“I felt very centred, living in the same house with him,” explains Jude “I wasn’t bothered by any of those old, dormant feelings. Then one night, out of the blue, Dominic said he wanted to have sex with me. Here we both were, our respective spouses out of the picture; at last – I couldn’t believe my luck!”Over the next three weeks I concentrated everything on conceiving. I prayed, focused my will and slept with him at every opportunity. Every fibre of my being was shouting ‘Give me your sperm!’ and after making love, I’d lie there, holding everything in. I knew exactly when I’d conceived, like a tiny spark of light exploding in my abdomen. Being pregnant by him was something my body had wanted for so long I wanted his genes, his agility of mind, his talent.

I knew we would make a fantastic kid – and we did.”Jude had told Dominic that she had not used contraception. At first his response was “it’s your body” but when reality dawned, he was not so philosophical. “I saw a side to him I’d never seen, that he couldn’t cope, it was too incestuous. I was furious when he blanked me and I still miss his sons terribly But my joy about the pregnancy didn’t diminish I was ecstatic, I’d fulfiled the dream. All that mattered was my baby, this sacred, precious gift which he had unwittingly given me.”Now she is relieved to be alone. “If I’d been with him, I’d never have been able to create such a rich and harmonious environment.

This way I’ve got no distractions, I can really give myself to my relationship with Sita. I feel so blessed to be her mother, she’s a constantly evolving little miracle.”. How better to meld the ancient quest for talismanic power with the 20th-century cult of personality than by wearing an amulet of celebrity DNA?

A company in northern California will soon attempt to market the genetic essence of stars such as Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley, Albert Einstein, James Dean, Abe Lincoln and George Washington. If StarGene Inc is successful, the autograph collectors of the next millennium will no longer lurk about with pen and paper. Instead, they will pluck the hair, swab the sweat, collect the skin, or snatch any other personal traces that can be culled from their quarry. Then they will take it to StarGene and have it “amplified” using the scientific method that won the company’s founder, Dr Kary Mullis, the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1993. “It’s the ultimate identification because everyone’s DNA is 100 per cent unique,” says Carol Zimmerman, the company’s spokeswoman.