FAITHFUL

Sigerson, a former record executive, whips up sexual tensions, extramarital affairs and even extra-affair affairs in his racy debut. Nick Clifford, a he-man London trader with a penchant for loving women "out of his league," ends up in the marriage of his dreams with Trish, a flight attendant hotter than a Victoria Secret's model; she's described as a "Möbius strip of a milk white girl" with "Gaudi seashell feet." But Trish runs around on him almost from the get-go and soon leaves Nick for her first real love, Joe Somerville, a dashing man with a fancy pad, a fast ride and "a habit of buying and selling country houses." The catch? The blushing bride is pregnant (by her husband). It's tough after baby Charlotte is born. Nick, who's having sex with Trish again though she's still with Joe, thinks, "We can talk about our daughter.... But I can't touch you.... If we were having an affair, I'd hold your hand in the restaurants where our friends don't go, but we're not having an affair. I don't know what we are doing and I can't ask, because if I ask then we're talking about it, and if we talk about it then it's real." Torn up by his outsider's love for Trish and his daughter, Nick moves to New York for work. As Nick's life becomes boring, so does the novel, with little to animate it but faithless sex. The best parts of the story are Nick's poignant ruminations on fatherhood. While this novel can sometimes oddly fascinate, it also manages to prove that even stormy sex can be ho-hum. (Mar.)