‘Oh, really?’ Roxy sat up straighter in her chair. ‘Sounds fascinating!’
‘But, what about Wayne?’ I said as my heart sank.
‘Shane can wait. I want to chat with Audrey. Alex and I were just having a very interesting conversation ourselves, which I’d love your input in.’ Oh God. Please tell me she isn’t about to ask what I think she is… ‘Alex has been reading a stupid book which tells her that to find her perfect man, she needs to not have sex with him for six months.’
‘Roxy!’ I shouted.
‘Tell me, Audrey,’ she continued, ignoring me, ‘don’t you think it’s a terrible idea? At your golden age, you of all people must know that life is short, so Alex needs to grab it, or rather grab a hot man, by the balls and get as much as she can whilst she’s still young enough to enjoy it.’
‘Roxy!’ I shouted again. ‘I’m so sorry, Audrey. My cousin doesn’t have a filter or any respect, so it would seem.’
‘Well,’ said Audrey, raising her eyebrows. ‘Roxanne, you are correct, life is short, so it is important to enjoy it.’
‘I’m glad you agree with me,’ said Roxy, smiling smugly.
‘But,’ added Audrey, ‘I happen to think there is some value in waiting. To make sure that the gentleman has honourable intentions.’
‘See!’ I jumped in.
‘Whilst life is short, in some ways, that’s all the more reason to make sure you don’t waste it on the wrong person. And in the grand scheme of things, six months doesn’t seem like an unreasonable amount of time to exercise a little self-control.’
‘No offence, Audrey,’ said Roxy, rolling her eyes, ‘but it’s probably been a while since you’ve had any action, so of course you’d say it’s not long.’
‘Actually, I’ve had relations more recently than you might think young lady,’ said Audrey coyly.
‘You little sexpot!’ said Roxy, rubbing her hands with glee. ‘Really? You’re still at it?’
‘For goodness sake, Roxy!’ I winced.
‘Just last Friday,’ added Audrey with a telling smirk. ‘Harold. A gentleman from my bridge club. He and I have an arrangement. It’s not as wild as my heyday, obviously. We both suffer from arthritis amongst other ailments, so can no longer swing from the chandeliers, and some body parts don’t function as well as they once did. But thanks to those little blue pills and a generous application of K-Y Jelly, we manage just fine.’
‘Audrey!’ I said, my mouth hitting the floor.
‘I think I’ve just found my new hero!’ said Roxy, holding her hand in the air for a high-five. ‘I love this woman. Still knocking boots in her golden years. You go, girl!’ Audrey slapped Roxy’s palm enthusiastically.
‘Oh, you youngsters,’ she chuckled. ‘You think that when we start collecting our pensions, our urges just evaporate. Yes, it is true for some women. Lots of my friends couldn’t think of anything worse than engaging in intimate relations. They’re thrilled that they don’t have to feign headaches or get involved with such activities anymore. But I’ve always had a healthy appetite. And I’m seventy-seven, not a hundred and seven. There’s still plenty of life left in me yet!’ she winked.
‘I’m seeing you in a whole new light, Audrey!’ My eyes widened. ‘I don’t know what to say…’ Whilst it was a shock, thinking about it, she would be a catch. Audrey was in good shape and always took pride in her appearance. She could pass for a woman in her sixties rather than her seventies. Easily.
‘Oh, dear Alex. I may be older than you, but I’m not blind. I see those gentlemen who come to your home late at night and then disappear half an hour later. And I see the sadness in your eyes the morning after. I haven’t read this book that Roxanne speaks of, but it’s worth a try, isn’t it? I waited many, many months before I went to bed with my husband, God rest his soul. I wanted to be sure that he was worthy, and he was. I don’t regret it. I know things are different these days. You live in a disposable culture. Easy come, easy go. There’s so much choice with these dating online things you use, but sometimes old-fashioned values are the best.’ She got up and patted me gently on the shoulder. ‘Anyway, I’ll leave you ladies to it. There’s a function at the community hall this afternoon, so I’d better go and get ready. It’s been a delight chatting with you. Do have a think about it, Alex. Consider trying a different approach. I’ll see myself out. Bye for now, Roxanne.’
‘Bye, Audrey,’ said Roxy, winking at her as she left the kitchen. ‘I’d better be making a move too.’ She zipped up her boots and headed out to the hallway as I followed. ‘Things to do, men to screw and all that,’ she cackled. ‘I can chuck that book in the bin on my way out if you like?’
‘Bye, Roxy!’
I shut the door, went into the bedroom and flopped onto the duvet. My head was spinning. It was encouraging to hear that Audrey was in agreement, but Roxy had also made some valid points. What if I spent all that time getting to know a guy, only to discover that we got on brilliantly outside the bedroom, but inside it we just didn’t connect? I really didn’t know what to make of it all.
My phone chimed.
Gosh. Doorbells ringing, my mobile pinging. It’s all go today.
I touched the screen.
Mark?
Who’s Mark?
Oh…I remember Mark. But I hadn’t heard from him in what? Two months? What did he want?
I opened the message.
* * *
Mark
Hey, babe. How’s it going? Can I come over?
* * *
I chucked my phone across the bed.
Enough!
I picked up a pillow, buried my face into it and screamed.
I’m so sick of this.
I was tired of all these guys zombieing, ghosting, breadcrumbing and whatever-ing me. Only contacting me when they wanted to get their leg over.
I didn’t want this anymore. I needed to make a change.
There’s a saying: if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got. Stacey and Audrey were right. I needed to give this a try.
No more one-night stands. No more sleeping with guys without commitment. No more feeling like shit.
I’d decided. I was going to do it, or rather not. No sex for six months. I was keeping my legs closed and my treasure chest firmly locked. I now declare my body a man-free zone.
September
Chapter Seven
It had been an interesting ten days. After I’d decided that Saturday night to do this Six Months to Love challenge, I’d gone to bed early so that I could wake up at the crack of dawn on Sunday to get started. I’d made myself a giant mug of coffee and some fried eggs with beans on toast, climbed back under the duvet with Laurie’s book beside me and the fresh green notepad Audrey had bought me for Christmas placed firmly on my lap, and got to work.
I pushed myself through Step One. I had finally accepted the challenge. I was up for it. Ready to try. The whole self-love thing wasn’t something I could tackle in a day; that would need to be a work in progress. With that in mind, I’d started focusing on Steps Two and Three.
As part of the Visualisation and Goals process, I had taken a deep breath, then pushed my doubts and sceptical thoughts to one side. I dug deep and decided that I had to be honest with myself. The truth was, I did want the happy ever after. I did want to get married and have children. I was just afraid that it wasn’t possible for me. But with the book’s help, I was determined to take a leap of faith and believe.
I’d turned to another fresh page in my notepad. I say another because I had made several attempts at writing my Mr Right wish list. The first version went a little something like this:
Tall, dark and handsome, preferably with stubble or a nice soft beard. Mmm. Oh, and a lovely full head of hair.
Good body. You know, all strong and manly like Dwayne Johnson. Yum.
Charming like George Clooney.
Funny like Will Smith.
Doting dad like David Beckham.
Hu
ng like a Chippendale.
A generous and highly skilled lover. Double yum.
Has a decent job. Doesn’t need to be a high flyer, just earn enough to pay his own way.
Doesn’t live too far away, ideally within fifteen miles.
Will listen to me talk about my day without complaining.
Caring.
Kind.
Likes cats, films (including romcoms), the gym and reading.
Gives good foot rubs and massages.
Good cook.
Loves me. Not in a stalker-ish, suffocating way. More like in romantic, perfect book boyfriend way. That would be a dream.
Doesn’t want to wait ages to marry me.
Wants kids.
Comes from a normal family, i.e., the complete opposite of mine.
Healthy and takes care of himself.
Has nice friends.
Doesn’t spend the whole weekend watching football.
Not too messy.
Doesn’t leave the toilet seat up. Actually, forget this point. That’s definitely asking for the impossible.
As the hours had passed and I’d thought about it more, I’d realised I was being way too picky, or overscreening as Laurie would say. So after several more attempts to whittle it down, I finally settled on the following list of qualities I’d like my soul mate to have. I said I would like a man who:
Is kind.
Makes me laugh.
Shares my interests and goals in life.
Will be supportive.
Will love me.
Will commit to marry me within the first year of our relationship.
Will want us to spend the rest of our lives together.
That wasn’t too much to ask, was it? I hoped not. When I was writing it down, it felt like a lot. Particularly given my track record. But Stacey said to put everything out to the universe and allow it to answer. I prayed that she was right. She’d been amazing. Talking me through the process and giving me advice. Stacey was becoming a really good friend, which I was very grateful for, as ever since Karen had moved, with the time difference and her busy schedule, I’ve been short of a bestie to talk to. Currently my female circle only consisted of Roxy and Audrey. Of course I’d love to have more friends as sometimes it could get lonely, but it wasn’t easy to strike up good friendships in a big city like London. In fact, it was almost as hard as finding a decent man…
As well as making a list of my goals, I’d thought about what conditions needed to be met before I would sleep with a guy and decided there would be no sex until he showed he wanted to commit to me fully. That he was in it for the long haul. Marriage, children, the whole nine yards. I also needed him to say he loved me and mean it. I was sure I would know. That I would feel it. I hoped so, anyway. I’d written it down as a reminder:
Only When It’s Love.
Only when he said he loved me would I give myself to him. That was the requirement.
I’d also made a list of my dating deal-breakers: 1) infidelity 2) unreliability 3) lack of commitment 4) dishonesty and 5) lack of integrity. If a guy showed any signs of those, I had to be strong and walk away.
I’d laid down the groundwork for Step Three by updating my online profile.
Having completed those steps, I’d spent all of last week working on the task of finding Mr Right by arranging the ‘first interviews’. Usually I’d rush this part. Frantically swiping and saying yes to any hot guy who seemed nice enough that asked me out. But this time around, on the nights I didn’t go to the gym, I sat sifting through potential candidates, not just focusing on looks but looking for signs, either from their profile or the messages we’d exchanged, that we at least had some common interests. Per Laurie’s advice, I didn’t overscreen. I was just a lot more thorough than normal. Then and only then did we agree to meet.
I had four ‘interviews’ lined up so far. I was still wrestling a bit with the multi-date approach. Mainly because I’d always somehow felt like if I’d agreed to date one guy, then it would be wrong to go on a date with another until I’d given it a chance to work out. And of course it never did, so avoiding putting all of my eggs in one basket seemed like a much more sensible approach. It also made me feel more confident. Like if things didn’t work out with one guy, there would be at least three more fish in the sea to try. So after ten days of working through steps one to three to lay the groundwork, it was finally time to start Step Four: the first interviews.
My first date was with Callum, who I was meeting tonight for a quick drink before my Legs, Bums and Tums class. We’d met on Bumble, and he was tall, dark and handsome, exactly my type. I knew Laurie said that was against the rules, but he’d seemed nice enough during our chats online, and rather than sending endless messages, he had been keen to meet early on. So in the spirit of keeping myself open to opportunities, I’d thought, Why not?
I paused at the corner of the road, took out my make-up compact, swiped on an extra coat of hot pink lipstick and looked at my reflection in the window of a parked car. I’d worn a black-and-white patterned pencil skirt and black heels. Not the most comfortable to walk in, but they made me feel sexy. And of course, look taller. At five feet four inches, I needed all the help I could get in the height stakes.
Time to go in. I took a deep breath and then stepped through the doors.
The bar was relatively quiet, which wasn’t surprising for a Tuesday evening. There were just a few guys dressed in suits ordering some drinks, and a couple in the corner, deep in conversation. I spotted him straight away, perched on the tall burnt-orange stool at the circular wooden table opposite the bar, underneath the bright spotlight.
Damn.
He was exactly like his profile picture. Very good-looking.
We greeted each other, ordered drinks from the waiter and began chatting about usual stuff. How our days at work had been and the common conversation starter topic for Brits: the weather.
He quickly knocked back what looked like half a bottle of beer whilst he moaned about the fact that he’d got caught out by the unexpected rain shower earlier, making his hair (which was certainly very lustrous) a ‘disaster’ and had considered cancelling the date altogether if he couldn’t fix it at work. Then for ten minutes straight, he’d whinged about how outraged he was that the formula in his favourite gel had been changed ‘without warning’ and how it now took him longer to get his hair looking ‘perfect’ in the morning.
As I sipped on my rosé and looked at him from across the table, going on about the various gels, pomades and putties he’d experimented with before eventually ‘finding one that wasn’t too expensive or excessively sticky and didn’t set too hard’, I began to get sidetracked. I couldn’t help but wonder how nice it would be to run my fingers through his thick hair. I loved doing that. Especially when I was kissing a guy. His lips did look good. I watched them moving as he spoke, but right now, I wasn’t thinking about what he was saying. Instead I was imagining them all over me…
Oh…yes…
I looked down at his grey shirt. He’d left the top three buttons open, and I could see wisps of hair peeping out. I wondered what his chest was like. He looked like he was in good shape. As my eyes scanned his torso from left to right, I thought about what it would be like to run my hands all over it. Better still, just imagine having his chest pressed against mine…
I’d really, really, really like that right now. The thought of his strong, body grinding on top of me…
‘You okay?’ said Callum.
‘Mmm…’ I replied, still deep in my fantasy.
‘Is everything okay?’
I snapped out of my thoughts. I’d been so busy undressing him in my mind, I had zoned out from the conversation.
‘Sorry, yes, I’m, I’m f-fine,’ I said, trying to compose myself.
‘Is there something on my shirt?’ he asked, glancing down at his chest to check. ‘It’s just that you were staring.’
‘Oh, sorry. No…it’s not that. Um, would you excus
e me, please?’ I got up. ‘I just need to pop to the ladies.’
I rushed into the toilets, flung open a cubicle door and then stood behind it, closing my eyes firmly.
Shit.
I needed to get a grip. If I was going to do this, I couldn’t go on dates and start ogling guys. I mean, yes, I know everyone checks each other out and has naughty thoughts, but clearly I’d taken myself into a whole other fantasy world and stared so much I was surprised there wasn’t a puddle of drool on the table.
I need to focus.
Easier said than done, though.
A week and three days since I’d started the challenge and I was already starting to feel urges. Not because it had been ages. It hadn’t even been a month since my last time, and I’d gone longer than that. The problem was, knowing that I couldn’t have sex and shouldn’t be thinking about it just made me think about it even more.
It’s a bit like when you tell yourself that you need to stop eating chocolate. Suddenly you see chocolate everywhere. You start craving chocolate cake, giant chocolate-chip cookies and hot chocolate, you want to guzzle a whole tub of triple chocolate ice cream, then you turn on the TV to distract yourself and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory is on. Suddenly, the whole world is made of bloody chocolate.
Except rather than being in a chocolate universe, it was like I was living on the set of an adult movie. Everywhere I turned, I saw couples kissing, touching and caressing each other. I swear I’d even seen two dogs at it in the park the other day. It was like everyone else on the planet was getting it on except me.
On the tube home last night, one couple had been snogging and groaning so much I’d thought they were about to start humping on the carriage floor at any second. It was like they knew about my challenge and were doing it deliberately. As if they were taunting me, saying, ‘you can’t have sex, but we can, ha, ha, ha!’
Evil. Pure evil.
But it was early days. Of course it was going to be difficult. I just needed to concentrate. Focus on his conversational rather than his bedroom skills.
Only When It's Love: A Chick Lit, Romantic Comedy Novel: Holding Out For Mr Right Page 5
