If I'd been a born a car, I'd probably be an MG. Or an Audi TT. Or a Beemer Z3. Small but perfectly formed. Well almost anyway. Men want to have me, to have fun with me, and then to put me on display like a trophy. So they can show me off to their mates I suppose. I give them kudos. And satisfaction. As well as occasional head.

Good time girl? Maybe. Floozy? Perhaps, I'm certainly an incorrigible flirt. But tart? Slapper? No. Absolutely not. I'm not the one you want for a sordid knee-trembler and a kebab chaser in the drizzle against the back-alley brickwall of a seedy underbelly pub; I like a touch of class; gin, tonic, a slice of posh and a swizzle stick. And that's what I liked about the man astride whose groin I was earlier this particular April Sunday morning.

Fulton Carter and I go back yonks, to hazy summer days of octagonal paddling-pools and super-8, beehive mothers in chiffon and crimplene and turtle-neck fathers in Triumph Stags. We'd grown up together, he'd shown me his, I'd shown him mine. He'd let me fire his first air-rifle, I'd let him touch me downstairs. Fulton was no raging chinless aristocrat, but he was sufficiently blue-blooded to know how to tie up his own dicky.

Then he'd moved away. To Royal Berkshire of course, to study to be a Licensed Victualer at the college in Ascot. He didn't return to Kent, instead moving in to London to establish his own business, flogging wine wholesale. I loved visiting his apartment, but more than that, I loved Fulton's riotous dinner parties, to which I always got an invite if Fulton was stuck for a date. On this occasion, last night, we'd ended up snorting port.

Even the most myopic of Russian pilots could have landed an Antanov on Fulton's bed, such was its vastness. Down the years we'd shared it often, seldom going the full eight furlongs, opting instead for the comfort of friendship, or simply the efficiency of effort of messing up just one bed. Last night was no exception. Trashed, and still dressed, we'd slept like a pair of proverbial logs, open plains of crisp white Egyptian cotton, unsoiled and unruffled, stretched between us.

This morning, trying to displace my hangover with high spiritedness, I'd mounted him, Sharon Stone style.

'Wake up, I need to show you something, it's my charlies, I think they're odd-sized.' I'd said.

'Woa-uh? Oh, go on, show me.' he'd sighed, seeming disinterested.

'You promise not to laugh?', I'd asked as, cross-armed and elbows akimbo, I'd lifted the hem of my t-shirt (plain white cotton, long-sleeved, GAP, £39).

Of course, he did promise as any man would. But inevitably, the first thing I'd seen when I'd disentangled from the birds nest of hair and clothes was Fulton's big white teeth, grinning up at me.

'You promised.' I'd feigned hurt.

'I'm not laughing, I'm admiring', he'd insisted. Maybe it was the after effects of the port, but in retrospect, I wouldn't need to have been the Princess with the Pea to feel the ardency of his admiration pressing into my undercarriage, despite the myriad of cloth between us.

It was true though. I was uneven. One, the right, is keen and eager, pumped up like a small football. It's almost enhanced. The other, although not out of place on Page 3, is less perky, but still firm, like a half a bag of cement. Fulton, love him, was less critical. He said that as long as he could get a set-square underneath without needing to lift them, then they're all right.

I'd dismounted.

'I'm having a shower.'

As ever, the drive back home was a complete and utter schlepp. My little 205 is reliable enough, but I wasn't. Shower, coffee, toast, Sunday morning papers, and I still felt like two pound of sh*t in a pound bag. And I was feeling a little bit frustrated to boot; I had an itch that hadn't been scratched. And to compound my woe, the sodding A2 was jammed up at the Medway, roadworks on the new bridge.

In the jam, my mind drifted... to conversation the previous evening... Lucy had asked me if I'd ever 'brought myself off' while driving (I hadn't)... to sitting astride Fulton this morning... my tinny car radio banging out Jethro Tull ... through a wisp of cotton panty ... along a skin of satin sea ... before I found that, furtively, with one hand dropped beneath the steering wheel, I was, ahem, interfering with myself.

Of course, it was always going to end in tears. As, foggily, I approached my moment of truth, my legs stiffened and straightened, causing my left foot to slip off the clutch while my right foot jammed down on the accelerator. The little car gazelled forward, and stalled. But not before it had slammed into the back of the car in front.

Having pulled off, so to speak, onto the hard shoulder, I climbed somewhat ashamedly out of my car to inspect the damage. The other driver, tall, chiselled, tousled curls, smart suit, no tie, was doing likewise. His registration plate was embedded in my radiator grill. I fished it out... 'EK 1' and in small red block capitals underneath 'Edward Knight Mercedes'. I looked at the car I'd mangled... 'INTERKOOLER'. Bugger. A Merc.

He was charming... 'Look, I suppose we should exchange details... here's my card...' He held it out. I took it. Edward Knight in a racy no-nonsense font. My hand was shaking. I was less cool. I was in tears.

'Look, why don't you follow me... I only live five minutes away, down there, on the river, you can almost see it... we can do this in more civilised circumstances. You can sort yourself out. What do you think?'

'OK...' I replied, sniffling, '... Charlotte...', and offered out my hand for him to shake. And as he did, I recalled what had caused the accident in the first place. I grinned through my tears.

'The Mercedes?', I nodded towards it, 'I'm into cars, doesn't it have a Wankel engine?'

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