Welcome to How I Do It, the series in which we give you a seven-day sneak peek into the sex life of a stranger.

This week, we hear from Tammy*, a 43-year-old working in the media, who met her now-boyfriend Charles* three months ago.

Enticed by his good looks, charm, and intelligence, Tammy quickly fell for the 65-year-old, but there’s just one problem: his ‘revolting’ nightshirt.

Charles’ refusal to part ways with his pyjama shirt is a major turn-off for Tammy, and it’s causing her to question the relationship.

‘I have a healthy sex drive and in my last relationship my partner and I usually had sex twice a day,’ she says. ‘We both worked from home and we were always heading back to the bedroom.

‘However, with Charles, although I stay over three or four nights a week, we have not yet had sex.’

Tammy can see potential in Charles, but this lack of sex has left her feeling unhappy in her relationship. ‘It’s making me understand why people have affairs.’

Without further ado, here’s how Tammy got on this week…

The following sex diary is, as you might imagine, not safe for work.

I wake up influencer-orange from doing my tan the night before. After breakfast I go for a swim and have an everything shower. This takes about three hours and I spend the rest of the day doing my hair and make-up.

I work from home, so I answer the odd email, but I’m getting ready to spend the weekend with Charles. I want to look fabulous, so that’s my priority.

I arrive at his at 7pm, in an Uber he’s sent for me. We enjoy a G&T before heading next door for a soiree at his neighbour’s house. There are 12 of us, including a couple who’ve recently moved into the square.

The woman is pretty and when Charles meets her, he practically forgets who I am. He says: ‘This is…….’ Then there’s a long awkward silence where my name should be until I step in and introduce myself. I let it go.

Charles has an eye for pretty women and quite frankly I find it rude. 

As usual, I wake up by myself and open the bedroom door only to be hit by a fog of cigar smoke. Charles gets up at around 5am, so by this point he’s been smoking for over three hours.

I march about briskly opening windows as Charles complains about the cold, and I remind him that I didn’t choose to have a relationship with a smoker. He lied about his smoking on Hinge, as well as claiming he was 50(15 years younger than he actually is).

I suppose this explains his struggles with erectile dysfunction, although I’ve never brought it up with him, but funnily enough this is not the biggest barrier to us having sex.

The most insurmountable issue is that he comes to bed dressed like Wee Willie Winky. Yes, he actually wears a nightshirt. I did not even know they existed outside of the Dickens film that’s on at Christmas, but somehow Charles has located one, perhaps by robbing the grave of someone buried in the Edwardian era.

The one thing worse than seeing him walk into the bedroom wearing it, is seeing him sit about in it all morning. It revolts me and I can barely look at him until nearly 11am, when he finally has a shower and gets dressed.

When he’s in a nice shirt and chinos with a cashmere jumper, I do find him attractive, he’s a handsome man. He’s over 6ft with the sort of bone structure most usually seen in the society pages of Tatler.

Seeing him like this, I definitely would, so I slip his hand inside my bra, hoping to excite him. I’m not sure if his ED is affected by his drinking, so I try to ignite the spark before he has alcohol in his bloodstream.

Charles is a big drinker, at the weekend he’ll start drinking before midday.

My efforts at putting his hand on my breast lead nowhere as he tells me I’m in the way of the television. He’s watching Formula 1.

We open a bottle of wine with lunch, so there’s no chance now, but the motorsports must have jacked up his testosterone levels as he tells me he’ll give me ‘a damn good f***ing’. I wish he would.

It used to excite me when he said things like this, but seeing as he’s never done it, I no longer believe him. It’s like Del Boy in Only Fools and Horses saying: ‘This time next year we’ll be millionaires.’ Ironically, Charles is a millionaire, but I despair of ever again getting a good d**king.

Friends are coming over for lunch and Charles reminds me how much he likes it when I am affectionate towards him in front of other people.

I can’t even deal with dissecting this so I just say: ‘OK darling!’ I give him a little kiss and make a mental note to ramp up the PDA when the guests arrive.

I must do a good job because one of them says: ‘Awww! You guys are so cute!’

And actually, we are a good match in a lot of ways. 

As well as being well-educated, Charles has impeccable manners and he’s very thoughtful. He’s the kind of man who takes care of things and I feel like I’m in safe hands when I’m with him.

Plus, penetrative sex isn’t everything, and Charles did go down on me twice last night. I prefer this anyway. If I had to choose between penetrative sex and receiving oral, I would definitely choose receiving oral. I just wish he would do it more often.

I didn’t actually want it the second time – I was tired and I wanted to go to sleep. However, I think he felt a surge of male pride at making my legs shake as I orgasmed and he wanted to do it again for the applause. 

It’s gone 9pm by the time the last guest leaves. We’re both tired by then, but Charles loads the dishwasher and we watch a bit of Top Gun 2 on the telly.

Monday

I wake up and walk into the sitting room where Charles is chain-smoking his miniature cigars, dressed in his ancient artefact. It’s like he’s cosplaying a Jane Austen character.

I want to tell him: ‘The V&A called – the costume curator wants their 18th century exhibit back’, but I bite my tongue.

He announces: ‘I was rock hard last night! Rock hard!’

He sounds extremely proud of himself, but unfortunately his claim bears no relation to reality. What actually happened is that he poked his semi-flaccid penis at me in the night and I ignored him until he stopped bothering.

You might imagine I’d be pleased at the prospect of having sex, and perhaps even helped matters along. However, the image of his ‘Tiny Tim’ nudging a molehill in his nightshirt makes me queasy.

I hate the idea of him hitching up his nighty and there’s no way I am putting my hand up there. I just won’t do it. I know he’s naked underneath, only because I see his boxers on the bathroom floor, and I don’t know why he can’t wear those to bed instead. 

Charles is working from home today and he wants me to stay and work from his, but I tell him I can’t concentrate so he orders me an Uber. At home I unpack then tackle my inbox before doing yoga.

I’m so happy to be sleeping by myself in my own bed. I love showering then getting into a freshly changed bed, with crisp clean sheets.

Charles’ cleaner changes his bed on a Monday morning, and I typically stay with him on Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, so his bed’s never freshly changed when I’m there.

But it’s the nightshirt that makes the bed manky. I hate it – the fact that it’s always the same grubby garment disgusts me.

My revulsion is skyrocketing, but picking my battles, I decide I might be more able to stomach him wearing a nightshirt if it’s new, and clean on, rather than a dirty old dishcloth that I wouldn’t even use on the floors.

If I buy him a stack of new ones, he can always wear a clean one to bed. But aside from getting in a time machine and traveling back to 1840, where would I even find nightshirts?

I put these thoughts aside as I have a celebrity to interview for a newspaper. I spend the morning prepping, and afterwards I go to the gym.

I’ve spent the day wracking my brains, and all I can think of is an Ebeneezer Scrooge halloween costume. I find loads of them online, modelled by unpleasant old men.

The costumes come in synthetic fabrics with a range of accessories including fake candles, night caps and walking sticks. Although this is an amusing bonus, I’m unwilling to subject myself to a polyester-clad bed partner. Surely there must be nightshirts in natural fibres?

I have a flash of inspiration and turn to a forum on Reddit, where there is indeed a thread on men’s nightshirts. The original poster has asked if anyone wears them so I sift through the replies.

These include: ‘I think that was five generations back from anyone alive today lol’ and ‘Good lord, honey, we weren’t pioneers.’

With no pointers from Reddit, I’ve hit a dead end. I think about this as I transcribe yesterday’s interview. It takes all day but I prefer to do it myself as I don’t trust AI transcription services. In the evening I go for a run and head to bed.

I bite the bullet and call Charles to let him know I’m looking for new nightshirts for him. ‘Why?!’ he snaps.

I want to tell him: ‘Because it’s disgusting!’. However, in an effort to help him understand, I say: ‘Well, you wouldn’t wear the same shirt to work each day, would you?’

‘I wash it,’ he declares. ‘How often?’ I ask, gently.

I know his answer of every other day sadly isn’t true. He just hangs it back up on a hook on the door, with the rip in the cuff confirming that it is indeed the same old rag that he wears night after night.

Wary of arguing, I let it drop, but he later WhatsApps me saying: ‘I’ve bought four for £16 on Amazon.’

This is a miracle. Charles has Amazon Prime so maybe they’ll even be there when I go over tomorrow. As unsavoury as it is seeing him come to bed looking like a relic from Victorian times, at least he won’t be marinating in the same filthy fabric each night.

I stay in this relationship because Charles has some amazing qualities, and we have a shared love for entertaining at lunches and suppers, but now, if I’m feeling less repulsed by his nightshirts, who knows what this could do for our sex life, too.

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Get in touch by emailing MetroLifestyleTeam@Metro.co.uk.

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