Single White Failure

by G. J. H. Sibson

‘Tomorrow?’ I’m getting up from the couch, my jacket is already over my shoulders. I tug it frantically into place.

  ‘Yes, tomorrow,’ she persists.

  ‘Yeah, could be good. So long as I don’t have any sudden meetings, you know those bastards.’

  ‘Of course,’ she says earnestly.

  Two minutes later and I am marching at double time down the high street, back to the security of my bachelor pad. I left Lakshmi standing by our table in the restaurant.

  That was the last I saw of Lakshmi, I didn’t return her calls. She is the type of girl that would grasp onto any contact whatsoever, however negative it is. I could have called her to say she was mad, intolerant and that funnily enough it would never work out between us, so ‘see you later’. And you know what, she would only hear the words ‘see’ ‘you’ and ‘later’. The next thing you know, she would be at my front door with a warm rabbit pie she had just baked. No thanks.

  I decide that singles bars and dating websites are things to be consigned to the bottom of the trunk, as far as tools at the disposable of the discerning single man are concerned. Of course, that assumes that you’re discerning. If only Raj had learnt from my errors. But then again, when you’re wondering where the next one’s coming from you will turn to desperate measures, and no man should ever be criticised for treading this dark path, just give him a little sympathy. And so when Raj tries a new tactic of his own to ensnare a woman, his experience makes my run in with Lakshmi look like we’d be giving Brad n’ Jennifer a run for their money as couple of the year.

  8

  M.I.L.F.

  There is nothing that attracts a woman to a man more than when the latter is dressed in a pukka suit – whether it’s a trendy Ermenegildo Zegna or a classic Saville Row affair with pin stripes and double vents. During our student days we had successfully put this theory to the test. We had taken our suits out of their natural surroundings and introduced them to the clubbing scene. We went to the cheesiest nightclub in Newcastle, suited up, and hit the dancefloor. The results were astounding. The women flocked, and, crooks in hand, we herded them in. We stood out, we looked ridiculous – ridiculous but dapper. They were intrigued as to why we had come out on a student night in our smarts. The thing is, a suit delivers all kinds of connotations, among others, a pride in self-grooming, a certain maturity and that self-confidence to be what you are. But most importantly, it speaks success and cash, and lots of it. This effect is never more acute than when the suit is taken out of its natural habitat. Back then it was such a master pulling technique that we replicated it time and time again following in the footsteps of the Rat Pack and the Flaming Ferraris. Well, perhaps more like a well-dressed version of the Young Ones, but it seemed to do the trick.

  One Thursday evening in April Raj decides to take this arcane philosophy to another level. The sports jacket. That sartorial holy grail.

  ‘Max, I need to attract a different type of woman.’

  ‘What sort of type?’ I ask.

  ‘The more mature woman – the type who knows what she wants and isn’t afraid to go get it,’ he explains.

  ‘Ah, a M.I.L.F.!’

  ‘Mother-I’d-Like-to-Fuck – got it in one, buddy. And the sports jacket will be just the thing to allure her. Wait there, I’ll show you.’

  His jacket of choice is a good Harris tweed, sans leather elbow patches and with a bold red check.

  ‘Mate, it’s going to look the mutt’s nuts,’ he assures me.

  ‘Right,’ I remain unconvinced.

  ‘Man, I’m telling you, no one else is going to be wearing one of these.’

  ‘No, I’m sure you’re right.’

  Raj is a cool guy and, as I’ve already said, he is renowned for his sharp dress sense. He can pull most things off but it’s fair to say that he is not your archetypal Hackett customer. You would be forgiven for thinking that Raj is more west coast ‘Cali’ than Middlesbrough born and bred. If he was any more chilled he’d make your average surfer dude seem positively edgy. His usual attire consists of skateboard baggies with the crotch dangling somewhere around your midcalf with a PFD (personal flotation device) as a belt and a t-shirt depicting the Goo Goo Dolls. You might think, this isn’t your regular convivial boulevardier, the sort one would expect to see donning a tweed jacket to stroll down Jermyn Street, and you would be right. But Raj had grown bored of frumpy girls in their mid-twenties, with their Moto hipsters, overhanging beer-gut and builder’s bum, accommodating cheese wire g-strings that cut into the middle of their back-cleavage. The same girls who come with two oversized suitcases of emotional baggage – they’re so full, they had to sit on them to squeeze in the last bit of ‘fucked-upness’.

  ‘Dude,’ he starts, ‘the girls I’ve gone out with recently have all lacked the confidence to live out their fantasies, one didn’t even want to do it doggie-style, because she thought that I didn’t love her if I wasn’t looking into her eyes as I shagged her.’

  ‘Dirty had that happen once,’ I say.

  ‘What did he do?’

  ‘He did her from behind anyway, and as she was about to climax, shoved his work-pass photo in front of her face.’

  ‘Nice,’ he says. ‘But seriously, I think the older woman, a woman in her mid-thirties, will have come out the other side of this dating hell. She will have put it all behind her and embraced who she is. Women of that age are so damn sexy.’

  Sane men will go to extreme lengths to get laid.

  Raj, now tooled up for the evening ahead of him, plumps for a night of partying at the West End club, Attica. Ed and I tag along on his sharking expedition, as his wingmen. Following on from my recent escapades, I am more than happy to sit the hunt out, on this occasion, and instead help my compadres get lucky. The idea of pulling another random of unknown pedigree isn’t appealing, it has to be said.

  The first task of the evening is to get past the clipboard nazis who are barring our way to the pleasuredome. Two colossuses, of what appear to be Sardinian origin, flank the entrance to the club. Loitering between them is the obligatory dolly bird, or should I say Keeper of the List. The list is the scroll that contains the names of the chosen few, the lucky ones who may descend the steps into the decadence and debauchery that passes itself off as an exclusive London club. Brimming with confidence, finger on the charm trigger, I saunter up to the hag on the door. Like all Keepers of the List, she’s a poison dwarf. A scrawny late-thirties has-been. Her hair has been chemically treated one time too many. Those freshly polished boots are straight from Gestapo supplies. She’s wearing the latest catwalk design, which frankly would hang better on a goat. The quintessential faux-fur lined full-length coat is draped across her bony shoulders. Her beady eyes look me up and down as I, the lesserling, approach the starry gate to the den of iniquity.

  ‘Hello, how are you?’ Okay, so I’m trying to be nice – even I know when a bit of toadying doesn’t go amiss. Don’t act like you wouldn’t do the same, this woman is the only thing stopping us getting to London’s prime ladies.

  ‘Name?’ Her purple painted talons drum the clipboard.

  ‘My name’s Max…’ A pathetic submissive voice emits itself from my mouth, the voice of a grovelling desperado.

  ‘Who are you with?,’ Frau Ziegenbok demands.

  ‘I’m with a party organised by Pippa Makepeace.’

  Yes, I know, it sounds like she should be a Bond girl but I swear that’s her name. As the hag gazes down the list of the chosen darlings I tell her that there are three of us.

  ‘Any girls?’ she asks continuing to not look up.

  ‘Sorry, what do you mean?’

  ‘You know what girls are don’t you?’ Finally she looks up at me facetiously, ‘You know those things you have come here to molest this evening?’ I smile, laugh nervously, smile some more but she’s having none of it.

  ‘Well, are there any girls in your group?’

  ‘In the club, yes, but it’s just us three at the moment.’

&nb
sp; ‘In that case, please queue in the men’s queue.’

  ‘No, there are girls but they’re inside already!’ I plead some more.

  ‘Men’s queue!’ She’s growing impatient. She wants as little chat as possible, if I push it any more I’m liable to be refused entry, she knows that she’s got me by the balls. One of the Sardinian brutes starts to move me towards the long line of equally peeved looking blokes.

  How does this work anyway? The men’s queue, what the fuck is that? We have to wait until more girls go in, what do they think we are, salivating predators waiting to feast on the vulnerable meat of womankind? Oh yes, point taken. Still, it doesn’t quite seem to make sense, if you can only get in by having your name on the list, which ours are, then you already know the ratio of men to women before the night begins. But I know it just isn’t worth trying to point out this particular piece of logic to our friend the Fraulein, especially as it seems her twin has borrowed the brain cell for the night. We take our place at the back of the queue. It starts to rain.

  After an hour or so, the gook on the left, the one without a frontal lobe, lifts the crimson rope that straddles the dark hole to untold pleasures. The three of us muddle past, shifting from one foot to the other as if we’re part of a chain gang linked by invisible shackles. The bouncer claps his eyes on Raj and his sports jacket. He can’t help but release a chuckle.

  ‘Nice jacket,’ he mutters in a thick accent.

  ‘Cheers dude,’ Raj slaps the guy on the back and invites him to pull his finger. I don’t believe the bouncer is au fait with American teenage culture. We move Raj on, before the doorman accepts his offer, only to have Raj let one rip. Descending into the darkness, the first thing that I become aware of is the fusion of expensive sickly perfume and sweat. Then, like ripples through the air, the pulses from the bass speaker hit my face like gentle admonishing slaps. My ears pop. Lastly, I feel the heat. It’s as if I am entering the engine room of a ship, or sneaking into the boiler room at school when I was 11.

  At the bar, we part with half our life savings in exchange for some partially cold Coronas. They must have just restocked the fridges with beers, how annoying. We scope out the joint and, without thinking, start to perform the Rating Ritual. The bar girl spots the tweed jacket. I can see that she’s confused by it, but also intrigued, in a good way.

  ‘I like your jacket, looks cool,’ she smiles at Raj.

  ‘Cheers,’ he says, coolly.

  Its effects have started already. Encircling the bar there’s a dancefloor surrounded by mirrors. On our left there are a series of booths where you can order champagne and seduce the vixen of your choosing. Two It-girls, Chelsea Deb-types, walk past and stare at Raj. Normally they would be too self-absorbed to notice any guy. The fact that they look at all is approval enough.

  ‘Hey guys, check out the girl on the couch!’

  Raj breaks the obligatory silence, he must have spotted something pretty special. He points to a temptress in one of the booths who is sitting alone, sipping Moët from a flute. The bottle, half drunk, protrudes phallic-like from the cooler bucket. As we all stand there gawking, she looks up. She doesn’t see the rest of us, her eyes have clapped on the Asian Hugh Heffner in the musty sports jacket at my side. This is Austin Powers magnetism at its best.

  Raj puts down his beer and, likes he’s stepping off a yacht, saunters through the throng of sweaty dancers. He approaches the woman, who’s wearing a short skirt that reveals her long toned pins.

  ‘Hello, I wondered if you’d come over,’ the woman peers up from her drink. Her voice is brimming with confidence and it is more bubbly than the champers she’s knocking back. This beautiful stranger is older than the average Attica punter, probably twice the age of the pair of It-girls. She must be in her mid to late thirties. She is sultry and relaxed, relaxed with her own femininity, relaxed because of her years of experience. Her movements, from the beating of her eyelids to the sipping of her champers, are slow, paced and effectual. She has had a hundred lovers, but none of them have robbed her of a modicum of her elegance or scarred her beauty.

  ‘I noticed you across the room, you look good,’ her voice is silky.

  Raj just nods. Smooth.

  ‘Why don’t you join me for a drink,’ her tongue glides over her ice-white teeth. ’Come, sit next to me,’ she pats the luscious lip red sofa.

  ‘There’s nothing I’d like more,’ Raj ensconces himself at her side.

  He’s finding it hard not to take his eyes off those long, slender legs. She’s wearing a black strappy top with a plunging neckline that reveals magnificent pendulous orbs.

  ‘How thoroughly public spirited of her,’ he thinks.

  Raj can’t believe his luck, he’s sure that this woman is up for it big time. And boy is she a woman, definitely no girl, she’s 100% all woman… femme… la bella donna. My friend is not easily fazed, but I think that under normal circumstances even he would acknowledge her overwhelming magnetism. Still, he’s playing it very cool, revelling in her attention and her shameless superiority. It must be the jacket.

  Before he knows it the last drop of that ambrosia has been supped and there’s a mischievous glint in her eye.

  ‘You know, Raj,’ she says getting closer, running her fingers through his hair, ‘my place isn’t that far from here and I have my car parked right outside.’

  ‘Then let’s bust a move and split this joint honey!’ Raj has always been a one with words.

  Meanwhile, Ed and I are rooted to the same spot at the bar, standing open-mouthed, like two chimps at feeding time. We haven’t moved since arriving, staring in bewilderment as Raj works his magic. This hot, gorgeous, gift to mankind strides past the bar, dragging our friend by the hand in her wake. As the suave bugger is pulled past us, he flashes us that that knowing look. A theatrical wink and a cheeky grin that the Cheshire Cat would be proud of – thoughtfully sharing his success with his mates, letting us know that he’s about to score with the most delectable woman in the club, only to leave us two twits to chat with the vacuous, self-absorbed blondes clutching Prada handbags. Well you have to really, don’t you?

  Waiting for them outside is a beast of a sportscar, a sleek silver cat. As they pass the other way through the two bouncers, Raj looks back over his shoulder and, inviting a vicious attack, winks in a similar fashion at the doorman who earlier mocked the sacred sports jacket. The doorman snarls. Oblivious to this show of machismo, the dominatrix continues to drag Raj in the direction of her car.

  ‘Wait I don’t even know your name,’ Raj blurts as he lingers by the passenger door waiting for her to activate the central locking. Raj you friggin’ idiot what do you care what her name is.

  ‘Get in the car,’ she orders. With a cheeky smile, she slinks round to the driver’s side. The interior of the Audi is a predictable black leather, which somehow retains an air of sophistication. Pensively, she caresses the leather wheel before flicking the engine over, which, under her gentle touch, purrs back at her.

  ‘Charlotte, my name’s Charlotte.’

  She shoots him a playful sideward glance. A slight odour of rubber from the wheelspin lingers outside the club as the TT disappears down Dean Street, taking Raj to a place he never thought he’d go – the clap clinic.

  Charlotte’s flat is an ultra-sleek, minimalist West End bachelorette pad. She rummages in her Hermès handbag and withdraws a small leather key fob from its depths. For the first time since they left the car there’s an awkward silence. When you’re travelling back to the girl’s place, be it in their sportscar or a cab, you can maintain a pretence that you are there for some reason other than the inevitable conclusion of your journey. But as soon as you get to their front door, there’s to be no hiding from the truth. You are about to invade a stranger’s personal space, enter the sanctuary of their home. It is stamped with the fingerprints of their personality and filled with the trinkets of their past. Then you will be naked, then you will have sex. And you both know it.

&
nbsp; And yet, Raj notices there is something lacking in this success story apartment. Soul. Sure, it looks like it is right out of Conran; there’s the Heals furniture, B&O hardware and Jimmy Choo, casually discarded in the hallway, but it is a pretence. So what? What does Raj care, the girl is hot, and willing, which is always a bonus. Charlotte kicks off her heels and disappears into the stainless steel appliance fitted kitchen. More bubbly is cracked open, this time a vintage Bolly. Raj is so excited she could have served up Dr Pepper and he wouldn’t care, but it completes the awe she wants to create.

  That night, Raj’s world was rocked, he trod the path that is a rite of passage for every young man. It might happen just the once but it is to be savoured for life. It is one of the things that as you sit by the fire at 75, resplendent in Argyll blanket, pipe and glass of port you will reminisce, with affection, about that one older woman. The successful mature woman. The 35-plus year old. The girl who was netball captain as you were still wetting your pants in junior school, those eight or nine years senior, just enough to create the feeling of unobtainable desire. This time though, she has chosen you.

  Raj left the next morning… a King. You had better not have stepped in his way that morning; he felt like he had a dong the size of a German bratwurst and he was liable to pull down his keks and show you just for the goddamn-fucking sake of it.

  And things went well for the next few weeks. Charlotte and King Dong dated, doing the usual things a couple do. A bit of dinner, a little restauranting, some art galleries, the odd Sotheby’s preview (Raj feigned an interest, it is one of the downsides of shagging the older cultured successful type) and lots of great sex. And he is being driven around Kensington in a TT by a foxy temptress. What could go wrong?

  It was after these first few weeks that it happened. Charlotte calls him up and asks him round for a cosy night in. Raj knows what this means, at least, he thinks he does.

  Raj stands in the small half-landing between the first and second floors outside the heavy white door to Charlotte’s apartment. The period iron lift rattles into action in the stairwell behind him. Raj watches the cage slowly pass the first floor. Inside there’s a woman in her forties clutching a small white poodle, shaved in that stupid way people have poodles coiffured. The dog is wearing pink Pringle briefs. Fucking poodles.