The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) (25 page)

“
You’re
kidding right?” Rob questioned him, as Ollie shrugged his shoulders
and curled his mouth downwards.

“
Tit Monday is
that glorious Monday morning when you wake up with a bit more of a
spring in your step,” I started. “You feel chirpier than you have
in months but can’t quite put your finger on it.”

“
All morning
tremors in your pants are registering on the Richter scale,” Jack
took over. “They come with pleasant regularity and that is when you
realise it.”

“
Realise
what?” Ollie said, hanging on our every word.

“
That Tit
Monday has finally arrived,” Rob said. “Tit Monday is that special
day in the male calendar when, for the first time that year, the
temperature rises and girls start to show off a bit more
flesh.”

“
Oh, you mean
the end of the hibernation season,” Ollie said. “When fit girls
start appearing from nowhere.”

“
Exactly,” I
said. “Tit Monday!”

It truly is a great bloke
holiday. After months of covering up, women the world over suddenly
dispose of the winter wardrobe of thick woolly sweaters and long
skirts. Breasts of all sizes are out on display. Breasts busting
out of low-cut tops, white shirts bursting at the seams, braless
vest tops. Girls you would not normally look twice at suddenly
appear out of your league. Life is good when Tit Monday
arrives.

“
This is going
to be a great weekend,” Jack said, finishing his bottle of beer.
“Another one?”

*

We bar-hopped for a while,
checking out the women and ogling at anything female with a pulse.
It was all just a prelude to our final destination: Club Tropic.
Rob had it on good authority that Club Tropic was the place to be
if you were looking for girls who put out quicker than the London
Fire Brigade could put out a candle.

“
Take a look
at this lot,” Jack said as we entered the main room of the club.
“Wall to wall fanny, Danny! You can’t go wrong in here
sunshine.”

Jack had such a way with words,
although I did have to agree with the sentiment. Club Tropic was
true to its name; full to the brim of tropical-looking women of all
colours. White girls, black girls, Indian girls, Chinese girls – it
was like looking into a packet of jelly babies or turning up at a
Playboy-themed United Nations meeting. It was heaven in
Brighton.

“
If you can’t
pull in here, Dan, then you really have got no hope,” Rob said as
we headed towards the bar past a group of lush-looking
girls.

“
No pressure,
then,” I said.

“
These birds
are making me bad,” Jack said. “I’ve got to get involved soon or
I’m going to do some real damage to myself.”

“
Which hand
will you be using to do that?” Ollie said, causing Rob and I to
laugh.

“
Probably your
sister’s hand,” Jack fired back with a smile and flipping Ollie the
finger.

We grabbed our drinks and took
a stroll around the club. The hunt was on. We were like a pack of
wild dogs on the prowl sniffing out our prey. Here I was, the
gunner, with three of my most trusted wingmen. I was a man on a
mission to pull and get laid, in a club where it was deemed bad
manners not to end the night having sex with a complete
stranger.

So to find my
pack standing around an hour later not really saying a great deal
to each other came as a huge blow. Our stealth mode had stagnated
somewhat. We had fallen into that classic nightclub trap of being
rendered immobilised by hesitation, beers tightly clamped to our
chests. We were just cruising on the outskirts of the dance floor,
on hawker’s row, staring at the female bodies gyrating to the DJ’s
beat. Even Rob, our great leader and very own
Don Juan,
looked out of
ideas.

“
What a
blow-out this night has been,” Ollie said.

“
You said it,
Lurch,” Jack agreed.

“
Come on,
guys, the night is young,” I almost pleaded looking at my watch and
realising it was anything but. I was just about to concede defeat
when our leader decided to take control.

“
Dan is
right,” Rob said. “We have come all this way to help him out and we
are not going down without a fight.”

That was the spirit. Just like
that we were a pack united again for one common cause. I knew I
could rely on these guys. They were the type of friends who would
lay their life on the line for you; who would stand side-by-side
with you in battle.

“
Go and talk
to that girl,” Rob instructed me bluntly, pointing at a cute blonde
standing on the side of the dance floor.

“
What?” I
gasped. What happened to going into battle side-by-side?

“
Go and talk
to her,” Rob repeated. “Tell her you are a dolphin trainer or
something. Girls like that shit.”

“
Yeah, and
hurry up about it Slomeo,” Jack said. “It’s your round
next.”

I couldn’t believe it. My pack
had abandoned me. I turned to face the blonde and sighed before
making my way across to her.

“
Dan?” Ollie
called out to me.

I turned back to face Ollie and
there was something in his voice that told me that maybe I had been
wrong. I looked into his eyes and felt a warmth inside me.
Something profound was about to happen. I can’t explain how I knew
it; sometimes with your closest friends they don’t have to say
anything at all. But I knew Ollie was about to speak what was on
everyone’s mind.

“
Find out if
she has got a fat mate for me?”

Or maybe he just wanted to find
out if she had a fat mate. I didn’t say a word. Jack just nodded in
agreement while Rob pointed his beer bottle in the blonde’s
direction. The fear of rejection was already heavy on my mind. I
glanced back at my friends, who were waving me on. I turned back to
the girl and decided to take the plunge.

“
Excuse me?” I
said, repeatedly tapping her on the shoulder with my finger, like
an annoying child trying to get attention.

“
Yes?” the
blonde responded, looking a touch aggrieved at the tapping. I took
another deep breath, full in the knowledge that the next words out
of my mouth would either make or break this situation. I needed a
sentence that would lyrically flow and grab her
attention.

“
Yes?” she
asked again. Quick Dan, say something.

“
Er, do you
know if they sell dry-roasted peanuts at the bar?” I panicked. Her
impatience had rushed me into uttering the single most ridiculous
pick-up line in the history of pick-up lines.

“
I have no
idea,” the blonde replied, slightly bemused.

“
Okay,
thanks,” and with that I turned tail and ran back to my
friends.

“
Well?” Rob
asked as I returned.

“
She isn’t
sure what bar snacks they sell,” I said. My friends had the same
bemused look as the blonde had done just moments before. “Forget
it. Can we just get out of here?”

It was finally time to concede
defeat. I’d had enough. If I had to spend the rest of my life a
sexless cretin then so be it. It had to be better than living a
life of disappointment. Maybe I could go off and live in a convent,
away from temptation. Nah, I’d probably try it on with the
nuns.

“
Here you go,”
I felt a tap on my shoulder. “They
do
sell dry-roasted,” the blonde
said handing me a pack of peanuts.

“
She’s holding
your nuts,” Jack whispered into my ear.

“
Thanks,” I
said, pushing Jack away. “I don’t know what to say.”

“
How about you
return the favour by buying me a drink?” she said.

“
Sure,” and I
walked away with her to the bar.

“
So, that was
a pretty good chat-up line,” she said with a grin. “I mean the
question about the peanuts. That was ingenious.”

“
You think?” I
asked smiling. “It was either that or dolphin trainer.”

“
Good choice.
My name is Jules by the way.”

“
Nice to meet
you, Jules,” I said shaking her hand. “I’m Dan.”

“
I’m sure you
can do better than that,” Jules said, signalling to the handshake
and leaned in to kiss me.

Club
Tropic
really
was
the type of club you couldn’t fail to pull in. Here I was, a bottle
of beer in one hand, a packet of dry-roasted in the other, and
snogging the face off a blonde in a mini-skirt I’d met just five
minutes earlier. Life didn’t get any better than this.

The next hour
flew by. Jules told me she was in town visiting her sister who was
going to university in Brighton. Then we snogged a bit more. I told
her about my job at Maxwell Media. Followed by some more snogging.
I managed to resist her pleas to hit the dance floor by, well,
snogging instead. I only hoped that she wouldn’t notice the tent I
was pitching in my pants. After five months out of action you could
hardly blame the little fella for trying to poke his head out and
stretch a little. And
surely
this time my luck was in.

“
Jules!” I
felt the shake and looked up to see a girl trying to get Jules’s
attention. “We have to go, Tina is really drunk. I need to get her
home.”

“
Well, take
her home then,” Jules said. “By the way, Dan, this is my sister
Vicki.”

Vicki hardly acknowledged me.
“There is no way I’m leaving you here. I know what you are like.
You’ll end up going home with some stranger, like him,” she said
waving her hand in my direction.

“
I’ll make
sure she gets home safely,” I said playing the gentleman, trying
not to come across too desperate.

“
I’m sure you
will,” Vicki replied, looking none too convinced as she wrinkled
her eyes at me. “I can already see you’re on the verge of bursting
out of your trousers.”

Damn it, I’d been caught
out.

“
I’m not
leaving you here,” Vicki said uncompromisingly.

“
I’m sorry
darling,” Jules said turning to me. “I’d better go.”

“
But we
haven’t even opened my packet of nuts yet,” I said. And I wasn’t
talking about the dry-roasted variety either.

“
I’m sorry,”
Jules giggled. “Take my number and drop me a line sometime and
we’ll hang out.”

“
How about
tomorrow,” I blurted out a little too hastily.

“
Sure,” Jules
said. In my eyes that was as good as a binding contract.

Jules typed her number into my
phone, while I tried my best not to turn my nose up at her sister
who was clearly ruining my plans. “I’ll drop call you so you have
my number,” I anxiously told her. “And then we can meet tomorrow,”
I just couldn’t stop babbling.

Her sister dragged her away,
which probably did me a favour as I was on the verge of begging her
to meet me.

I took a deep
breath and told myself to relax. I could hold out for another 24
hours. I knew I would have to put up with Jack chipping away at me
about breaking the 10 Commandments
(Rule
2: It's Not Groundhog Day)
but I didn't
really care.

I sat there for a while,
contemplating how close I was to finally ending the drought, and
allowing the excitement inside my trousers to slowly disappear in
the process. I got up and decided to go and find the boys, but I
didn’t have to look far as I spotted them hurriedly walking in my
direction.

“
We’ve got to
go,” Jack said, his eyes darting all over the place.

“
What’s
wrong?” I asked.

“
Remember that
bloke in the blue Fiesta?” Jack said. “The one who took exception
to me calling him a goon so the girls he was with could get round
to our hotel?”

“
Yeah, what
about him?”

“
He’s in
here,” Ollie said.

“
So?”

“
With about 20
of his mates,” Rob said raising his eyebrows.

“
Okay, let’s
go,” I replied downing my bottle of beer and heading for the
nearest exit.

Chapter 17:
Road Trip – Saturday Night

Saturday, May 16, 2009 -
1.33pm

Drought Clock: 134 days, 23
hours, 4 minutes

“
Maybe you
were a dare,” Jack said, shoving four chips into his mouth as we
walked along Brighton Pier.

“
What are you
talking about?” I asked, staring at my phone.

“
Her mates
dared her to pull you.”

“
You mean like
when we play pull-a-pig?” Ollie asked.

“
Yes!” Jack
said laughing. “Dan, you were the pig! Oink oink.”

“
Piss off,” I
muttered and put my phone back into my pocket. It was already
lunchtime and Jules had not replied to any of my texts.

“
How many
times have you texted her?” Rob asked.

“
Once or
twice,” I lied. It was actually seven, including four I sent
immediately after leaving the club last night:

1.47am: Hi Jules, it’s Dan. I
hope you got home safely x