On my sofa this evening

My Friday Night Out

I met up with a lady from my squash group, and her friend. They’re both lawyers, but the boring sort who worry about property paperwork and tax loopholes. She had a spare ticket to a play in London. An email went round on Thursday. Did anyone want to go? Yes, I thought I did. I think she fancies me a bit, she prolongs eye contact for a moment too long, and seems just a little silly around me. I don’t fancy her that much, but I’m a bit attracted nonetheless – she’s intellectual and interesting and vital and French – so of course I am. Of her, I guess, much more. 

The evening was low key. After the play (which replaced narrative with pretension, and almost got away with it) we went for a couple of glasses of wine near Smithfields Market. Her friend was getting married and dominated the conversation in an Alan Bennett northern accent, but I still got the chance to talk to my friend a little. The evening was cut short because she had an early flight back to France for a funeral. I left at 11.30 to catch the last train to Richmond. 

Except I missed it. At Vauxhall station I climbed the steps to the platform to see that the trains were done for the night. Behind me on the stairs, and equally irritated, was a woman in jeans and a dress, with shoulder length hair, much of it over her face. I thought she was pretty, but two days later I can’t picture her face. 

“We’ve missed it” I said 

“Oh shit” she said 

This was the point I decided I would try my best to have sex with her. “I’m trying to get to Richmond, how about you” I asked. “Oh near there, I live in Barnes” was her welcome response. I gave her my best open smile and offered to share a cab, dropping her on my way home. She smiled back, agreed and we headed off to look for a cab. On the way I learned that she was called Sally, 27 (I’m 30), works in advertising as someone’s PA, originally from South Africa, quite sexy, flirting back. All very encouraging so far. I can’t recall much about our conversation, just that I had my flirt dial switched to 11, and that she seemed to be receptive. She was interested in what I had to say, even if it was likely a tidal wave of drunken nonsense. She turned her body language in my direction. After 15 minutes we’d reached Fulham. To non-Londoners, Fulham is a smart part of town, full of trendy bars, most of which were closed at this time of night. We drove past one of the few open bars and we both looked in. A minute later she asked “Do you want to stop for a drink?” Bonus. Yes. We stopped the car and jumped out, but by now we were a long way down the road and facing quite a walk. Instead we headed in the other direction hoping to find something nearer. She was good company, laughing and chatting a lot, I think being carried away on my own hyper mood. At one point we stopped to look in a shop window, and she pulled me away by holding my hand. She held it for a moment then let go, but I took it again, and this woman I’d met 20 minutes previously and I walked, like an old married couple, hand in hand down the road. Giving up on finding a bar, we hailed another cab and gave him the uncomplicated mission to “find us a good bar”. The one he found was in Chelsea, by the football ground. We charged in, and at my insistance, ordered a tequila and glass of white wine each. Was I getting her drunk? Well yes, but it was more that I was getting us both drunk. It sounds bad either way, I know. We sat down and chatted for a while about my job and hers. I tested the water a little by touching knees. She leant in a little and carried on talking at close quarters. I noticed she smelled of cigarettes and that warm comforting feminine smell you can inhale when you lift a woman’s hair and smell the nape of her neck. Time to be bold. I leant in and whispered to her “I want to kiss your cheek”. “Go on then”. I did so slowly, first her right, then left, and as she straightened her face, she kissed my lips for a brief moment. “That’s it, no more!” I said in mock certainty. Before leaning in for an old fashioned 16 year old style snog. We kissed for 30 seconds or so, and it was nice. I especially liked feeling the small of her back, and touching her nose with my own as we kissed. I wear oversized “I Work In The Media” glasses, and she knocked them a couple of times. I hadn’t realised there was a trick to kissing a guy in big glasses. My last girlfriend’s unspoken expertise in this area became a very minor tick on her unfortunate balance sheet. 

Then she lost her nerve. The fact of sitting snogging a stranger in an unknown bar, hit home, and she asked me to take her back. Now I may only have had one thing on my mind that night, but I’m not a bastard, and was happy to take her home. I went to the toilet and on my return had to rescue her from a weird father and son team who had moved in. In our third cab of the evening we kissed some more. This time I placed my leg over hers and responding to her own powerful kissing I pressed my body on to her and gently bit her bottom lip. Aware that she was torn between abandon and risk, I was allowing her to make the running. She moved her hand to the top of my leg, stopping it on the tip of my erection, leaving it there, never quite touching the length, but leaving a tingling sensation as I wondered how far it’s reasonable to go in a black London cab. 

I have a really good flat in Richmond, ideal for bringing ladies home, but unfortunately I have a slightly surly (but nice) 18 year old brother staying on my couch at the moment. I calculated that I’d just risk it, and invite her to mine anyway. She said no. “OK, I’ll just get you home” was my deflated response. At her house, I tried my luck again. “Invite me in” I whispered. “I’m sorry I can’t” “Then come back to mine!” I brightened. “No really I can’t”. I gave up. She gave me her number, we kissed again briefly and she was gone, leaving me and the driver alone with our awkward silence for the final ten minutes. Later I rang the number she gave and it was someone else, another woman, wondering why the hell I was calling so late. I texted in drunken desparation – “Drink in Richmond ASAP. Text me.” When I woke up this morning the response came “Really, who is this?”

Richmond

That’s me, that is. 

It’s in Richmond. My new flat is in Richmond, in West London. I was a little reticent before, but what the hell, I’m an exhibitionist, and you’re welcome to know. My imminent adventures will take place across the greatest metropolis in the world, and I’ll retreat to to the comfort of sunny Richmond Upn Thames.

But all that begins next week. Right now, I’m in Brighton still, with friends and in their spare room. We went to a bar up the road tonight. A couple and me. I’m not a hugely handsome man, but I’ve always managed to punch a little above my weight, possibly because I dress well, smile a lot and flirt with the best of them. My flirting skills have gone neglected in the last two years, so tonight I dusted them off again, flirting with the waitress from the bar. She’s a sexy black-haired Australian woman, with a knowing, intellectual thing going on. What could be better. I edged my ego ever so gently onto the line, and she didn’t meet me in the middle. I retreated, only slightly embarrassed.

I’ll get better at this.

And I’ll record my adventures.

Pad

It is a fact universally recognised that a man with a fortune must be in search of a wife bachelor pad.

So to that end, I’ve sorted myself out with a superb new apartment. Costing an arm, a leg and the shirt from my back, it’s a new build and I’m the first person ever to live there. It’s fantastically bright, with huge floor to ceiling windows everywhere. If I’m going to be lonely, this is to place to do it.

I need to find a new place because 10 days ago I split with my girlfriend of two years, and I’d been living in the house she owned. The final days of the relationship saw me buy an absurdly proportioned and priced TV, to sit unwanted and unloved (by her) in the living room, as a sort of monument to my own absurdity. An oversized comfort purchase providing anything but comfort. Now it sits with the rest of my material life, in a storage unit down the road. The pathos, when I see my lifes possessions compressed and cubed in a metal box, is exquisite. Almost enjoyable. Soon all that cliched chrome and shiny black plastic will be free, and given home amongst the mimimalost chic of my new apartment, and I’ll be ready. Ready to start meeting ladies again. Back in the game, with just a hint of fear.