I met Hannah in a supermarket. The fruit and vegetables section. We were both looking at cucumbers.

“Raita,” she said. “I made a curry so fookin’ fierce you can’t get near it so I need something to calm it down.” She had an Irish accent and a dry delivery that made her sound as if she didn’t care what anybody thought of her bad language.

"Gazpacho,” I replied. “The tomatoes aren’t ripe enough so I’ll use V8, but that’s actually better, just not so authentic.”

“Bit of black pepper at the end to spice it up,” she suggested. I nodded.

“We should have a dinner party,” I said. “Do half each.”

“I can do better than that,” she countered. “I’ve three daughters. We can have five courses, each by a different fair hand. Here comes one of them now.”

Hannah was in late middle age and this girl was twenty-something. They were both fair-skinned and had the same black, wavy hair, but the girl was lighter, more delicate. Less of her old lady’s country character, more of the urban upbringing. Dark hair on her arms, which immediately made me feel protective. A woman shouldn’t have to deal with such things. I, on the other hand, had very little body hair, but it had never bothered me or any of the women who had roamed my skin.

I imagined both these women had underarm and pubic hair that would run riot if left unchecked. That didn’t worry me, either. One of my favourite tiny bits of film is in Letter to Brezhnev, where you get a quick glimpse of Alexandra Pigg’s armpit, and it’s like getting a flash of her crotch. Hair that’s lurking there, not meant to be seen, but evidence that here lies a fully functioning woman with sexual urges, not some shiny, smooth doll. Not that there was anything wrong with the doll types, of course. But they were the new template, the 21st-century version of a woman, and heading further and further away from their cuddling, fucking, mothering roots. I liked something more earthy, and Hannah was a prime example.

“I’m Frank, by the way,” I said, offering my hand to the mother.

“Hannah,” she said. “This is Rosalie, and here come Dora and Christina.”

Sure enough, up the aisle came two more members of her family. Dora was slim and sporty, light on her feet and slightly boyish, but still definitely female. Christina was overweight. In the north of England they call it “bonny”, which is much nicer, I think. Nothing wrong with a bit of extra flesh. I could see that Christina wasn’t always like that. She wasn’t a resigned, hopeless fat girl; I imagined she gained and lost weight easily and was currently at a stage in her life where it was okay to be as she was. There was a sparkle in her eyes and her undulations and hills seemed cheerful.

“This man’s just invited himself to dinner,” Hannah announced. “Saturday?” she asked, turning to me.

The girls soon headed off for all corners of the store, leaving me with their mother again.

“Buy me a coffee?” she suggested, indicating the little café in the corner. Brash and bluff as she was, she had to check me out a little further. And so we spent half an hour fact-finding over lattes and she told me her life story. Over from Ireland with the husband, girls popping out of her every year, husband soaked in Guinness and brandy before heading for home, but she and the kids remaining in the promised land of London.

“Rosalie’s the oldest,” she said. “Very serious girl, highly intelligent, hasn’t got a sociable bone in her body. Dora’s sporty, active. Says she’s not a lesbian but I wouldn’t be surprised.” She stopped there.

“Christina?” I prompted.

“Ah, she’s my little poppet,” Hannah said happily. “Up and down in weight and mood. Got a boyfriend right now but I don’t like him. He’s a slob and he wants her to be the same. You may flirt with Christina,” she concluded.

“Can’t I flirt with you?” I asked politely.

“You can, but I’m clapped out,” she said flatly. “Sure, you’d have more fun with Chrissie.”

They lived in a big old semi-detached house with a bay window. I arrived at seven, as arranged, and Rosalie let me in. She showed me to Hannah’s quarters, where the matriarch was perched on a stool, painting Chrissie’s toenails. Hannah looked up and smiled. Chrissie looked uncomfortable. She was fresh out of the shower, wrapped in a big maroon bath sheet, with a matching towel turbanned on her head. Hannah was ready, Chrissie was late and it seemed like the story of their lives. But Hannah was also showing her off, proud of her youngest girl, who she knew was a rare gem that most people would miss.

I decided to leave them to it. I was having salacious thoughts about Chrissie’s ample breasts with a trickle of perspiration running down between them, and her steamy girl parts lower down, precariously wrapped in that towel.

“I’ll go and help in the kitchen," I said, waving the two vacuum flasks of gazpacho I had brought along.

Rosalie was in charge of the operation, finishing setting the table while keeping an eye on what was cooking. Dora was chopping vegetables, washing utensils, and polishing wine glasses.

The meal went like clockwork as if this was a highly drilled, experienced team. Rosalie’s boyfriend, a thin, bearded Italian called Paolo, sat attentively at her side and attempted to engage in the conversation but was hampered by a lack of English.

Next to Christina, sat a bum named Colm, the sweet-talking Irish charmer who had wormed his way into Chrissie’s life by virtue of reminding her of her father. He was as Hannah had led me to believe, a bumptious, cackling oaf, and I wished him away with all my heart.

But it was Saturday night, so I needn’t have worried. Colm had better things to do than sit around a dinner table. There was a band on at the pub but Chrissie wasn’t interested; she was enjoying the conversation, she said. He eventually talked Dora into going with him. Chrissie said no and he didn’t argue too much. Rosalie and Paolo went along with the idea, prompted by Hannah’s head gestures and eye-rolling. Rosalie was her deputy and she was needed that night to get the undesirable out of the way.

So, by ten o’clock there was just Hannah, Chrissie and me. We moved into the lounge and Hannah went to do the dishes, repelling all offers to help.

Chrissie and I sat and listened to an Irish singer-songwriter I hadn’t heard before, and I set about relaxing her and making her laugh. She said this was her mother’s CD collection, but she had plenty of her own, and we quickly slipped out and up the stairs to her room.

“My mom likes you,” she said as she leaned against the door and directed me to a shelf of music. Then she took over, flicking through the sleeves as I wandered around the room.

“Colm doesn’t live here?” I asked hopefully.

“No. Stays sometimes,” she said without looking around. “This is my territory.” Again, she didn’t look up from her browsing, which I took as a sign that I had been granted certain privileges. I felt something drawing me to her, something emitted by her back, and I found myself standing right behind her. She moved back almost imperceptibly, but enough to initiate contact between her stretchy black dress and my trousers. I put my arms around her and gently kissed her neck. She put a hand on mine and moaned softly.

“She gave me permission,” Chrissie said.

“Who?” I murmured.

“Mom,” she said. “I thought she was interested in you, and I mean she is, but she says she’s retired from that sort of thing. So if you wanted to… kiss me,” she said, turning to face me, “That would be okay.”

I pulled her to me and kissed her tenderly, enjoying the luscious feel of her flesh against mine, albeit through layers of cloth. She crossed the room and locked the door, before returning to me and putting her arms around my neck.

“So, are you going to seduce me, get me pregnant and marry me?” she said mischievously. The funny thing was, that didn’t sound like a bad idea at the time.

“Let’s try the first part,” I said, pulling the hem of her dress up over her bottom. She helped it the rest of the way, over her head and off.

“Do you like big girls?” she asked playfully.

“I like you,” I said. “You’re gorgeous. And you’re not that big. You’re… beautifully upholstered.” It was a line I had used before, but she seemed to like it.

“Smooth talker,” she said, crooking her arms to remove her bra. Her breasts tumbled with a heavenly gentleness against my chest as my hands delved into the back of her panties. I felt the big orbs of her buttocks and ran a finger down her crack, stopping just short of the hot part. I brought my hands around to the front and began to play with her clitoris and rub the pads of fat around it. She took my left hand and returned it to her arse. Being right-handed, I had to quickly get my bearings, but soon the middle finger was in the savoury furnace and pressing just a little into her arsehole. Meanwhile, on the other hand, my finger was way up inside her cunt.

She was kissing me passionately as she allowed me to do whatever I wanted to her. And what I wanted was to lick her arse.

I slipped to my knees, turned her around, and bent her over. And I licked her between her buttocks and she breathed out quickly before taking a big breath in. She adjusted her position to let me further into the secret crack she had showered just a couple of hours earlier. She was making low, guttural noises, and then suddenly she gave a little yelp.

“I’m cumming,” she said, and then did it again. Reaching behind, she pulled my head closer and harder into her, and then she released me, stood up, and pulled me onto the bed. Wrenching my clothes off, she slid down beneath me until her face came to my crotch and she took my cock into her mouth and sucked it strongly as if she were actually trying to suck my semen through it. Then she stopped, slid back up the bed, and pulled me between her legs.

“You won’t make me pregnant,” she laughed. “But you can try.” I pounded into her sturdy, willing body, my penis in a desperately playful battle with her vagina. In and out, up and down, generating heat, generating lubricant, generating a head of steam in my crotch. Our mouths were locked together, our tongues devoted, mad about each other. And finally, my orgasm overtook me and I pulled her hard towards me as I powered my semen into her. Again, she started to yelp in that cute, girly way as she came, and then it turned into a sort of high growl as she pulled me in, locked in her embrace.

And that was the start of my love affair with Christina, approved by her mother, enabled by her sisters, and orchestrated by a celestial choreographer who ensured that each time we made love was as heavenly as the one before.