The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) (18 page)

We snuck out of the crowd and
made our way down Jermyn Street and then quickly to Piccadilly
Circus tube station. We ran down the escalators and jumped onto the
carriage just before the beeping doors closed. We sat back in our
seats catching our breath. Carla turned to me. “I’m sorry for
judging you, Daniel,” she said before grabbing me by the head and
pulling me towards her to kiss me again.

“
Where are we
going,” I managed to ask as she smothered me.

“
My place,”
Carla said, straddling me on the seat. Out of the corner of my eye
I noticed two pensioners looking at us, shaking their heads in
disgust.

“
Hey, it’s
been three months,” I said to them and then returned Carla’s
kisses.

*

Carla had a little flat in
Waterloo. She opened the door and didn't hesitate in taking me by
the hand and leading me to her bedroom. She pinned me up against
the wall, her hands all over me. If this was a sign of things to
come then three months had been well worth the wait. I decided to
seize the moment and moved her over to the bed. I climbed on top of
her and moved my hand up her top. Yes! This was boob action. This
was progress. Carla wrapped her legs around me and arched forward
to kiss me.

But suddenly she pulled away.
“Wait,” she panted. “Let’s take things slower.”

No, no
I thought to myself. Why do we need to take
things slower? Please don’t do this to me, not now. “But why,” I
asked holding back the tears.

“
Don’t worry,”
Carla said, obviously noticing the look of concern on my face. “I
just want to take our time. I promise you won't be disappointed,”
she leaned in to kiss me and moved her hand up my thigh. “Let’s
have a drink and
relax
before we get started.” And she kissed me once more, biting
my bottom lip as she pulled away.

We went into her living room
and she got two bottles of beer from the fridge. She reached down
beside the armchair and pulled out a small tin box. She
mischievously bit down on her bottom lip as she opened the box.
Immediately the strong sickly smell hit me.

“
A little
appetizer?” Carla said, waving a bag of weed at me.

I hadn’t smoked weed since I
was at university, but perhaps having a little relaxing stimulant
might not be a bad thing. I was anxious enough as it was about this
moment. I didn’t want to get too over-excited and end up
disappointing Carla. After all, I was a hero now. And a sailor. In
your face Nelson!

“
Sure, why
not.” I casually replied like I had been smoking marijuana my whole
life, and I gulped down my beer. “Can I grab another one?” I asked
shaking the empty bottle. Carla pointed me in the direction of the
kitchen. I came back and sat opposite her, watching her roll up the
monster of all spliffs. The weed was a much lighter green than I
remembered, and she sprinkled about half the bag into a
Rizla.

She lit the joint up and took a
couple of puffs before passing it to me. I took two puffs and then
held it out to Carla, but she shook her head. “You have it,” she
said. “I’m going to roll another one.”

Was she kidding? I couldn’t
smoke this whole thing to myself. I took another puff and then
placed it down in the ashtray and went back to my beer as Carla
rolled another spliff that Bob Marley would have been proud of.

“
Take another
hit,” Carla urged me, but already I was starting to feel
light-headed. Not wanting to lose face, I picked the joint up and
tried to steady my hand as I lifted it to my lips. I took another
puff and eased back in to the chair. The room had already started
to fill with a thick fog of smoke. My eyes felt heavy. Four puffs
and I was already in trouble. I tried to look relaxed, like I did
this all the time, but even blinking was taken a huge effort. Carla
finished rolling her joint and sparked up. She took two massive
puffs and then held it in front of her, admiring her
work.

I don’t know why, but I decided
I could ride this out and took another puff, this time trying to
not inhale. Instead I ended up looking like a teenage boy who was
smoking for the first time and couldn’t quite take the smoke
down.

“
You don’t
have to smoke it if you don’t want to,” Carla said grinning. I
wanted to stop so badly, but my male ego wouldn’t let me. Instead I
waved Carla’s suggestion away with a crooked smile and took another
puff.

The room
started to spin. I gripped on to the armrests of the chair hoping
the room would stop swaying from side to side like an episode
of
Star Trek.
I
broke out into a cold sweat, and fell into a state of extreme
nausea and dizziness. I was stoned.

“
Are you
okay?” Carla asked. She must have seen the colour drain from my
face. It made me feel ill just to move, so I nodded with minimal of
effort. I placed the joint back into the ashtray and tried sitting
forwards. The rush of such a simple task nearly made me pass out.
It was then I realised my worst fear. I wasn’t buzzing. I wasn’t
just stoned.

I had greened out.

I started to panic, which only
made the situation worse. Carla took another drag of her joint and
then got up and moved towards me. She pushed me back into the
armchair where I was sitting and it took all my effort not to throw
up. She pulled her vest off and straddled me topless. Why was this
happening to me? Why now? I hadn’t seen a real pair of breasts for
months, and now here were two right in front of me and I didn’t
even have the energy to brush my hand across one of them. Even
looking at her perky erect nipples made me want to vomit. I tried
concentrating on a corner of the room, hoping I could somehow cure
myself by staring blankly at her CD collection.

“
Do you not
like what you see, Daniel?” Carla asked, lifting my hand up to cup
her right breast. “Don’t go shy on me now.”

Carla started to kiss me, but
the best I could return with was some strange kind of gurning
movement of my lips. She reached over and picked up my joint and
inhaled a dark cloud of grey smoke, before moving in to kiss me
again. I closed my eyes and hoped I could just ride through this
storm.

Carla moved her mouth over mine
and without warning did something I was not prepared for. Instead
of kissing me she exhaled the smoke into my mouth. I coughed
violently, forcing myself forward and in the process sending Carla
flying backwards.

She landed on her arse with a
bump, but simply started to giggle. I leaned forward trying to get
some air, but that is when it happened. I felt it from the pit of
my stomach, but I was powerless to prevent it. Before I knew it the
contents of my lunch covered Carla, who had abruptly stopped
giggling.

She paused and didn't say a
word. I looked at her through dazed eyes. For a split second I
hoped that maybe Carla was so stoned she might not even notice.

“
You sick
bastard,” she shrieked.

I could only flop back into the
chair, my forehead soaked in sweat. “I’m sorry,” I muttered,
desperately concentrating to try and halt the spinning feeling that
was still swirling around my head, not to mention my stomach.

Carla leapt to her feet and
pulled at my arms to drag me up. “Get out!” she screamed. I slumped
forward on to my knees, head butting her naked left breast before I
slumped against her midsection.

“
Please let me
rest for a little while,” I pleaded in my glazed over state. She
side stepped, leaving me to flop to the ground in the foetal
position. Everything seemed a blur. I just wanted to
sleep.

Carla had other ideas and
started dragging me by my feet towards the door. I could hear her
shouting, but I didn’t know what she was saying anymore. I simply
stared up at her ceiling. The sensation of being stoned had truly
gripped every part of my body. And although my mind was failing me,
part of it still reminded me of how much I would regret this whole
sorry event in a couple of hours when I sobered up.

I felt the cold breeze as she
opened up the door. “Get up!” Carla demanded and helped pull me to
my feet.

“
I’m so
sorry,” I managed to say again before Carla gave me one final shove
and slammed the door shut.

Chapter 12: Beer Talk

Sunday, March 29, 2009 -
3.22pm

Drought Clock: 86 days, 23
hours, 15 minutes

“
So what
happened next?” Rob asked, furiously tapping away at the console
controller.

“
I blacked
out,” I said, making a fantastic last-ditch tackle on the football
game we were playing. “Next thing I know, I wake up on a park bench
with two little kids poking me with a stick, asking me if I was
still alive.”

“
You idiot!”
Jack shouted. “She was gagging for it, and you go and green
out.”

“
That’s pretty
poor form, mate,” Rob said, “even by your standards.”

“
What a
loser,” Ollie said, snatching the controller from my
hands.

If I was
looking for sympathy then I was barking up the wrong tree. This is
another fundamental difference between men and women. After
experiencing the type of trauma my date with Carla had caused, a
group of girls would rally around their friend and offer their
complete undivided support. My lot had just come round to take the
piss as much as possible and play
Fifa
2009
.

Allow me to elaborate. If a
girl calls her friend at three in the morning to tell her about a
fight she has just had with her boyfriend, that friend will
immediately be able to tune in and not only be a good listener, but
will listen for as long as it takes and offer solid advice. If a
guy called another guy at stupid o’clock in the morning he
would:

a) Be lucky if his pal even
answered the phone

b) Or if he
did answer, he would be told in no uncertain terms to go
do one
because the only
reason to call another man at that time in the morning is to inform
him that you have hooked up with Brazilian twins and you need a
wingman

That is not to say that guys
don’t offer good advice in situations like this. We just have our
own methods of delivering advice in a way that only a man can
really appreciate and understand.

“
Dan, your
problem is that you’re a bit like a striker who is low on
confidence,” Jack said.

“
How do you
mean?” I asked, reclaiming the controller back from Ollie who had
made the mistake of putting it down to light a
cigarette.

“
What I’m
saying is that you haven’t scored for a long time now. You are on a
drought,” Jack said.

“
Tell me
something I don’t know.”

“
You are
missing the point,” Rob interjected, and he cursed after missing a
golden opportunity to score with just minutes left on the
clock.

“
Okay, explain
it to me then,” I said stealing the ball away from Rob and knocking
a long pass out to my left-winger.

“
Everyone
knows goals breed confidence in strikers, right?” Jack
continued.

“
Right,” I
agreed, dribbling past a couple of Rob’s defenders, my tongue
poking out of the left side of my mouth.

“
So you are
trying too hard at the moment to score,” Rob said, attempting a
last ditch tackle before I managed to pull the trigger and watched
as the ball crashed against the post.

“
You couldn’t
even hit a barn door or pull the pig inside the barn on current
form,” Ollie said, and the sight of him inhaling cigarette smoke
brought back too many painful memories.

“
I still have
no idea what you are going on about,” I managed to nick the ball
from Rob’s defence.

“
You just need
a goal,” Rob said. “It doesn’t matter if it hits you on the
backside and trickles over the line, you just need to get the ball
into the back of the net by any means necessary.”

“
A penalty
will do!” Jack shouted as Rob brought my player down in the area
and the referee signalled for the spot kick in the dying
seconds.

I stared intently at the screen
as the ball was placed on the penalty spot. “So you’re saying I
just need to score once and then all the pressure I am putting on
myself will disappear?” I suddenly understood.

“
That’s
right,” Jack patted me on the back. “You’ve got it.”

I stepped up
to take my penalty; a goal which would surely seal victory. But
then a scary thought hit me. “But what if I miss the penalty?”
I
am
English
after all.

“
Then you’ll
only ever be good enough to play for Scunthorpe, or at very best
maybe get a sniff with Ollie’s sloppy seconds,” Jack
said.

“
Nothing wrong
with my sloppy seconds,” Ollie informed me before a hush fell
across my living room. I stared at the controller, knowing full
well that a nation’s hopes rested on my shoulders. Put this one
away and I’d be back on the score sheet. Miss and my drought would
continue.

I turned the controller away
from Rob, not wanting to give anything away. I took a deep breath
and puffed out my cheeks as I exhaled. I wiped my clammy hand down
my jeans. The ref blew his whistle and I made my run up. I struck
the ball to the right. Everything turned to slow motion. Rob sent
his keeper the right way. But it didn’t matter – this one was out
of the keeper’s reach.