A Brand New Me

by Shari Low

  Flashes of spontaneous humour–maybe there’d been some progress there after all.

  ‘Don’t worry, it was entirely my fault, not yours. And thanks–visit to Accident and Emergency aside, I had a really nice time.’

  ‘Me too! And I’m not just saying that to agree with you,’ he grinned.

  Yep, definite progress.

  He grabbed his jacket off a chair and waited patiently as Stu gave it a quick once-over with a disinfectant wipe.

  ‘Leni, since we both had, er, a good time, would it be, er, okay if I called you, and maybe we could go out again?’

  Time to practise what I preached. Daniel was lovely, but–Zara’s rules forbidding post-date contact aside–I had to accept the truth: there was only room for one of me in any relationship. With double the deficiencies in assertiveness and drive, we’d never get anything done.

  ‘Thanks, Daniel, that’s really sweet of you…But, er, no.’

  PROGRESS SUMMARY: IT’S IN THE STARS DATING PROJECT

  CONCLUDED

  LEO Harry Henshall Morbid fascination for simulated violence

  SCORPIO Matt Warden Lead singer, lying arse

  ARIES Daniel Jones Unlikely to forge career as an assertiveness coach

  EMAIL

  To: Trisha; Stu

  From: Leni Lomond

  Re: If last night’s date had a personal ad, it would

  read like…

  BROKEN ARM.

  BLOODY SORE WHEN TYPING.

  PERSONAL ADS SUSPENDED.

  11

  Star-Crossed

  Of all the places it could finally have happened, I’d never, ever have guessed it would be the cleaning supplies cupboard. It must have been something about the fumes from the floor polish.

  I suppose I had Daniel to thank–if he hadn’t tried to be so chivalrous, I wouldn’t have fallen and so I wouldn’t have broken my arm; therefore I wouldn’t be wearing a hugely cumbersome plaster cast and I wouldn’t keep knocking things over.

  It was only 10 a.m., and already I’d inadvertently swept aside a large pile of mail, a goldfish bowl containing Zara’s ancient Mayan meditation marbles (99p each on eBay–made in Taiwan), and a large cup of steaming cappuccino from the Coffee Bean down the road. Thankfully, I’d managed to jump out of the way before I got scalded, but the large puddle of brown goo that was spreading across my tree trunk needed urgent attention, thus a frantic search for paper towels in the cleaning cupboard had ensued.

  ‘Come on, come on, where are you, come on, bloody hell, who’s in charge of keeping this place organised?’ It was a rhetorical question, given that I was the only person in the room.

  ‘Leni, are you okay?’

  Only person no longer. Maybe it was the effects of the painkillers, maybe it was the stress of the dates; it might even have been that I’d just wasted £2.75 on a cup of spilt coffee, but a huge, mortifying, dolloping tear splodged down and landed in the mop bucket below.

  ‘Hey, hey, don’t cry. What’s going on?’

  His voice was so sweet and full of concern that several dozen other big fat tears felt compelled to join the first one.

  I didn’t even register the first touch, and it wasn’t until I was wrapped in his arms that I realised what was happening: Conn Delta, he of the hubba hubba, was comforting me in the salubrious surroundings of the cleaning cupboard–probably a fortuitous location, as he’d need some kind of stain remover to get rid of the trail of snot I was leaving on his Armani jacket.

  We stood like that until the racking sobs finally subsided, and then for a few seconds more as I wondered how I could get out of this without fainting from mortification.

  Dum dum. Dum dum. My ear was pressed against his chest and I could hear the steady rhythm of his heart. Maybe I’d just stay like this for a few moments longer.

  I mean, what was the rush?

  He murmured something into the top of my head. I had a sinking feeling it might be something to do with finding another job.

  ‘What?’ I whispered.

  ‘You smell nice.’

  Oh.

  I dragged my face out of his pecs and looked up at him.

  ‘Actually, I think that’s the loo blocks for the toilets. Summer Breeze.’

  His face crinkled into a huge grin, a grin that was coming closer, and closer, and oh fuck really close, until…he snogged me. Yep, a full-on, hard, passionate, mouth-to-mouth tonsil tickle, and it came with accompanying sound effects of heavy breathing and astonished gasps (those were mine).

  Eeeek! What was going on? I hadn’t had a spontaneous snog in a cupboard since, well, ever. I was the woman who took twenty minutes to decide whether to have a HobNob or a Kit Kat with my tea.

  ‘Oh, Leni…’ The murmured, sexy groan was emitted without loss of lip suction. And his hands had moved from my back and were now on either side of my head, his fingers deep in my hair, holding me to him.

  This was nuts! It had to stop and I knew I had to be the one to stop it! I had to get a grip of this and restore some kind of sanity. And I would! Right after I’d whipped off his tie, wrenched open his shirt (one flying button almost taking out an eye), and given his chest a good wash with my tongue.

  ‘Leni. Oh God, Leni…I want you so much.’

  The fumbling sensation as I slipped my hand (the one at the end of the unbroken arm) inside his trousers probably informed him that the feeling was mutual. It all went a bit frantic after that. His hands pulled free from my hair and slipped up inside my black jumper, pushing up my sheer black bra and releasing my boobs. He ducked down, latching on to my right nipple, his tongue flicking the end of it while he hurriedly pulled my skirt up so that it…

  ‘Aaaaaaaaaaaaoooooooow!’

  Shit! In the midst of the adrenalin and lust-fuelled animalistic passion, I’d attempted to grab his hair and instead had somehow missed and thumped him across the back of the head with my plaster cast.

  How cruel, oh so cruel would it be if this was to be the first time in my life that I was responsible for another human being’s concussion?

  A finger tracing its way along my inner thigh reassured me that he might be down (there), but he wasn’t out.

  The finger rose higher, higher, trying to find its path, forced to move right up to waist level by the ultimate barrier to desirability and passion that is fifty-denier tights. Tights! Bloody, bloody bugger! Why couldn’t today have been the day I’d worn sexy hold-ups to work? Or seamed stockings? Or even jeans with a sexy little pair of silk tangas underneath. Nope–ugly, opaque tights with a gusset so thick it could protect my nethers from an invading army.

  Riiiiiiiiiip!

  Make that past tense. Tights in tatters on the floor, the knickers soon followed (mercifully black, sheer, not resembling granny pants in any way). Using a combination of wriggling, pulling and pushing with feet, I’d managed to get his trousers down to his ankles, his–hang on until I get a good grip–oh dear Lord, his almighty cock springing free in the process.

  ‘Turn around,’ he gasped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Turn around!’ He did a push/pull thing, and in a split second I was facing the other way, his body pressed against my back, both arms curved around to the front of my torso, one hand cupped around my right breast, the other pushing its way inside me.

  ‘You. Are. Fucking. Gorgeous. Leni, bend over, baby. Grab on.’

  Er, to what? As I bent at the waist my hands frantically reached out for something to balance against. The first thing they met was a huge roll on the bottom shelf. Great–so now I find the paper towels.

  The roll toppled over so my left hand clutched on to the shelf instead, my right hand still flailing until–clunk–it met something solid, at the very same time as I felt that almighty cock push inside me.

  In. And out. In. Out. Oh, the sheer orgasmic bloody bliss of getting shagged in a cupboard while clutching on to a shelf and a Dyson. I would never again manage to do housework without a happy grin.

  In. Out. I
n.

  ‘Oh, Leni…’

  ‘Conn.’

  ‘Leni.’

  ‘Conn.’

  ‘Leni.’

  ‘Conn.’

  ‘Leni? Leni, are you okay?’

  Hang on, that sounded…

  ‘Leni! You’re a million miles away. Are you okay?’

  Noooooooooooooo.

  I could feel my pupils snap open as they adjusted to the daylight, and then refocused on the man who definitely wasn’t behind me in a store cupboard.

  Nooooooooooooo! I was sitting at my desk, and, standing in front of me, looking deeply puzzled, was Conn.

  ‘Were you sleeping?’ he asked, his tone somewhere between confused and amused.

  ‘No! I was just…er…just…daydreaming. I think. Or maybe sleeping. Sorry, Conn, really, I’ve no idea. I’m just a bit drowsy. I think it’s the drugs they gave me at the hospital, you know, for the pain.’

  I threw up exhibit one for the defence, an arm encased in plaster. Unfortunately, in doing so I sent my nearby cup of cappuccino flying across the room.

  ‘Shit! Oh, shit! Sorry! I’m really…’ I was up on my feet now and halfway across the room. ‘A towel! I’ll just get some paper towels from the cleaning cupboard.’

  ‘Do you know where they are or do you need me to come and show you?’ he asked, his voice warm and friendly.

  ‘No, no, it’s fine!’ I blurted, aware that I could send global warming to critical levels just from the heat emanating from my face. ‘I’ve, er…been in the cleaning cupboard before.’

  12

  The Capricorn Date

  I figured that by the laws of probability I was due to chalk up a successful date anytime soon–preferably within this millennium. I had a good feeling about Mr Capricorn, especially since Zara had allowed me to go through the pile of candidates and pick him myself–a decision that I had a hunch was the result of the combination of Conn’s absence (he had three days of back-to-back meetings in the city centre), her inherent disinterest in anything that didn’t directly affect her, and a modicum of employer/Health & Safety/broken-arm guilt. Actually, it was probably just the first two.

  ‘So what am I looking for?’ I’d asked her, as she’d pointed me in the direction of the large, bulging black plastic bag that Millie had just dragged into our office. The A4 sheet of paper taped to the front with the word ‘CAPRICORN’ in black marker-pen gave me a clue that this was our celestial, incoming-mail filing system.

  ‘What’s the criteria for selection of the candidates?’ I’d continued, acutely aware that since this was a highly specialised investigative study, there were probably stringent requirements for each successful candidate.

  ‘Oh, just whatever you think,’ she’d replied with a nonchalant shrug. ‘As long as they fall within the star sign and the age range, that’s all that matters. You might want to weed out the publicity-seekers, though–at least half of the guys who’ve written in are just doing it because they think it’ll make them celebrities. I don’t know where they got that idea.’

  I chose not to point out that the applicants’ hope of a new celebrity status might have sprouted from the fact that this was a TV-driven project with the promise that it would ‘change lives’, ‘feature in a best-selling book’ and deliver a ‘new destiny’. The three candidates I’d already been out with were probably on the phone right now to Trading Standards.

  Zara put down the large Spanish-style fan she was holding, took the wind chimes off her head (don’t even ask) and stared at me with a dark, suspicious glint in her eye.

  ‘Leni, is everything okay with you? Is there anything you’d like to discuss or share?’

  Fuuuuuuuck! She did know what I was thinking! I was throwing out cynical aspersions and she was catching every bloody one of them. And if she knew that I was mentally mocking her, then chances were she also knew…My stomach began to churn with fear and dread. Yep, she knew that I’d fantasised about doing it doggie-style with the fruit of her loins.

  ‘N-n-n-n-o, noth-ing,’ I stuttered, face flushing. Earlier that morning I’d witnessed her threatening to strangle her Master of Tibetan Serenity because she discovered he was charging her double the going rate, so I didn’t even want to think about what she’d do to me if she knew I was having fantasy sex with her son during working hours.

  I returned to my familiar mantra. Think nice things. Think nice things. Zara is kind, Zara is wise, Zara definitely doesn’t look like a pepperoni stick in that brown kaftan…

  ‘Fine,’ she suddenly announced, her demeanour switching immediately to sunny and bright. ‘Well, get on with it then.’ She gestured to the bin bag.

  For the next three hours I read and sifted, while attempting to reassure myself that there was no way she was reading my mind and therefore no possibility that she’d sneak up behind me armed with a noose. But I made sure I was facing her at all times, just in case.

  In the end it came down to an excruciatingly difficult decision between Chad, 28, a male model who included a topless photo showing a stomach so defined it could be used as a toast rack, and Craig, 31, a relationship therapist whose photo was an out-of-focus headshot.

  I won’t deny that my first instinct was to go with Chad–after all, how often would I get an all-expenses-paid night out with a bloke who modelled Lycra pants in the World of Sport catalogue? But in the end I decided against it on the grounds that my self-esteem had been given a big enough kick in the bollocks lately without spending a whole night face-to-face with someone who was far prettier than me, had a flatter stomach, and who had every girl in the room imagining him half-naked.

  It did raise the question, though: if these guys both had the same star signs, then surely they had the same fortunes in store, and thus, taking that theory to a logical level, wouldn’t the outcome of both dates be similar?

  I tried to broach the same star sign/different fates question with Zara, but she brushed me off with a two-minute spiel on how conventional astrology is far too general and that was why her methods were far more successful. Then she crossed her legs, closed her eyes and launched into a Hindu chant, before falling into a deep meditation while she regressed herself back to one of her former lives–the one in which she was a fierce Viking warrior who was a great leader of men and conqueror of the seas. Ironic, since I’d once asked her if she wanted to take the ferry to a business meeting in Ireland and she balked at the idea, citing chronic seasickness.

  Anyway, Craig won the toss, and I figured that even if we didn’t hit it off, at least I might be able to tap into his professional knowledge and pick up tips on successful relations with the opposite sex. Or lack thereof.

  We’d arranged to meet straight after work in a wine bar/gastro-pub in Notting Hill, and I followed Millie’s advice and went for an ‘office to night-time’ look, despite the fact that I had absolutely no idea what that was. Apparently, it involved tarting up your office clothes (in my case a pair of black crepe trousers and a grey polo-neck jumper) by sweeping your hair up and adding glam, droopy earrings and kitten heels. And, of course, in my case, slipping a slinky black leg-warmer over the plaster cast that was still on my arm–an essential component when meeting someone new, as I didn’t want them to make any assumptions based on the message Trish had written in marker pen on the plaster claiming that ‘feminism means sitting on top’.

  I arrived first, handy for picking the right spot, as far away from bright light as possible. The two black eyes had finally disappeared, but I still needed to pile on the slap to cover the dull yellow bruising that remained. By 6.30 p.m. the familiar nerves had started to kick in and I was already decidedly flushed. I said a prayer to the Gods of Blind Dating not to make this one awkward or uncomfortable, on the grounds that I deserved a break: I’d been a participant in this madness for almost two months, this was date number four, and I was only marginally less shaky now than I had been on date number one. If I got stressed and sweaty, there would be a foundation avalanche and my yellow compl
exion might give the impression that I had cirrhosis of the liver. Next date? The local branch of AA.

  By 7 p.m., half an hour after our agreed meeting time, I was surrounded with groups of strangers, an eclectic mix of city suits and bohemian shabby-chics, all chatting and laughing and pretending not to notice the female with the plaster cast in the corner who had very obviously been stood up.

  Oh, the humiliation. Capricorn Craig had only had a ten-minute phone call with me and already he’d decided not to go through with it. Well, I’d be bloody writing to him to demand the return of the hundred pounds that had been couriered to him that afternoon. Who’d have thought a relationship counsellor would have a side-line in extortion?

  I decided to leave before I succumbed to the temptation to devour the little silver bowl of cashew nuts on the table in front of me–a rash act that would make Stu quarantine me for six weeks and demand that I take a course of high-dose antibiotics.

  Suddenly, the bowl went flying, replaced by a bulging, weathered leather briefcase.

  ‘Hello, are you Leni? You are, aren’t you? You’re Leni? You look exactly as I imagined.’

  ‘I am.’

  ‘Excellent. I’m usually right about these things. Apologies for my tardiness–my last consultation ran over, and it does of course take priority.’

  I considered standing up, adopting an aloof expression, hissing, ‘Too late, I wait for no man!’ and flouncing out. Or perhaps I should just purse my lips and harrumph my bosom in an indignant manner then proceed to sulk for the rest of the night.

  But of course, because (like Daniel, my long-lost twin brother) I suffer from a non-confrontational personality with a desire to please, I shrugged my shoulders, smiled, and lied that, ‘It’s no problem, honestly. I hardly even noticed you were late.’

  He inadvertently nudged a couple of stockbroker types out of the way as he pulled out the chair next to me and thumped himself down. I was glad I hadn’t dressed up too much as my non-flashy outfit perfectly matched his chocolate cord trousers and matching jacket with–oh good grief, I thought they were an urban legend–tan leather patches on the arms.