Author: Jillian Boyd. Find her on Twitter or her blog, Lady Laid Bare.

I’ve been in a committed relationship for nearly a year now. It’s really excellent, because I get to wake up to this sexy, clever and geeky dude every morning. Like all my Christmasses decided to morph into one person who loves me and isn’t appalled by me.

The sex is absolutely brilliant. I’m still rather new to sex, so everything about it amazes me. I am utterly fascinated by his erection, for instance. I’ve never seen anything more beautiful, and I’ve been in the Park Güell for God’s sake.

I’ve been blessed with this man, and I like to think he feels the same.

What we haven’t been blessed with is privacy.

When we started dating, I lived in a sharehouse and shared a room with two other girls. Neither of them were very fond of me, and even less fond when they saw my boyfriend’s friendly face appear. I’d occasionally chance it and ask him to stay the night, but it soon transpired that this wasn’t the best solution. For one thing, my roommates had flexible work hours, so there was no telling how much time we had to squeeze in the sex we both desperately craved.

But we managed a couple of times, and I do applaud both of us for doing it in the confines of my one-person bottom bunk in a bunk bed. I even managed to stealthily masturbate myself to orgasm twice, in his arms and in the dark of my room, while the other girls were present.

(I’ve become quite good at the stealth orgasm, I must say.)

Eventually, when the jig was up and my landlord told me my other half couldn’t stay the night anymore, we sat down together and came up with a different solution.

Indeed, within weeks, I had given my notice and moved in with him and his parents. It seemed only logical, since I was there pretty much all the time. It gaves us some semblance of privacy, in the sense that we had our own room. But said room, of course, shared a wall with his parents’ room. Swings and roundabouts, and that.

Still, we managed to let our relationship blossom and get to a good place. And then we unexpectedly had to move out.

Now, I could tell you the story about our frantic and extremely tiring search for a flat, but you’d get incredibly depressed, so I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just fast forward, shall we?

As it is now, we’re lodgers with a large devout Christian family. It’s a relatively small house, with thin walls and people walking about all the time. And blimey, they are loud people….

It’s still not an ideal situation for a young couple. But I’ll take what I can get, because all that matters is the moments I spend with my lovely man. Whether they’re spent cuddling on the sofa, having geeky discussions over dinner or making passionate (but quiet, of course) love in our bedroom.