The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) (7 page)

“
I will need
that report emailed to me first thing in the morning so I can put
it together for Mr Mussel with the other sales plans for his board
meeting.”

“
Oh,” I
replied, the disappointment clear in my tone. I tried to sound more
upbeat so I didn’t come across like some sort of loser. “Yeah,
sure. I’ll have this bad boy done in a jiffy.” I wasn’t too sure if
I should be more embarrassed by the fact I had referred to a sales
plan as a
bad boy
or that I had used the word
jiffy.
Either way, Shaila simply
nodded, pulled the strap of her handbag over her shoulder, turned
on her heels and headed toward the exit.

“
Tough luck,
Hilles,” Crowford said slapping me across the back of my head as he
followed in hot pursuit of Shaila out of the office. I stared back
at my computer screen.

Completing the sales plan
seemed to take an eternity. Even the cleaner and the buzzing of his
vacuum were long gone by the time I finally finished at 7.47pm. I
emailed the report to Shaila, sat back in my seat and stretched. I
couldn’t help but smile to myself as I thought about how 2009 had
started. So far I had exposed myself to a stranger, broken up with
my girlfriend of three years, escaped death by baseball bat, been
threatened with the sack, accepted Don as my new name, and ran away
from a girl. Twice.

Not exactly the perfect start
to the new year. At least I was safe in the knowledge that things
couldn’t get any worse. Right?

Chapter 5:
Black Sabbath

Sunday, January 25, 2009 -
9.02am

Drought Clock: 23 days, 21
hours, 40 minutes

The break-up of a long-term
relationship is never easy. It was certainly one of the hardest
things I’d ever done. You miss so many things. Intimacy,
companionship, friendship. You miss having someone to share your
day with; your dreams and hopes.

Me? I missed the bloody sex. No
one warns you before a break-up how much you take for granted
having regular sex on tap when you have a girlfriend. You start
looking back and cursing yourself for how blasé you were when you
had the opportunity to pretty much shag whenever you wanted.

All those missed opportunities.
With Stacey I had once gone a whole month without having sex with
her and thought nothing of it. A whole fucking month! What was I
thinking? Three years equated to 1,095 days. I calculated that if
during that period we had had sex an average of twice a week, we
would have only had sex 312 times. That means I missed out on 783
day’s worth of shagging!

Now, three weeks into being all
on my lonesome I was already having withdrawals, and that had only
been 23 days. How the hell had I managed to dismiss 783 days so
easily?

The mornings
were the toughest. Every day I would wake up and there he was, tall
and proud. I felt guilty for not giving him any attention. After
all, it wasn’t all his
fault. We had been
in this together. But for the past three weeks I had resisted any
contact with the one-eyed snake; almost as if I was punishing
myself for all those wasted opportunities when I was with
Stacey.

But this Sunday morning was
different. I’d woken up with a boner so hard it was verging on
being painful. I’d decided that little Dan had been punished
enough, and he had a long overdue date with Palmala Handerson.

The art of
mental masturbation is a skill that does not get the press it
deserves. With no visual or audio aid to assist, a true
pro-stroker
will take a
dip into the resource pool that is the wank bank; in this
particular case the hot red-head who sat opposite me on the bus on
Thursday evening.

I got myself comfortable on the
bed, kicked off the covers, and prepared mass murder on millions of
tiny defenceless sperm. Anyone who tells you that spit-shining the
water pump is a dirty act should consider this: if Hitler had been
into masturbation instead of murder, all the millions of deaths
caused by his acts would have not upset the world.

I started off slow, but soon
lost interest in making the act last. After all, this was not a
spectator sport. Just as I felt myself coming to a climax, an
unexpected noise put me off my rhythm. I glanced across the room
and felt the colour drain from my face just as quickly as the blood
started draining from little Dan.

“
Rosalie!” I
was horrified to see the cleaner tip-toeing around the bedroom, a
feather duster in one hand. “I clean round you, no worry,” she said
in her thick South American accent, and continued to dust the
shelves. I desperately tried pulling for the covers but it was too
late and I ejaculated across the bed; an eruption of three weeks’
worth of frustration.

“
Naughty boy,”
Rosalie giggled. “I clean, I clean.”

“
No!” I
shrieked in horror. “Please leave it Rosalie. I’ll take care of
it.”

She reached for the bed cover
and before I knew it I was involved in a tug-of-war for the
sperm-soaked sheets. “I clean, I clean,” she kept saying over and
over again in broken English, a big smile on her olive-skinned
face.

Rosalie eventually lost her
grip, but the momentum of me yanking on the duvet sent me flying
backwards; my legs flailing skywards and the cover landing on top
of me, covering me in my very own love juice.

“
Señor Hilles,
so sorry, so sorry!” Rosalie clasped her hand over her mouth. “I
clean?”

“
No Rosalie,”
I managed to answer quite calmly. “I’ll finish off here. You can
start in the kitchen if you like?”

“
Si señor.
Gracias.” Rosalie disappeared quickly out of the room, still
dusting as she left.

I’m not too sure how long I sat
there for. Maybe hours. Maybe days. Or maybe just five minutes. I
had completely forgotten that I had hired Rosalie just before
Christmas to come in once a month to clean the flat. Something told
me I wouldn’t forget again in the future.

I quickly showered and got
dressed. Rosalie was just finishing off in the living room when I
finally got up the courage to come out and face her. She was in her
mid-40s and I had managed to work out that she was from
Venezuela.

“
Hi Rosalie,”
I sheepishly greeted her.

“
Ah, señor
Hilles. Naughty boy, naughty boy,” she wiggled her finger at
me.

“
Yes, naughty
boy,” I said rubbing my hand through my hair and trying to avoid
eye contact. I could feel myself going bright red again. “I’m
really sorry about that. It won’t happen again, I
promise.”

“
It happens
again?” She paused to think, one finger against the corner of her
mouth. “No problem, no problem. I clean round you,” she had
obviously completely misunderstood what I was saying.

“
No, it
won’t
happen again.
That…” I trailed off pointing towards my bedroom, “…won’t happen
again,” I mirrored her accent, like that would make a difference in
her understanding English, and slowed the pace of my words.
“That... won't... happen... in... there... again.” I then pointed
towards the bedroom. And then in my infinite wisdom towards my
groin.

She seemed to pause in thought
before shrugging her shoulders. “You want me in bedroom? Ok.” And
she started to shuffle in the direction of the bedroom.

“
No, no!” I
said leaping in front of her to block her passage towards my room.
“I’m saying it
won’t
happen again. Ever.” I waved my hands in front of me. “Okay,
comprende?”

“
Si,
comprende,” she nodded.

I pulled my wallet from my back
pocket and handed her the money for cleaning the house, praying
that she knew this was her wages and not some sort of indecent
proposal or something sleazy.

“
Gracias. Bye
bye.” She took the money and made her way out.

“
Adiós,” I
said, falling backwards onto the sofa, pulling a cushion across my
face.

*

I barely moved from the sofa
all day, only getting up for toilet breaks and food. To say I was
bored was an understatement. I’d been stuck in the flat all week.
It was a week before the January pay day. Everyone was skint; a
common occurrence at this time of the year. The early pay day in
December coupled with the money spent at Christmas pretty much
meant January was a write-off.

I’d been renting the small
one-bedroom flat in Balham for about ten months. It cost me
slightly more than I would have liked, but it was better than
living back with my folks. Don’t get me wrong – I love my parents.
I just don’t love living with them. Something happens after you
have lived away at university for three years. You return home from
uni with your worldly belongings packed in boxes, including your
independence. That box remains unpacked when you move back in with
your folks, and stays that way until you make the plunge to move
out.

My mobile phone suddenly
vibrated into life, and it was a welcome distraction to the dross
that was on television.

“
Hello,” I
answered.

“
Hello, love.”
It was my mum.

I sat bolt upright, preparing
myself for the Spanish Inquisition. I hadn’t spoken to my mum since
I’d broken up with Stacey. I wasn’t exactly avoiding her; I just
knew she’d be disappointed. I was an only child, which meant my mum
had all her hopes pinned on me making her a grandmother at some
point. When I was five-years old I married my next-door neighbour
Nicola, which was fine; a lot of kids pretend to marry. But not all
kids have their mum proudly preside over the ceremony.

We got through the usual
chit-chat: work was okay, dad had been doing the garden, the dog
had to go and see the vet. And then, like a POW officer integrating
a captured soldier, she got to the point.

“
So have you
got any news to tell me? You don’t sound very cheerful. Is
everything okay with you and Stacey?”

God, this woman was good. I
should have known that I would not be able to avoid the subject
forever. My mother had a sixth sense when it came to these sorts of
things.

“
Yeah, about
Stacey,” I started, trying to think of the best way to deliver the
news. “We kind of broke up.”

“
What do you
mean you
kind
of
broke up?”

“
Things had
been pretty strained for a while and we just decided that it would
be for the best if we went our separate ways.” I intentionally left
out the actual specifics of the break-up.

“
But why?” she
asked, her tone demanding more information than I really wanted to
give. “I thought things were going well between you.”

I knew she wasn’t going to let
up, so I told her about the arguments, and how Stacey had become
unreasonable. I opened up to my mother and explained how we just
wanted different things in life. I knew she would understand.

“
Is there
someone else?” she asked me sternly.

“
No, nothing
like that. It’s just one of those things.” For a moment I thought
about lying and telling her that Stacey had cheated on me. It would
have immediately got her on my side, and the questions would have
taken a much-needed new direction. In the end I decided to see it
through like a man. Albeit a man who for three weeks had been
afraid to tell his mother the truth.

“
You never
tell me anything anymore. I have to force it out of you. I bet if I
hadn’t called you tonight, you would not have told me anytime
soon.”

“
Of course I
would have called you. I was going to call you in a day or two,” I
lied. There was more chance of me calling in a year or
two.

“
Are you
okay?” Her tone softened.

“
Yeah, I’ll be
okay. As I said, it’s just one of those things.”

“
Okay. You
will have to come over soon. We haven’t seen you since
Christmas.”

“
Sounds good.
I’ll call and we’ll sort something out.”

“
Good. And if
you need to talk...” she purposely trailed off.

“
I’ll give you
call.”

We said our goodbyes and I hung
up, letting out a huge sigh of relief that I had finally got that
out of the way. The call had sapped the energy out of me and I
simply lost what little motivation I had left to get up from the
sofa. The hours drifted away as I watched re-runs of old 80’s
sitcoms and music videos, before the dozens upon dozens of channels
all morphed into one. Before I knew it, the day had turned into
night.

Sunday night is my least
favourite part of the weekend. It means you are edging closer and
closer to Monday morning as every minute passes. I sprawled across
the sofa flicking through channels aimlessly. A discarded pizza box
sat on top of the coffee table.

I managed to
prise myself up and looked at the clock. It was 10.28pm. I had
wasted the day away. I was sick and tired of sitting indoors. I
picked my phone back up and typed in a text:
Anyone up for beers next Saturday?

A couple of
minutes passed before the first reply came back:
Ollie + beer = yes.
Rob
was only 10 minutes behind with his response:
Sounds good buddy, it has been too long.

The end credits to the film I
had been watching on Channel 4 appeared on screen when my phone
beeped for a third time. I scooped it up and almost dropped it when
I saw the name: Stacey.