The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) (2 page)

“
Oh shit, I’m
so sorry,” I blurted out, before in my infinite wisdom deciding it
would be appropriate to help dry her vodka and coke soaked chest
with my man purse. If the scraping of fake gems and plastic
diamonds against flesh wasn’t enough, I somehow managed to wedge
the purse in between her cleavage. The tiger's face now looked as
though it was peering out over two eggs.

I didn’t see the punch coming,
but I did feel the full force of her heavily sovereign-ringed fist
make crunching contact with the side of my face. And it wasn’t the
playful variety of hit I had anticipated earlier either. I stumbled
back, tripping over a bar stool, and came crashing down flat on my
back.

As I lay there looking up at
the smoke-stained ceiling, the last eight months flashed before my
eyes. How had it come to this? I used to be a pretty cool guy.
Perhaps not the coolest, but I got by. Now look at me – lying flat
on my back in a stinking old man’s pub, beaten up by a girl. And to
cap it all off I still had a semi hard-on from where I had been
staring at her tits.

I was snapped out of my trance
by another blow to the head, this time the barmaid was considerate
enough to use the fist with just the three sovereign rings. She
followed up with a kick to the groin, causing me to yelp like an
injured puppy.

“
Get up!” she
shrieked in her glorious south London twang, grabbing a handful of
my hair to help me to my feet. What a way for my life to end; all
because I was three pence in debt to Queen Chavette of Balham. I
wondered what my mother would think when they found my body with an
injured semi in my pants.

With the finesse of a Kung-Fu
master, she twisted my arm halfway up my back and frog marched me
towards the door. A toothless old hag laughed at me as I was
dragged past her to add further humiliation to this already sorry
scene. Using my head as a battering ram to open the door, the
barmaid flung me out on to the busy high street pavement.
Passers-by gawped and gasped as I crashed into the steel railings
alongside the road.

“
Don’t come
back unless you want another beating! You’re barred!” The barmaid
cried out. “And take your man-purse with you!” She launched the
purse at my head as the final insult.

Momentarily I checked for any
broken bones. I was still alive – she had spared me. But at that
moment I might as well have been dead. I was at the lowest point I
had been in the last eight months. I wasn’t too sure how I should
feel as I sat myself up on the pavement. Anger? Sorrow? Bitterness?
Maybe all of them. Maybe none.

All I knew for certain was that
I was throwing in the towel. I’d had enough of the knock-backs and
the disappointment. I was sick and tired of the bad advice and the
ridicule I had suffered. I had managed to get myself into more
near-death experiences than Evel Knievel. And the obsession with
internet porn I was starting to develop couldn’t be healthy
either.

But despite everything that had
happened in the last eight months, one thing stood out as the
hardest pill to swallow. It was something I honestly had not seen
coming. After all the rejection, the despair, the disappointment,
it was the betrayal that had hurt the most.

Perhaps I had better start at
the beginning.

Chapter 2:
47 Messages

Thursday, January 1, 2009 -
8.47am

Countdown to start of drought:
Two hours, 34 minutes

“
Wakey,
wakey, rise and shine!” Rob slapped me a few more times to try and
arouse me from my drunken slumber. Immediately the sensation of my
pneumatic drill headache signalled this was the worst hangover I
had suffered since the time I stuffed myself with 27 pieces of
vodka jelly.

“
What time is
it?” I was barely able to get the words out as my tongue was stuck
to the roof of my mouth. It was so dry it felt as though I had
eaten an entire pack of crackers while stranded in the middle of
the Sahara Desert.

“
It’s nearly
nine,” Rob said nudging me with his foot. “It’s Greasy Spoon time,
just what the doctor ordered. A nice bit of fried bread on this
fine New Year’s morning will do the trick.”

The thought of food made my
stomach churn, and I pulled the pillow over my head in a feeble
attempt to get Rob to leave me alone. A sharp pain lodged itself
permanently down the centre of my skull. Even breathing made me
feel sick. What a way to start the New Year.

“
I’m going
now, baby, thanks for a great night.” I managed to pull the pillow
down from my face and force my right eye to squint open to see who
the unfamiliar female voice belonged to. I worked my gaze up from
the long tanned legs, to the tight leopard print miniskirt hugging
the firmest peach-shaped arse I’d ever seen. And the view just got
better. Packed into a tight low-cut black top were two
fantastically round breasts, and a perfect mane of blonde
hair.

Rob leaned in and kissed the
sexy blonde stranger. “Give me a call next week and we’ll hang
out,” he told her as he put his number into her phone. They kissed
again and then she left.

“
Who was
that?” I drooled, suddenly my mouth not so dry anymore.

“
That was
Kirsty, no Karen,” he replied still with a puzzled look on his face
as he tried to remember what her name was. “No, it is Kirsty. She
was the girl I picked up in the pub before we came back here last
night.”

God I hated
guys like Rob Devlin. I hated how his sandy blonde boy-band
hairstyle always looked inch perfect. I hated his dedication to put
hours in at the gym to sculpt and tone his athletic physique. I
hated that he had a style all of his own and always looked like one
of those male models from an Abercrombie and Fitch advert. And
I
really
hated
the way he was able to effortlessly pull girls that most blokes
only dared stare at from a distance; just long enough to memorise
them for the wank bank later on.

He had also been my best friend
since we were six-years-old, and I loved the guy to bits. He was
super laid-back; so much so that he was in danger of falling over
sometimes. He had a real charm about him, especially with the
ladies, and you rarely heard anyone say a bad word about him. In
fact, the first and last time we fell-out was as nine-year-olds
when Rob kissed Debbie Chopman in the playground during a game of
kiss chase. I loved Debbie, and had obsessed over her for at least
two weeks without doing a thing about it. Rob knew I liked her, and
would even hold her down during kiss chase, urging me to come over
and plant one on her lips. But even then I was useless with the
opposite sex, and could normally be found hiding behind a tree.
Eventually I guess Rob got bored and decided to kiss her himself;
just to prove how easy it was. I was devastated and refused to
speak to him for a full three days, until he invited me to his
house to play on his new games console. I guess even Debbie Chopman
couldn’t compete with a Sega Mega Drive.

“
Come on Danny
boy, get dressed. We’re leaving in five minutes,” Rob continued.
“And do me a favour – cover yourself up.”

I cried out in shock horror as
I stared down at my morning glory in, well, all its glory. “Where
the hell are my boxer shorts?” I gasped as I cupped myself to hide
the shame.

“
I think you
took them off during the drinking game. You were pretty wasted.
Last time I saw them, Ollie was wearing them on his head,” Rob said
gazing out of the French door windows of his living room, his face
scanning the garden for the missing underwear. “Maybe they’re on
the roof of the shed?”

Oh of course, why didn’t I
think of that? Missing pants always turn up on top of garden sheds.
“Why the hell would they be on the garden shed?” I pulled the
pillow down to cover my modesty before I continued to whine. “And
why did you let me just lie here with my Rock of Gibraltar hanging
out with Karen in the room?”

“
Her name’s
Kirsty,” Rob corrected me. “And I don’t think she noticed.” He
grinned as he took a sip from the cup of tea in his hand. “Besides,
don’t you have
bigger
things to worry about?” he said nodding at my phone. “Like
Stacey for example?”

Shit, Stacey!
I shot straight up ignoring the headache and the noises coming from
the pit of my stomach, swirling around with the contents of copious
amounts of Jägermeister bombs and tequila shots. I reached for my
mobile sitting on the side of the table and hit the on button. The
phone took what seemed like an age to come to life, and right on
queue the screen flashed up:
You have a
voicemail
. I clicked the call
button.

Welcome to Orange answer phone.
You have 47 new messages. First new message received today at
12.47am.

“
I can’t
believe you have done this to me,” Stacey wailed into the phone.
“You’re such a bastard. You left me on my own on New Year’s Eve. I
fucking hate you. Tonight you heart-raped me!”

Heart-rape? Who says things
like that I hear you say?

Ah, allow me
to introduce you to my girlfriend. Stacey could not be content with
accusing me of breaking her heart. Oh no, I had to be labelled a
rapist of the heart. A rapist, for crying out loud! She had
probably already contacted
Crimewatch
and described what I look
like to a police artist. I clicked the end call button and decided
I would need to mentally prepare before I listened to the remaining
46 abusive messages that surely awaited me.

“
What a
night!” Ollie enthused as he walked into the living room and
slumped into the couch, that big dopey grin on his face. He rubbed
his hand through his short curly light brown hair, and pulled a
cigarette out from behind his ear.

Jack followed
him in and sunk down beside Ollie on the couch. They both jostled
for position. “Please someone tell me they remember the beast Ollie
pulled last night,” Jack started up. “I swear to God it was Sloth
from
The Goonies
with long hair!”

Ollie grabbed Jack in a
headlock, the unlit cigarette hanging from his mouth. “You’re just
jealous,” Ollie replied. “Go on, smell my finger!”

Jack struggled as hard as he
could to avoid Ollie’s index finger lingering precariously close to
his face, summoning all the strength he had in his five-foot-four
frame to push himself to the far end of the couch and out of the
reach. “You big, sick freak,” Jack said trying to catch his breath
and rubbing his short, cropped brown hair back into place. Ollie
grinned and lit his cigarette, blowing out smoke rings.

Rob and I met Jack and Ollie on
the first day at high school and the four of us had been
inseparable ever since.

Ollie
Pemberton wasn’t the sharpest tool in the box, but at
six-foot-three and 14 stone of muscle he didn’t need to be. Even at
school the teachers had been nervous to point out Ollie’s obvious
stupidity at times because of his sheer physical presence. He had
known his partner in crime, Jack, since primary school. The
difference in size between the two was comical in itself, with Jack
being nearly a foot shorter, and we often made references to the
90’s film
Twins
that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny
DeVito.

Jack Chatham was definitely the
joker in our pack. We nicknamed him Jackie Cheatham because of the
amount of times he had strayed from his long-suffering girlfriend
Anna. It wasn’t that we condoned Jack cheating on his girlfriend –
we had all attempted to intervene on countless occasions. But in a
man’s world it is commonly agreed that if your friend is still
capable of looking you in the eye to tell you he knows exactly what
he is doing, then that absolves you from all responsibility.
Fact.

Although I’d
probably never say it to Jack, I did feel bad for Anna. It wasn’t
just the playing around behind her back, it was the fact that even
Anna couldn’t escape his wicked sense of humour and schoolboy
banter. Two weeks ago Jack asked Anna what she wanted for
Christmas, and she replied: “If you loved me then you would know
what I want.” Jack bought her
The History
of the World Cup
– a set of 18
encyclopaedia's and bonus DVD's. One for each
tournament.

Oh, and it cost him £250.

But he was just one of those
guys other guys liked to be around. He always had that mischievous
twinkle in his blue eyes. He could come out with the most
outlandish of things, but he never failed to raise a smile.

“
So what’s the
plan?” Ollie asked, scratching his balls and pulling at his
underwear. “These boxers are really uncomfortable. Rob, can I
borrow a pair of yours before we go out?”

“
Hey!” I
yelled. “Where did you get those from?” I looked on in disbelief,
finally realising why I had found the blue and green pattern so
familiar. “They’re mine!”

“
Why are you
not wearing your own pants?” Rob chipped in.

“
I found these
in the kitchen,” Ollie offered as an explanation. “My pants are on
the roof of the garden shed. Do you want them back?” Ollie started
to slip them off.

“
No! I don’t
bloody want them back! I’m not going to wear them now.”

“
Why not?”
Ollie asked as serious as the day is long, a puzzled frown on his
round face.

“
This is
priceless. I’ve got to get a picture of this,” Jack chuckled as he
got his camera phone out. “So you two are sharing pants now? You
twisted bastards. Do you want us to leave the room?”