Tim and Rob are 20-something men who both fall madly in lust with an American woman who has to come to work in their office, the fabulously sexy Clare Jordan. In a drunken moment they devise an audacious race, the 'Clare Jordan Five and Three Quarter Feet Handicap Stakes'. The victor wins the right to invite her out on a date. Tim's challenge is to sleep with five different women whose name begins with the initials C, L, A, R and E. Rob has to sleep with one or more women in five different places beginning with the same initials e.g. cinema, lay-by, arboretum. As Rob outlines the rules of the race to the reader he agrees one thing: he will tell the reader everything but he won't describe the sex. The result is an often outrageous, occasionally perceptive and always hilarious novel which culminates in Rob completing the race but finding true love in the most romantic and unexpected way. Overwhelmed by the experience he breaks his own rule and describes the sex which is, of course, fantastic.