She can literally feel "it" coming.
"I'd start to feel breathless and experience hot flushes, and then images of making out with someone, anyone, will flash through my mind," says Ms Connie Chew.
The self-confessed sex addict is talking about when the urge hits her. And she has to fulfil it, one way or another.
But she has paid a price for her addiction.
The 37-year-old woman is twice divorced and she was fired from her last job after an indiscretion was exposed.
It took Ms Chew almost two years before she found another job early this year.
The slightly plump woman was unwilling to go into details about her new job.
"It's not something I want to discuss. Talking about my sex addiction is hard as it is," she says softly.
Only "a very close friend" knows of her addiction.
She says: "I don't feel comfortable telling people I love. I don't want to be called a slut or a nympho.
"Men can talk about it. But look, I am a woman and Asians are conservative no matter how you argue otherwise."
But sex, Ms Chew says, has become a dependency. One that she claims relieves her of stress and pain every time something goes wrong.
She goes on the prowl for men - mostly younger than her - at nightclubs, usually on weekends. She also indulges in cybersex and uses sex toys when she is "unable to find a man".
"Masturbation helps me to relax and makes it easier for me to face the day," she says.
Ms Chew becomes silent for a while, then looks to her church counsellor, who had arranged this interview, and takes a deep breath before saying: "Do you know what's my best, or should I say, worst track record?"
Church counsellor Katherine Ong, 48, smiles encouragingly, gives Ms Chew's right hand an assuring squeeze, and says: "Go ahead. It's always good to talk about it."
Ms Chew offers a tentative smile, then pleads: "Don't judge me, please. I hope your readers don't judge me, too.
"But the record? It was the time when I masturbated in the cinema at a morning screening, then had random sex with a former colleague and later in the night, ended up in a budget hotel with three men."
After her binge ended at 4am, she called Ms Ong for help.
Says the church counsellor: "When Connie called to say that she was coming over, I didn't know what exactly to expect.
"But when she turned up at my doorstep, I was so shocked at her dishevelled state - not only in her dressing, but also her mental state of mind.
"But Connie has come a long way since then. She has gone from indulging in sex almost daily to about two or three times a week."
Ms Chew admits that she has paid dearly for her sex addiction even though she is unsure when or how it started.
She was a virgin when she married her first husband.
"I was 25 and uncertain of what to expect on the wedding night. How ironic that I hated it," she recalls.
Sex with her husband didn't get any better, says Ms Chew. And barely two years later, the marriage broke down after she found out that her husband was cheating on her.
She says: "My parents were divorced when I was seven and, as the only child, I shuttled between my parents and also between both sets of grandparents. All because my dad cheated on my mum."
"I didn't expect the same to happen to me."
After her divorce, Ms Chew says she went online "looking for a relationship" but soon realised the men were "either married or perverts".
But she admits that she met several of them for casual sex.
Ms Chew met her second husband on a matchmaking website. They dated for about a year before having sex.
A year later, they got married.
During their courtship, she continued having sex with other men, from "colleagues to friends of friends" whom she met at parties.
"I don't know... maybe at the back of my mind, I just wanted to take revenge on my first husband," she says.
"But I really loved my second husband. It's just that I never enjoyed sex with him. I felt restrained."
The marriage didn't last. Her husband found out that she had sex with a man she picked up at a club when she was in Phuket for a work retreat.
"A colleague hinted to him about it and he confronted me," she says. "I broke down and promised him that I'd stop. He forgave me, I thought. But then again, you know, men can't really accept such betrayal.
"And because I lost other avenues of sex, I started to invest in sex toys, buying them at first (here) before ordering online."
"I was also frustrated when my husband, who was struggling with my infidelity, rejected me. He'd find excuses, like too much work or that he was too tired. Everything just went downhill."
Then Ms Chew became pregnant.
She confesses: "It was deliberate because I'd hoped that having a child could save our marriage, that it could save me."
Her husband was initially happy, but things soured again a few weeks later.
She says: "One night, when I started getting horny and wanted sex and suggested a different position (because of her pregnancy), he had the look of sheer disgust on his face.
"We had a shouting match, ugly words were exchanged and then the boiling point came when he said, 'You are nothing but a whore. How do I know you have not been sleeping around? How do I even know that the baby is mine?' That was it."
Ms Chew walked out and ended up at a coffee shop in Geylang because "it was around 1am and I didn't know where to go".
She says: "I was drinking by myself when I saw this foreign worker and he was smiling at me." The next thing she knew, she was in bed with the man in a budget hotel.
"I knew that was the end of my marriage," Ms Chew whispers.
"Two weeks later, I had an abortion and sent an e-mail with the medical record to my husband. The subject line read, 'Hope this makes you happy'."
He filed for divorce.
In a separate interview, he tells The New Paper on Sunday: "It was a marriage that should never have taken place. I hate her to the core.
"I'd never know for sure now if the baby was really mine - that's how much she has hurt me. I have to live with this guilt that I could have caused the death of my own child."
He says: "When I was told that she was fired (from her job), I had mixed feelings. But I also prayed that she'd wake up and realise she needs help badly.
"I don't want to have anything to do with her."
Ms Chew is aware of her ex-husband's bitterness. "I'm so sorry that I hurt him so badly," she says.
Ms Ong reckons that after two years of counselling, Ms Chew's condition has improved. She says: "But every time something goes wrong in her life, she'd suffer a relapse and that's when her urges return and she feels a need for empowerment.
"It would take time, but she's doing fine."
Ms Chew adds: "I don't know what to expect or how long it will take. But I'm also learning how not to use sex as a tool, whether it's for comfort or to vent my unhappiness.
"Until I enjoy sex for just what it is, I guess I can't say I've fully recovered."
This article was first published in The New Paper.
