Pillow Talking

New beginnings, revisiting the past, stories, and Joe Strummer: it’s all about the stories we tell ourselves.

This isn’t the in-between season bonus I had in mind, and it won’t be what you’re expecting, either. But it’s important, so I trust you’ll stick with me as I get the most personal I've ever got on Pillow Talking.

On the last episode of Season 1 of Pillow Talking, no theme, just an assortment. And because life is like a bag of mixed lollies, each story is its own little surprise. There’s five in all, ranging from the impossible sweetness of first love, to the burn and spice of last goodbyes.

These four bedroom conversations show that rituals aren’t necessarily mindless habits: they can be mindful, or facilitate mindfulness. And sometimes the mindfulness can bring realisations about the relationship – for better or worse.

Distance can even make relationships seem more real, the feelings more intense – and the pillow talking follows.

You and your ill-advised relationships, or ill-advised things you do: do you care what people think?

In which I explain what happened a couple days ago and miraculously refrain from crying or throwing up. WARNING: Contains a capella singing and references to farting.

The third person can be a real person – invited or uninvited – and it can also be the spectre of someone who is absent yet somehow there, casting a shadow or influencing what we do, say or feel. These stories  feature that third person: sometimes there, sometimes imagined, sometimes not quite human.

It’s something that people often say when a relationship fails: “It was just the wrong time”. But is there such a thing as the wrong time, or is it an excuse? And does the wrong time always bring heartache, or can it also bring gifts?

What does the color red mean to you? This episode features red both as a color and a symbol: it’s there in rich velvet and sexy lingerie, and also as a warning, and in heat and anger. The conversations in these stories all happened in the intimacy of the bedroom.

People change because they have either undergone a change or because they seem different to us, like when they are suddenly revealed to us in new and unexpected ways. And sometimes, like in these four stories, this happens in the bedroom.Read the show notes and submit your story at

For many of us, reading was the first relationship we ever took to bed, often way before we took another human. So what happens when reading and our intimate relationships come together in the bedroom?Featuring some special guests: insane parrots.Read the show notes and submit your story at

Is it more socially acceptable for men to share a bed when they're gay, or when they're straight? This episode explores men's need for affection and what it means both inside and outside the bedroom.Read the show notes and submit your story at

The bedroom tends to be a place of expectedness. Perhaps this is what makes the unexpected, when it happens in the bedroom, so striking – and sometimes, like in one of these featured stories, devastating. Read the show notes and submit your story at

Ever struck a deal in the bedroom? The people in these four stories have. And found that bargains can do anything from making you laugh until you cry, to changing your life.Read the show notes and submit your story at

The conversations we have in the bedroom are unlike the conversations we have with each other anywhere else. What exactly do they reveal?Each episode of Pillow Talking explores a theme through real-life stories sent in the listeners and pillow talkers. Each story takes place in the privacy of the bedroom. Each one gives us not just an insight into other people’s relationships, but an insight into our own. Find out more at