THE SEX DIARIES: ‘I will put on my high heels and tie you to a chair,’ I wrote. ‘Yes, my Goddess,’ he replied…

My ex-husband and I have never sexted each other, despite being married for 16 years.

When we got together in the 2000s, sexting wasn’t that common. And when we both got iPhones ten years later, all we did was send each other requests for more wine and kitchen spray.

But once I got with Eliot, I had to communicate in a whole new, sexy way. I should have been good at it, as a writer, but I wasn’t. I took too long to respond, I agonized over word choices. I worried about sounding stupid, too weird, or not weird enough.

It was a sunny Saturday afternoon when things came to a head, so to speak. I was in my kitchen while my youngest daughter Emi, five, was running in and out of the garden.

Eliot sent me a reel from Instagram, told me he was at his computer, I told him how beautiful the view was, all the flowers and ferns in full bloom.

Then Eliot wrote: ‘Cannot concentrate on work. Thoughts of you haunt my mind.’

“That’s nice!” I replied cheerfully. My thoughts were still on the garden and the weeding I would get around to.

“I think we need to set a date,” he wrote. “And get creative.”

“Mom,” Emi said, tapping the top of the phone. “You won’t believe what just happened! A butterfly just landed on my shoulder!”

“That’s nice, honey.” My fingers hovered over the touchscreen as I typed tentatively, “What do you mean, creative?”

Eliot’s answer came quickly. ‘I want to stand naked next to you, while you sit there and look at me with your legs crossed, with your glasses on.’

Good to know my reading glasses were a plus. So, the scenario was a secretary and her naked office boy. I had to be strict and demanding.

That sounds [hot face emoji]’, I wrote, hesitating.

Eliot then wrote ten more messages in rapid succession, each more explicit than the last, ending with, “I crave your touch. I want you so much.”

He was much better at this than I was, maybe because sexting was normal at 27. He was direct and not afraid. It was extremely hot.

“Yes please, to all of the above,” I wrote. “But Emi just picked the heads of my favorite roses. Can I come back to it later?” “Haha OK,” he wrote.

She hadn’t, but I needed some time to think—and to consult the Internet. WikiHow suggested that I tell Eliot I’d taken my clothes off, but that would be weird with my daughter there. It also suggested that I ask him, “What are you wearing on this sultry night?” But he was already naked, at least in our sexting scenario, maybe in real life too.

“Mom!” Emi said as she did an energetic dance. “Are you still on your phone?”

“Yes,” I said guiltily. Emi wanted to show me butterflies while I sat there mourning a sext. The last few months of seeing Eliot, it was still hard to balance the roles of mother and “hot girlfriend” (when I, at nearly 50, wasn’t even a girl).

Normally I would make the transition when I was on the train for an hour to his flat, but now I had to be a mother and a girlfriend at the same time. It was hard to be one without failing at the other.

Today I had already spent an hour at the park with Emi, drawing a mermaid and watching her perform on the trampoline. To be there for Eliot now, I would have to compartmentalize: ten minutes for the pretty friend, even if I had to take that out of Emi’s time.

She jumped up again. ‘I’m so bored!’ she cried.

“Okay, just a moment.” I felt Eliot waiting on the other end of WhatsApp.

‘One! There, a second one is gone!’

“I meant give me ten minutes,” I said sternly. Wait — that was it, that was the tone I was aiming for. “Go jump on the trampoline!” I told her. “I’ll keep an eye on you from here.”

After Emi ran to the end of the garden, I grabbed my phone. Time to switch roles again.

“You do what I want,” I texted.

“Yes, I will,” Eliot replied immediately.

“Good girl. Did you take off all your clothes?”

“Yes,” he wrote.

“I’ll put on my high heels and tie you to your chair.”

“Yes, please, my Goddess.”

Wow, it wasn’t that hard. It didn’t seem like Eliot was judging me on my literary prowess. Sexting was about playing with words and ideas, just like my day job, only this was the X-rated version.

“I will…” and here I have come up with some stuff, involving handcuffs, a bad office boy, and a lady boss teaching him a lesson. A bit of Fifty Shades, with the genders reversed, but he didn’t catch me in any literary cheesiness. And it was all done well before my ten-minute deadline.

• Annabel Bond is a pseudonym. Names have been changed.