At 66, I don't think I've ever had sex sober - now I'm trapped in a dry hotel in Turkey (with little prospect of a kiss, much less anything else): LIZ JONES
I haven't heard from the man Nic and I now refer to as the b*****d in our anti-him WhatsApp group for two weeks. Not since he sent a message saying he is 'stressed and depressed'. I imagine he spends every day looking over his shoulder, just in case my detectives are filming him.
Good. Serves him right.
It's just as well he hasn't joined me here in Istanbul. In addition to having 22 new, perfect but natural-looking crowns, yesterday I had a gum transplant: on three bottom teeth, my gums are as low-slung as Anora's knickers, due to over-brushing.
The surgery involves slicing flesh from my upper palate, then transplanting it over the exposed roots. It is then stitched in place, giving me perfect, youthful gums (did you know you can also now ask for 'gum Botox'? It freezes the mouth a little to prevent a gummy smile).
But, as well as having a mouth full of black stitches, which won't come out for six long weeks, I have a fetching pink plaster stuck in the roof of my mouth to protect the extraction site. I must also wear a transparent mouth guard while I sleep, propped on three pillows, like a Victorian consumptive.
For three months. My face is now swollen, as though I'm storing nuts for winter. None of which is conducive to eating or talking, let alone kissing and having sex.
To add insult to injury, my hotel is 'dry', so I can't even drink alcohol (I've just had a row with room service, who brought me a salad topped with chicken when I expressly told them I am vegan, which prompted my habitual 'I wouldn't pour vodka down your throat!' riposte). I don't think I have ever had sex sober. Even morning sex would have taken place with some alcohol still doing the backstroke in my bloodstream.
It's nice to be touched without a side order of betrayal. I've been doused in hot water, scrubbed vigorously on a marble slab with a scratchy pad as though I'm a burnt pan, and then shampooed, writes Liz Jones
To pass the time between dental appointments, I have just had a massage and a Turkish bath: I keep referring to it as an imam, when in fact it's called a hammam.
It's nice to be touched without a side order of betrayal. I've been doused in hot water, scrubbed vigorously on a marble slab with a scratchy pad as though I'm a burnt pan, and then shampooed.
The last time I had a Turkish bath was in Marrakesh at the hotel that served as the location for The Night Manager (I won't name the actress who, they told me, was the rudest guest they have ever hosted; she expected everything for nothing) during a 'couples spa treatment': three words to strike terror into the heart of every woman. We go to hotel spas to get away from the man we're on a mini break with.
Also, the sight of your naked partner wearing a black hairnet is guaranteed to kill any lingering libido stone dead. I kept picturing Gregg Wallace.
My friend in Belfast has just read my latest column:
'You mustn't think you weren't good enough. You were too good. He is a player. It's nothing to do with you, and your fabulous new teeth [I'd sent her a gurning selfie]. The fault lies with him.'
I have toyed with telling him I've just had dental surgery, but I doubt he'd feel remotely guilty, think, 'Oh god, maybe I've shattered her confidence?' Narcissists never do.
I forgot to cancel my beauty treatments, made ages ago when we had made a plan for him to join me here, and now it was too late to cancel, so I went along to the Hilton on the shores of the Bosphorus anyway. Big mistake.
Catching a glimpse of my face in the hairdresser's, then my buttocks in a therapy room full-length mirror, I realise I now resemble a Viennetta that has been left out in the hot sun. The b*****d lied so easily, of course. Him telling me I have a 'beautiful face, beautiful baaaaady' wasn't true. I was so easily buoyed, flattered. I had thought, fleetingly, 'Maybe now is my time?' 'Maybe with new teeth I'll be perfect?'
Turns out it isn't, and I'm not. No wonder he chose a foetus over me.
Jones Moans... What Liz loathes this week
Readers posting comments saying I couldn't possibly have found a private detective on New Year's Eve. Well, they were indeed on standby, knowing if he was going to cheat, it would be on one of the most important dating nights of the year.
Cheap hotels, where the coathangers are chained inside the wardrobe, so you have to jiggle for four hours just to hang up your clothes. Who'd steal a coathanger?
