prosecco, weighing up the importance of the price over the time it will take to consume it and grab the most expensive prosecco as a compromise. Once in the office I stick it in the freezer, to chill it as fast as possible. Because it’s Tuesday.

At work I finish a post event evaluation spreadsheet and convert it into a powerpoint presentation. Make some phone calls, answer the urgent emails and then it's midday and time to leave already.

Prosecco in hand, I lock up the office and walk to my car. I send a text “On my way to you now”. I put my music up loud, and drive as fast as possible to the hotel we always meet in. The ritual is always the same. I check my phone once I’ve arrived for room number and go directly past the lobby, not making eye contact with anyone at reception. I catch the lift up to the designated floor, saying jaunty ‘Bonjour”s to the cleaning ladies in the corridors, then knock on the door to room 138.

He opens the door, naked, just out of the shower. “Ola Bonita!” he says, kissing me. I need a shower too, I tell him, handing him the bottle and the glasses I have borrowed from my office, as I shrug off my clothes. I kiss him again, then go to wash myself. “How is your arm?” I ask, from under the shower as I hear the cork pop. He had surgery on it a few months ago, and is now able to duck out from his high powered job every now and again for “physio”. Some Tuesdays, I am his physio, his excuse to not be at work.

After my shower, I dry off. Check my phone for urgent messages then turn it on silent. We both have a sip of our drinks. “Oh my goodness” he says “I can see how stressed out you are. I’m going to fix that”.

And then we have sex. Glorious, wild, divine sex. Hedonistic, exhausting, overcoming sex. It’s hotel sex in the best possible conditions, with someone I’m not married to. Someone I don’t have to talk about administration of life, or bills or budgets with. Someone who has no right to judge me, and who is there for one sole purpose – pleasure. My pleasure. His pleasure. Our mutual pleasure.

We have a window of three and a half hours this time – sometimes it’s longer, sometimes it's shorter. Between bouts of incredible fucking there is prosecco, the strawberries and dark chocolate that he brings and feeds to me, and talking. I have met this man four times, yet we have an intimacy in our conversation that can only be reached after sex. Each time I discover more about him – what he likes in bed, what turns him on, and what he likes to do to me – but also that he grew up without a father. Was in a foster home where he saw nuns abusing children. That his first marriage failed and he would do anything to make sure his second one doesn’t. We talk about the Easter break, he shows me pictures of his older kids who came over for the holidays, and I joke about his 16-year-old son and the danger of another male with a libido like his being out in the world. We talk about our respective six year olds, I ask after his wife and he tells me they have decided on a name for their new baby when it is born. It’s a beautiful name, and I tell him that.

And then we fuck some more. It’s animalistic and I don’t have to think. He knows what I want and he takes what he wants from me. He is strong, and flips me around like I’m a doll, in a way that I like. Mostly – I don’t have to perform in any way here. I don’t have to be in control. Someone else is.

It’s the kind of sex that wipes everything else from my brain. All those tabs that were open – family, supermarket, both my part-time jobs, kids, daily admin – gone. This is the ultimate “me” time we are all told to have these days. I’ve tried massages, I’ve tried meditation. I’ve tried running – two years ago I even successfully trained for and ran four half marathons, but my brain was still ticking over all of that time. In fact, I think all that running was mostly just a way to have unfinished conversations in my head with people I needed closure with.

This is different. It’s a bubble, a little paradise. Escapism in its purest form. I don’t love this man and I never will. But I enjoy our time together immensely, and I like our growing intimacy, talking about how that intimacy is created.

My alarm goes off and it is time to go. I quickly shower again, while he rinses out the glasses and wraps them up for me. As I press myself against him, still naked, I see a blackhead on his back which has obviously been there for years. The long-term spouse in me wants to squeeze it but the lover in me knows to pretend I never saw it. I get dressed, leave half the price of the room on the bedside table for him, then kiss him goodbye before applying my lipstick. We’ve set a tentative next date already, so I leave – he is still naked, I suppose he’ll take his time, get dressed and return the key. That isn’t part of what I do, he books the hotel, pays for it and gets the key each time.

As I walk out of that room, I am not the woman I was when I walked in. I am calm. Centred. Tired, but very happy. My mind is quieter, and as I start driving, I can gently start to mentally pick up all the balls I had been juggling, which I suddenly let drop when I was willingly pushed onto that hotel bed.

I go and pick up my husbands shirts from the dry cleaner. I pick the boys and their little friend up from tennis camp then the three boys and I go to the supermarket and do a quick shop for the next few days before going to pick up my daughter from horse riding.

When we get home, I get everything out of the car, and start cooking a bolognese sauce as I unpack the shopping. The laundry from this morning needs to go into the dryer, and I put another machine on too. I realise I didn’t actually turn the dishwasher on this morning so get out what we need for dinner, wash it by hand, along with the dirty breakfast dishes piled up in the sink. The cat is on a diet and his new food isn’t agreeing with him so he has shat all over the rug, which I decide can’t be saved so roll up and take out to the garage, to throw it out the next time I’m at the tip. My husband texts to say work isn’t going to plan and he’ll be home late. I make up beds for the sleepover, and cook the Volcano Chocolate Cake my son has requested for his birthday. I throw together a salad. I bath the boys, supervise piano practice, and somehow we are all sitting happily at the table about to have dinner when my husband walks in.

At the table we talk about our days, and my husband asks everyone in turn how their day was. When it is my turn he says “And you darling? Did you have a nice day?” slightly raising his eyebrows. “Very pleasant thank you”, I reply with a smile.

After dinner, my husband takes the kids upstairs for tooth brushing and stories while I wash the dinner dishes. I fold the two loads of laundry while he sweeps the floor. We watch a cooking documentary on Netflix and laugh at something silly, the way the Chef describes himself as a butterfly, but a fearless one. We check on the kids, go to bed, kiss each other goodnight and sleep.

The next morning, my husband wakes me up on time. “Good morning, my fearless butterfly” he says. I wake the kids up. Get them dressed, go downstairs to pour their cereal, pack snacks for their camps. The cat has shat all over the floor again. As I get down to clean it, I smile.

Today is Wednesday. But Tuesday will come again.