The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) (9 page)

God, I really missed
riding.

Ollie and Jack were already
waiting outside when we got to Clapham Common. Jack was on his
mobile phone. “I told you I was out Saturday night, darling,” he
said down the phone in his over exaggerated cockney accent. “It’s
going to be a messy one – I’ve brought the big guns out tonight.”
Jack spotted us and winked in our direction.

“
Who is he on
the phone to,” I asked Ollie.

“
Anna,” Ollie
responded.

“
No idea what
time I’ll be back, sweetheart.” Jack looked back over to us and
used his hand to simulate a mouth chatting by bringing his fingers
and thumb together repeatedly. “Okay, don’t wait up.”

He clicked the phone off.
“Hello boys, ready for some carnage tonight?” Jack shook our hands
and embraced us.

We headed into Murphy’s Bar
opposite the station, and Rob got the first round in. He left two
pound coins in the silver tip tray left behind by the barmaid. She
smiled and thanked him as she took the tray away.

“
Why the hell
did you do that?” Jack questioned.

“
Because when
the bar gets busier later on, I won’t have any problems getting
served,” Rob offered as an explanation. “That two pounds just
bought me quick and efficient service for the rest of the night,”
he winked at the barmaid who smiled back. “And probably a blowsie
from her at the end of the night.”

“
It just
bought you one less beer is what it bought you,” Jack replied,
rolling his eyes.

We took our place at a table
towards the back of the bar. It was our usual spot; just far away
enough from the speakers for us to still hear each other over the
loud dance music.

“
So what
happened to Kirsty from New Year?” I asked Rob.

“
She was nice
enough Danny, but nice isn’t always what you want, if you know what
I mean?” Rob said.

“
She wouldn’t
let you slap her on the face with your cock huh?” was Jack’s
delightful input to the conversation, and improvised the movement
just to drive his point home.

“
I love dirty
women,” Ollie said.

“
What the hell
are you talking about? You only do the missionary position,” Jack
said before mimicking Ollie’s voice: “If missionary was good enough
for my old man, and his father before him, then it’s good enough
for me.”

Rob and I laughed as Ollie
tried to argue back. “Shut up, I do other positions,” he said.

“
Like what?”
Jack taunted him.

Ollie took a long pause and a
sip of his pint, presumably to try and recall his extensive
knowledge of the karma sutra before replying.

“
Up the
arse.”

“
Nice,” I
commented, raising my eyebrows.

“
Yeah, I get
her in the position to do her doggy style, and then I just slip it
in,” Ollie said explaining the art to his technique.

“
Doesn’t the
girl notice?” Rob asked him.

“
Yeah, but I
pretend I haven’t realised and tell her I’ll be finished in a
minute anyway.”

“
Touché,” Jack
raised his beer to Ollie.

“
And who said
romance was dead?” Rob said shaking his head. “Maybe I’ll have to
try that one myself sometime.” We all laughed.

Suddenly all of our eyes locked
on a stunning blonde who entered the bar with a group of friends.
She was wearing knee-high fuck-me-boots and a snake-print dress.
They took up a position directly opposite us at the bar.

“
That bird is
absolute,” Jack said, his eyes bulging out of his head, and the
accustomed one finger index salute he made when paying a girl the
compliment of calling her
absolute.

“
Go and talk
to her Dan,” Rob said.

“
Are you nuts?
I’m not talking to her.” What the hell was he trying to do to me?
He had already witnessed the car crash at Balham tube
station.

“
Yeah, go and
talk to her Dan,” Jack egged me on.

“
Why don’t you
go and talk to her?” I fired back.

“
I would, but
I’m just waiting for the right moment,” Jack said rubbing his hands
together.

“
Ladies,
ladies. I’ll go and talk to her,” and Rob got up and made his way
over. We all watched the master in silence.

“
Excuse me, I
don’t mean to interrupt,” Rob started, confidence oozing from his
body language. “I know this might sound really schoolboy, but...
I’m so embarrassed, I can’t believe I’m doing this.”

“
Don’t be
embarrassed, what is it?” she responded, already seemingly hanging
on his every word.

He lowered his head, and rubbed
his brow, but constantly sporting that big white smile. “Do you see
my friend over there?” He pointed in my direction.

She looked straight at me.
“What the hell is he doing?” I asked the others. Ollie and Jack
shrugged their shoulders as they kept their eyes firmly locked on
the blonde who was now playing with her hair.

“
He wants to
know...” he paused for just the right effect. “He wants to
know...”

Please don’t
do this to me I thought, we’re not back in the playground
playing
my mate fancies
you
.

“
He wants to
know... if you fancy me?”

What?! I want
to know if she fancies
him
?!

“
Why doesn’t
he ask me himself?” she teased, keeping her eyes permanently locked
on Rob. I doubt she even knew what I looked like. Or
cared.

“
He’s shy,”
Rob responded.

“
Sure,” she
smiled. “You’re not
too
bad,” and she playfully rubbed her hand across
his face.

And just like that Rob proved
his point. He spent the next 10 minutes flirting outrageously with
her while Jack kept cursing him for not bringing her over with her
friends. “What is he doing?” Jack asked us. “I’ve got the right
horn for that dark haired bird. She keeps giving me the eye.”

“
I think she
just has a nervous twitch,” I taunted him.

“
I don’t care
which one I have. I’m up for anything,” Ollie confessed. “Do you
want the fat one Dan?”

“
Funnily
enough Ollie, I don’t,” I said.

“
That is fine
with me; I’ll take her. Fat birds tend to put a bit more effort in
as they don't know where the next shag is coming from.”

“
This is
ridiculous,” Jack declared. “I’m not waiting any longer. Oi, Rob!”
Jack perched his small frame up on to the seat. “Bring the birds
over here – we’ve got plenty of room.”

Faced with such a charming
invitation, how could they resist? Rob led the girls over and made
the introductions. The blonde who Rob had been talking to was
Katie. Jack immediately made a beeline for dark-haired Jessica,
while non-fussy Ollie started up a conversation with fat Kathy.

Friend number four slid into
the remaining seat next to me, but I certainly wasn’t disappointed
with what I had been left with. She was petite, with full lips and
auburn coloured hair in bob cut. She had pretty little freckles on
her nose.

“
Hi, I’m
Grace,” she extended her hand, “I guess you’re stuck with
me.”

“
I guess so,”
I stuttered as I shook her hand. “I mean, I’m pleased I’m stuck
with you. Not that I feel that I’m stuck with you. I probably would
have chosen you.”

Get a grip I told myself.

“
You really
know how to make a girl feel special,” she smiled and took a sip of
her bright coloured cocktail.

Say something I thought.
Everyone else had engaged in some sort of conversation. Jack was
overly animated and talking with his hands, while Ollie had no
shame in basically talking to Kathy’s chest. I started to feel the
same type of anxiety I had felt on the tube platform earlier. What
was wrong with me?

“
What is that
you are drinking?” I eventually blurted out.

“
Sex on the
Beach. Wanna try?” She offered me the straw.

I took a sip. “Mmm, not as
sandy as last time.”

“
Sorry?”

“
Not as sandy
as last time I had sex on the beach,” I cringed the moment the last
syllable of the sentence dribbled out of my mouth.

“
Oh, right.”
She sort of let out a weak laugh, and then abruptly turned away and
started looking around the bar; a sure-fire sign I had managed to
put her off me in record time. This was not going well. Rob must
have sensed my desperation. He gave me the thumbs up as a way of
asking if I was okay, but I just shook my head. I was really
annoyed how easily I’d given up. Stacey was right, I wasn’t a real
man – I was pathetic; doomed to walk the rest of the earth a
singleton.

“
Hey Dan,
what’s the name of the place where we went snowboarding last year?”
Rob suddenly asked out of the blue.

I was taken slightly aback but
managed to answer, “Lake Tahoe.”

“
Oh my god,
you snowboard?” Grace was genuinely interested. “That is
so
cool.”

Rob simply smiled and winked at
me before he slipped back into his conversation with Katie with
great ease. It was simple things like this that showed that thin
line between a friend and a best friend.

“
Yeah, well at
least I try,” I turned back to Grace who was now leaning towards
me, her chin resting on her hand. “I fall down a lot,” I said as
she giggled.

And just like that I was back
on track. It felt like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders.
We talked for ages and I started to feel comfortable again. It
turned out to be a great night, the first one I’d really had this
year.

Rob was as smooth as ever, and
had Katie eating out of the palm of his hand without even breaking
sweat. Jack was his usual loud self, making sure he was centre of
attention and he continuously had us laughing at his jokes. Ollie
had drunk himself into a stupor, and nestled his head across
Kathy’s ample breasts, who didn’t seem to mind too much to be
fair.

At the sound of the last orders
bell we walked the girls to the nearest mini cab station. We paired
off again as we waited for their taxi to arrive. Katie had Rob’s
leather jacket draped over her shoulders and he wrapped his arms
around her to shield her from the cold. Jack and Jessica locked
lips, while Kathy pinned Ollie up against the wall and was
practically eating the poor boy in what was clearly the most
disgraceful public display of affection of the evening. Maybe fat
girls were more grateful I thought to myself.

“
It’s so
cold,” Grace said, shivering.

“
Where are my
manners?” I took my jacket off and placed it over her shoulders. I
hesitated to put my arm around her. Instead I almost ended up
leaning my arm against her, before she made the move to snuggle
herself against me.

“
I had fun
tonight,” she said looking into my eyes.

“
Me too,” I
hesitated again. Just ask her out – stop being such a pussy.
“Perhaps we could go for a drink sometime,” I finally summoned the
courage to ask.

“
Yeah, I’d
like that.”

The taxi pulled up and the
girls got inside. As we waved them off Rob turned to me. “So, are
you going to see Grace again?”

“
Yeah, we said
we’d meet up for a drink.”

“
You got her
number then?”

Damn it.

Chapter 7:
First Date

Saturday, February 7, 2009 -
7.40pm

Drought Clock: 36 days, 7
hours, 18 minutes

Rob came to the rescue again.
Embarrassingly I got him to text Katie asking for Grace’s number.
It probably cost me some serious points in the cool stakes, but I
hoped the banter we had exchanged over texts throughout that week
had repaired the damage. Plus we’d arranged to meet up the
following Saturday so I’d have another crack at redeeming myself.
Perhaps we would even laugh about the whole phone incident in bed
after sex. Or at least that is the scenario I was wishing for.

But as the week wore on, the
nerves had started to get the better of me. The build-up to the
date had put me on edge. I started to get the same feeling as the
night I lost my virginity.

I was 17 when
I finally popped my cork. It was the summer of 2002 and me and the
boys had travelled to Magaluf for our first ever lads’ holiday. We
picked the destination mainly because Ollie’s older brother Brian
had been there two years previously and often referred to it
as
Shagaluf
. That
was enough to sell it to Rob, Jack, Ollie, and me.

Six nights into a two-week
break I met Rebecca. She was 18, tanned, with long golden brown
hair. She could have just been 18 and female and that would have
been enough.

She wasn’t perfect by any
stretch of the imagination. For example, she had an annoying habit
of widening her eyes whenever she finished a sentence, making her
look a bit like a frog. But two hours’ worth of alcohol later,
including six shots of something blue that tasted like aniseed, she
took me by the hand and ordered me to take her back to my
apartment.

This is when I
made schoolboy error number one. I boasted to my friends that I was
about to get
some
. I was going to “
get my nuts in
deep”
is how I remember romantically
describing it. I grabbed the wide-eyed Rebecca by her hand and
marched her out of the bar like a man possessed.