And at that point the rest of the evening is set in motion, without any consultation with myself. I feel like a commodity; a sex object in a futuristic 70s sci-fi, where gender roles have been reversed and the world is run by Amazonian cyborgs. I have been selected by this particular punter for her evening’s entertainment. How refreshing.
The girlfriend storms out, rolling her eyes as she strides past Leticia, who simply laughs it off. I sink my beer and decide to regain some of the masculine ground that I surrendered earlier. After all, as a guy I need to feel as if I played at least some part in picking her up. If not for my benefit then for Ed and Raj. I grab Leticia’s hand, ‘Come on, let’s go to your place.’ I can see she wasn’t expecting it, but was far from protesting. I wink at Ed as I leave the bar.
Luckily there are a wealth of cabs loitering around the exit to the club. Having hailed one, we huddle up on the back seat. I love London cabs. I don’t mean the shitty unlicensed minicabs, with their dodgy air fresheners and plastic faux-leather foam-backed seats. The London Hackney cab, a.k.a. the black cab, is one of the world’s few remaining forms of luxury travel. We don’t respect it or savour it nearly enough. It is the Orient Express of the public highway.
As we sink back and get comfy, I realise that something is up. The sexy little harlot that I dragged out of the bar has started to cuddle and pet me affectionately. You might be thinking, ‘What’s wrong with that?’ And I’ll tell you. This behaviour, this form of affection doesn’t seem to be the epitome of her carnal offerings in the club. Shouldn’t she be leaning back into the corner of the cab, making eyes at me seductively but refusing my touch? Or perhaps ravishing my neck with kisses and whispering dirty promises, nibbling at my ear as she goes. Shouldn’t she have at least undone my flies by now?
We eventually pull up at her predictable Victorian terrace somewhere in Fulham. I pay the cabbie. After we enter her flat I pass by the bedroom, and I think to myself, ‘Aye, aye there’ll be fun and games to be had in there in a matter of minutes.’
‘Cup of tea?’ she asks merrily, returning to her lullaby-like voice.
Sorry, did I hear right, a cup of tea? Unless I’m mistaken, I haven’t come round to visit an elderly relative. ‘Don’t be so bloody harsh Max,’ I think to myself. She probably just wants to feel relaxed, light up some candles, get in the mood. I shouldn’t be so mercenary, I guess. I sit down, politely and recline on the sofa, kick off my shoes and make myself at home.
‘Milk?’ she asks.
‘Er, yes milk’s fine, thanks.’
I can’t help thinking ‘Milk, no bloody sugar and you naked on this coffee table will do just fine.’ All of her talk back at the bar has got me all wound up. I’m starting to feel really horny and I want to dispense with all the crap and start acting out some of our earlier conversations. Bring on the hot and the cold.
Fifteen minutes later I’m sitting there clasping a Harry Potter mug and poring over her family photo album. Aunty Beryl from Waikokopu and her strange breed of Shih Tzu couldn’t have been further from my mind. But I continue to feign an interest, spurred on only by the fact that each page I turn is a page closer to the fornicating we had discussed at length an hour earlier. Alas, I hadn’t realised that this was just volume one of eight of her antipodean life history. Another hour passes, she’s rabbiting away next to me. Each picture has a story to accompany it. As I’m almost ready to fall asleep, she leans across and starts to nibble at my ear once again. It’s like an instant pick me up. Am I about to be rewarded for my incontrovertible enthusiasm for her mind-numbing mementos? She gets up and slinks off to the bedroom. ‘This is it!’ I’m thinking. It’s 3 am but the fun’s about to start. I jump up and run through the lounge towards the bedroom, hopping as I pull off one sock and then the other. I’m stripped down to my boxers before you can shout ‘Kiwis do it down under.’ I dive onto her enormous bed and am swallowed up by the sea of fluffy cushions. I get under the sheets and wait for her. The toilet flushes, I hear the bathroom light-pull go and the door click shut. The hall light is turned off. There she is, standing in the door way, lit by the bedside lamp. She’s wearing French knickers and a pretty little silk camisole. At last. She slinks in and wriggles under the sheets. She resumes her nibbling. It’s annoying the hell out of me but I’m now so up for it that she could be doing a Mike Tyson and chew the ear clean off and I wouldn’t care.
‘Goodnight.’
Goodnight. What the fuck do you mean ‘goodnight’? Goodnight and a kiss on the cheek. What happened to re-enacting the Karma Sutra, the hot and the cold, that ravenous insatiable sexual appetite she had bragged about just hours earlier.
‘I’m sorry I don’t go all the way on the first night, the man never comes back.’
4
Shameless
I’m a man. I’m in control, right? I mean, I have been led to believe that I am the dominant branch of the species. Since the days I played with Action Man, to being weaned, during my early adult life, on Baywatch and Commando. Anthropologists have studied primitive man, man of the jungle and man of the deserts. It is widely accepted that man is the predator, the hunter gatherer; he is primus inter pares. Zoologists have witnessed similar patterns in the animal kingdom. Take the lion for example, when he wants some action, he just grabs the lioness by the mane and hops on. The same kind of virility and prowess is evidenced with studs, roosters and bulls alike. In the human world I’m the same, aren’t I? Am I bollocks.
The fact that it is actually women who are the superior really hit home one evening, when I was out with my mate Abbie. She works just around the corner from me, near Soho. One of her colleagues is leaving London, for a spell in the company’s New York office. The girl’s leaving drinks are being held at a bar called Blend, in Covent Garden. I’m running late. As I was about to leave, my boss had asked me to give him an update on a client’s advert. I hate it when I get caught like that, just as I’m sneaking out the office at the end of a busy week. Now the rain is whipping around me, like a small whirlwind, as I rush along the stone streets of Covent Garden. Through the blur of the rain, I can make out the vibrant glows of small neon lights, advertising the bar. Rushing for shelter, and the warmth and vibe of the bar, I hurl myself through the entrance, the doorman holding the door open for me, like a matador pulling back his cloak to let the bull pass. Standing on the threshold, the wet now a dim and distant history, I brush myself down. Reminiscent of an Irish wolfhound, coming in from the wet, I shake the rain from my coat. Panting slightly, from my short burst of exercise, I regain my composure and, for the first time, glance around the interior of the bar.
This West End bar has been taken over by the bunch of city types, lawyers and insurance brokers, kitted out in their Lewin’s shirts and Tyrwhitt’s ties, the odd Hermès accessory stands out but that aside there is nothing exceptional. That is apart from the vision of beauty who locked into my gaze the moment I walked in. The bar itself is at the far end of the room. Between me and the bar are a sea of early drinkers that could resemble a city trading floor. This particular girl is sat at one of a series of high-level bar tables, like an oasis amongst the swathes of pinstripes. Her eyes still haven’t left mine. She smiles and turns to her male drinking companion, laughing. I’m not sure she’s not laughing at me, or telling him some strange chap is checking her out. Next thing I know, my day dreaming is broken by Abbie waving at me from the other side of the bar.
I buy her a Cosmopolitan, the inept barman is having trouble lighting the zest of the orange peel. It’s funny, I think that is one of life’s myths. I have never seen a barman do that properly. They always screw it up. After having about four attempts, they acknowledge the serious loss of cool points and just squeeze the unobliging rind, before throwing it into the cocktail, accepting defeat. You know, I reckon a barman who could do that, first time off, would never be short of sex, he’d have the chicks lining up. Christ, if he can light the zest of an orange, making a woman climax would be a cinch by comparison.
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I get myself a Carib. Luckily, the barman has less trouble inserting the wedge of lime than with his citrus pyrotechnics. I waste no time in getting the lowdown on the attractive girl from Abbie.
‘So who is that lovely looking girl?’
‘What girl?’ she says.
Although why she had to ask I don’t know, I would have thought it was pretty clear. Sure, there were one or two lookers, but none as stunningly attractive as this particular girl.
‘The one by the bar, at the table with the chap,’ I say as if it’s obvious.
She looks in the direction of my none too subtle nods. A look of realisation and mirth breaks across her face.
‘Oh you don’t have a chance!’ she exclaims with great enthusiasm. ‘That’s Isabel,’ she unhelpfully explains.
‘Right, and who is Isabel?’ I probe further, not put asunder by my flatmate’s lack of confidence in my abilities.
‘She’s a big earner in the corporate department of the firm. Every man has tried it on with her, from senior partner down to the photocopy lads. She has none of it.’
Okay, so it’s not looking great. But, there it is again, she’s looking in my direction. She’s smiling at me, not breaking her gaze. You know when someone is making it obvious that they are interested. You know a flirt when you see one. Don’t you?
‘But Abbie, I swear she is flirting with me. She keeps giving me the eye!’ I try and convince her.
‘Are you sure?’ she feels the need to question me. Probably rightly so.
‘Yes, I’m telling you, from the moment I walked in, she keeps staring at me. Why don’t you introduce us?’
I put the proposal to her. She doesn’t look too happy about it.
‘This is a work do, it’s not entirely appropriate,’ she tries to wriggle out of it.
‘Well according to you, I have no chance anyway, so we can just have a civilised chat.’
She wants to argue back, but she sees my point.
‘Come on then!’
We make our way through the crowds at the bar. The woman in question, Isabel, has seen us making our way through the punters. She’s still looking at me, but with a little surprise in her eyes, as if she has just spotted the office twunt coming over to tell her his latest whacky joke. She keeps leaning across to whisper at the bloke she is seated next to, her eyes never leaving mine. We get nearer. A few feet away and the guy next to her gets up from his seat and walks in the other direction, not even acknowledging us, as we approach.
‘Hi Isabel, thought I’d come over and say hi.’
‘Hi, how’s things?’ she asks Abbie, refusing to acknowledge me.
‘Pretty tired, been a busy week. Oh, by the way, this is my friend Max.’
Abbie makes the introduction in exemplary fashion. Isabel looks from Abbie, to me. She looks even more beautiful up close. Straight dark blonde hair down to her shoulders, and large liquid eyes. Blue pools that send you swimming. A face like a doll’s and a very toned, athletic figure, bronzed from a recent tropical holiday, no doubt. Abbie had already told me that she is 31, but you would swear she isn’t a day over 25. Her skin is perfect.
‘Hi, pleased to meet you,’ she shakes my hand.
I feel like we’re at a board meeting, rather than having a bevvy in a bar. The cheekiness, and the openness, that had been in her eyes, moments before, has disappeared. She’s civil, but she seems utterly indifferent. There’s no flirtation in those eyes. ‘Is it the same girl?’ I think to myself, but a quick look around tells me she doesn’t have a friendlier twin tucked away somewhere.
As soon as the introduction has been dispensed with, Isabel turns her attention to Abbie.
‘Abbie, didn’t you say you were seeing some chap who is in the army?’ she asks her.
She is right, too. Abbie has been dating some lieutenant in the Black Watch for the last few weeks. He is up at his regiment’s HQ at the moment, waiting for the all clear to head out to the Gulf. There is a rumour that the Black Watch will be heading to the southern city of Basra, in Iraq, which they will help to secure. Just so the Americans can head north and make a dog’s dinner of taking Baghdad, probably killing a load of Brits along the way. Still I suppose there will be more Military Crosses for our boys pulling dying comrades from burning trucks who came under friendly fire, it’s not all bad news.
‘Yes, he’s just waiting for orders to head to Iraq,’ she informs the Ice Maiden.
‘I thought so,’ Isabel says. ‘My partner left for there today, flew to southern Iraq.’
‘Oh, I didn’t realise,’ Abbie turns her gaze on me.
‘Yes, he’s a major in the Royal Welsh,’ she thoughtfully elaborates.
‘Ah, the good old Royal Welsh,’ I think to myself, I’m sure my grandfather fought with them in the Second World War. Wait-a-fucking-minute! Her partner? As in a boyfriend, lover, significant-other-half? I look at Abbie, she gives me that predictable I told you so look. She’s amused by my total surprise. And yet, I was sure she had been flirting with me, the little minx.
‘Yes, we’ve been together nine years,’ she continues, as if to twist the knife deeper. ‘I am so worried for him, particularly as we hope to get married, when he returns in six months.’
Well, that does it. I am happy to hold up my hands when I’m wrong. I must have totally misread her signals. But I was convinced. After all, why would you stare at someone in such a way, unless you were interested. Perhaps she never thought I would actually come over and talk to her. Who knows? All I do know is that you go through a great deal from the age of 22 to 31, and if you manage to stay with someone for that long, it has to be something special. And so, I put any thoughts of cracking onto this girl well out of my mind. The annoying thing is, having just been introduced, I now have to stand here and listen to these two lovesick puppies drone on about their other halves.
‘Oh they’re so brave’ or ‘It is so difficult being a forces “wife”, isn’t it Abbie? – Oh yes, it is Isabel.’
And they carry on like this for some fifteen minutes. I feel like I am in a Rudyard Kipling book, or in a production of The Four Feathers. Not only do I feel miffed at losing out on this woman, the pair of them are also doing a damned good job of making me feel utterly inadequate. Forget small penis jokes. Just compare your average office working bloke to one of Her Majesty’s soldiers, and an officer at that, and it will make him feel about ‘this small’ – envisage your thumb and forefinger half an inch apart. And, of course, once we had agreed (well they agreed and I nodded when prompted) how brave they are, we moved onto the compelling subject of their regimental uniforms. Okay move the forefinger so it is now only a quarter inch from your thumb. They both start giggling uncontrollably like schoolgirls. They are all a fluster over camouflage gear and cam paint. Then there’s the civvies uniform and, of course, the pièce de résistance, the officer’s dress uniform. This is the part of the officer’s wardrobe which is reserved for formal occasions – navy trousers, red stripes, fitted coats, sabre at the side etc., etc. As you can probably appreciate, I am completely excluded from this conversation. I look around the bar, to see if there are any other girls that I like the look of. Preferably ones that won’t be liable to talk about Sean Bean and varieties of military dress.
It’s at this moment, lost in boredom and concentration (I’m trying to peel the label off my beer bottle without tearing it) that I am shocked for a second time. Isabel and Abbie have been talking about the history of Isabel’s relationship with the Major. The fact that over nine years they have had their ups and downs, the odd break up here and there but they always get back together. Apparently she knows that he is the one for her, she will marry him. She has told him that they have to get engaged when he returns from Iraq. The label is half-off, no significant tears as yet. While not being a serious participant to this conversation, I have been catching the odd snippets. And then Isabel drops the bombshell, ‘But he won’t be back for six months, and while he’s away I have every intentio
n of playing around, and having some fun.’
She says it coolly, as if it’s what we expected her to say. It really is not the logical conclusion to the preceding conversation. I can’t believe I heard her correctly, it’s such a bolt out the blue that I involuntarily tear the beer label in two, half is in my hand and the other half remains stuck firmly to the bottle. Just as well I hadn’t been taking a swig, otherwise the two girls would have been covered in a spray of warm Mexican lager. Abbie is as stunned as I am, we look at each other in utter disbelief. So I was right, she had been flirting with me. Abbie’s disbelief turns to a stifled laugh. She raises her eyebrows at me, and mischievously gives me a wink, ‘I think I’m going to go the little girl’s room.’ And with that she turns on her heels, leaving the Major’s missus and me together, alone.
Isabel is still smiling at Abbie’s back, as she melts into the throng. Up to this point Isabel hasn’t paid me any real attention. I feel nervous. What on earth am I going to talk to her about? As it happens, I don’t have to struggle thinking for a topic for long.
‘Thank God for that,’ Isabel says with a sigh, as soon as Abbie is out of earshot. She turns on her bar stool to face me properly for the first time. Instantly, the flirty girl I spotted when I arrived at the bar has returned. I can see the desire in her eye, the infidelity.
‘I wondered how long it would be until she left the two of us alone!’
And all of a sudden the hunter has become the hunted. I can’t believe I am hearing this right. Does this girl have no shame whatsoever? I babble something incoherent, finishing with a pathetic light-hearted chuckle, as if in agreement.
Single White Failure Page 4
