The Bedroom Ban: Finding Myself… One Awkward Date at a Time (Mind the Corbin Brothers #2)

Chapter 1

Erection in Retrograde

Geoff

Iknow the exact moment things go wrong because my body announces it with the confidence of a PowerPoint slide titled Technical Difficulties.

We’re kissing. It’s good kissing. The sort where her mouth is decisive and her hands are curious without being grabby.

There’s wine involved. Obviously. There’s always wine when you’re forty-five and pretending you still do this casually.

Her flat smells faintly of something floral and expensive, which suggests candles…

which suggests effort… which suggests expectations.

And then there’s me.

Or rather, there isn’t.

My cock, usually a reliable if occasionally overeager colleague, has decided tonight is a hard no. Not a maybe. Not a slow start. A full refusal to participate. He’s not even pretending to wake up. He’s clocked off, put his feet up, and is watching the whole situation with detached interest.

I panic internally while smiling externally, which I’ve perfected over years of client meetings and family dinners.

This is fine, I tell myself. This happens. Stress. Age. Wine. Mercury in retrograde. The ghost of my twenties shaking its head at me.

She pulls back slightly and smiles, the kind that’s warm and inviting and absolutely going to be followed by trousers coming off. I know this because I am not new to women, despite what my current situation might suggest.

“You okay?” she asks.

“Yes,” I say instantly. The response of a liar.

I kiss her again with enthusiasm that borders on performance art. If enthusiasm were enough, we’d be halfway to naked by now. Unfortunately, enthusiasm is not the same thing as circulation.

Her hand slides lower. My brain promptly forgets how to function while I focus all available energy on appearing composed.

I do not flinch. I do not squeak. I do not push her hand away like a startled Victorian maiden.

I allow it to rest there, hoping against hope that this will be the moment my body remembers what it’s for.

Nothing.

There is no stirring. No flicker. No polite acknowledgement.

I consider coughing loudly. I consider pretending I’ve left the oven on. I consider confessing to a crime just to end the evening.

She shifts, clearly registering the situation, and, because she is a kind human being rather than a monster, she does not make a thing of it. Somehow that makes the moment even more awkward.

“Do you want to slow down?” she asks gently.

This is my out. This is the graceful exit ramp. This is where I nod thoughtfully and say something emotionally mature and dignified.

Instead, I say, “I think I might be coming down with something.”

What that something is remains a mystery. Cholera. Consumption. A medieval wasting disease. Anything that would explain why my body has suddenly decided we are done with pleasure forever.

She blinks. “Oh.”

“Yes,” I say, leaning into it now. “Bit of a stomach thing. Probably the wine. Or the cheese. Or… life.”

She laughs politely, and I deserve that. We disentangle ourselves with the careful choreography of two adults pretending this is normal. I put my shoes on too quickly. She offers water. I decline because water is for men who are staying.

At the door she touches my arm. “We can do this another time.”

“Yes,” I say again. “Definitely. When I’m… less sick-ly.”

I leave before I dig an even deeper hole for myself, which I am fully capable of doing.

Outside, the night air hits my face. I stand on the pavement like a man who has just been gently rejected by his own anatomy. I take a breath. Then another. Then a third, just to be dramatic.

I’ve had awkward sex. Bad sex. Sex where someone cried unexpectedly. Sex where a fire alarm went off. Sex involving a cat that refused to leave the room and made prolonged eye contact. I’ve done casual. I’ve done complicated. I’ve done things I would not admit to my brothers under oath.

But this? This is not something I want to deal with.

I walk home instead of getting an Uber because I need time to think, and also because sitting down does not feel like an option right now. My mind spins through explanations like a badly organised filing cabinet.

I turn the corner and nearly walk straight into a lamppost because my brain is replaying the last ten minutes on a loop.

Claire. That’s her name. Claire-from-the-pub. Claire-who-laughed-when-I-spilled-wine-on-the-table-and-pretended-not-to-notice-how-fast-I-drank-the-second glass. She’d kicked her shoes off by the door like she wanted to make sure I knew where this evening was heading.

When I’d said I needed to go, she hadn’t argued. Just tilted her head slightly, like she was rearranging information. Arms folded loosely, barefoot on the mat, not offended so much as recalculating.

“Text me when you get home,” she’d said, kind enough to hurt.

I had nodded like a man who absolutely intended to do that and then left before she could ask anything else.

Which would be fine. Annoying, but fine. If it were the only time my dick had let me down.

But, as I keep walking, the memory nudges others out of hiding.

Different flats. Different names. Same moment, where things stall and I start lying about my digestive system.

Same look, too. Not pity exactly. More a quiet assessment of what just happened and whether it’s worth revisiting. Or, for that matter, whether I am.

Four times.

I’ve been calling them “off nights”. Blaming wine, timing, tight jeans, jetlag. Anything except the possibility that this is no longer bad luck but a developing trend.

I slow, then stop, one foot half off the kerb like my body has hit pause before my brain has caught up.

Four dates is not coincidence.

It’s a pattern.

And patterns don’t fix themselves by ignoring them.

I step back onto the pavement and carry on walking, hands shoved into my coat pockets like they might keep me in line.

I’m forty-five years old. That should mean something. Experience. Perspective. The ability to handle a mildly humiliating moment without spiralling like a man discovering adulthood for the first time. Instead, here I am counting failed erections like they’re parking fines.

It’s not as if my life has gone off the rails. If anything, it’s suspiciously calm.

I haven’t worked in months. Not because I can’t, but because I can afford not to.

Twenty years of shooting beautiful people in beautiful places for brands that never remember your name tends to leave you with a decent cushion if you’re sensible.

I was sensible. Invested. Bought property.

Smiled politely while someone younger explained what my vision needed to be.

Somewhere along the line, the glamour wore thin.

The airports. The late nights. The endless parade of faces that blurred together unless the people they were attached to were particularly difficult or particularly naked.

I’d got tired of being told what was trending by people who’d never loaded their own camera bag.

So I stopped.

Just like that. Handed the work off, ignored the raised eyebrows, told everyone I was “taking a breather”, because it sounds healthier than “I can’t be arsed with this anymore”.

I’d assumed the rest would sort itself out.

That I’d wake up one morning with a plan or a passion or at least a decent hobby that wasn’t drinking coffee and reorganising shelves.

Instead, I’ve had a lot of time to think.

And apparently enough headspace for my body to decide now is the moment to stage a rebellion.

I pass a shop window and catch my reflection. Tall. Broad. Still recognisably someone who used to get waved through security because people assumed he belonged somewhere important. I look fine. Better than fine, according to four women over the last few weeks.

Which makes this worse.

I unlock my front door and pause on the threshold, suddenly reluctant to go inside, as if the flat might ask me what I’ve done today and I won’t have a convincing answer.

I step inside anyway, shut the door, and lean back against it for a moment, staring at the ceiling like it might offer guidance.

I don’t need a new job.

I don’t need a new woman.

What I need, apparently, is to work out why the one part of my body that used to function flawlessly has decided to down tools the second it is supposed to take centre stage.

That thought sits there, heavy and inconvenient, as I kick off my shoes and wonder when exactly my calm, well-funded midlife pause turned into a problem I can’t ignore anymore.