The List (9 page)

7 p.m
. I slept all day. This is amazing. I'm like that Van Winkle dude. I'm going to make some tea and watch a film.

12.45 a.m
. I thought watching
Paranormal Activity
would be a great idea. I was wrong. I'm now convinced that something is going to drag me out of bed by my foot. It could totally happen. THAT SHIT IS REAL. Ugh, this is why I shouldn't live alone.

Tuesday February 22nd

I called in sick again today. I do feck all anyway – it's just a matter of time before I'm found out and sacked, so the company won't suffer if I'm not there clock-watching.

I spent the morning watching
Dexter
and found myself thinking that if he was a real person I'd happily overlook the fact he's a serial killer if it meant I got to share a bed with Mr ‘check out my blood samples' Morgan. In fact, scrap that, I think I actually want to be Dexter. While lying in bed was nice, I began to wonder how I could use my day more productively than fantasizing about a fictional character or murdering ‘Cosmic Love' with my awful, AWFUL singing. The whole squirting challenge is starting to feel more like work than play. I even tried pretending I didn't care and then attacking myself with my vibrator to see if a surprise ninja move worked. It didn't. So I gave up and emailed Lucy – I knew she'd be bored stiff without me.

Friday February 25th

Stuart's phone girlfriend came to meet him after work today. She's called Laura. He seems smitten. She looks like Paris Hilton and therefore the complete opposite of me: blonde, skinny, small boobs and an obvious passion for designer clothes and hair extensions. If that's the kind of girl he goes for, I can rule out ever getting him into bed. ‘Hey, Stuart, how about me then? I'm so pale my veins look like a road map and I can guarantee my bottom will have a least two spots
on it. Possibly more – my underwear is nylon.' What a catch.

I saw Pam at half five tonight. We talked about Valentine's Day and how although I hated the concept, I was still pretty miffed no one fancied me enough to send a card. I told her how I'd seen Alex outside his office and how I obviously still wasn't comfortable looking at his stupid handsome face and just generally rehashed a million issues we'd already been over.

‘This seems to have been a tough month for you, emotionally. Do you think you might still be focusing too much on the past? I suggest finding something new to concentrate on. A new interest? Some kind of challenge, perhaps?'

‘Oh, I'm way ahead of you there,' I replied.

Saturday February 26th

Since starting my list, I've been thinking about sex a lot, more than I ever have before. What I've noticed is the range of people that pop into my head when I'm feeling frisky. When I was younger, it used to be the pretty boys with great bodies and winning smiles, someone my mother would approve of, husband material. More recently it's been guys who perhaps aren't as pretty, or as toned, or even as respectable, who are getting it mentally. Tall men. Especially tall men. Vince Vaughn, Zachary Levi, Jason Segel, Eric Bana, you know, men who would never look twice at me but could easily see over the top of my head to spot the hot girl on the other side of the room. If I spot a muso with eyeliner or black nail varnish, their image gets locked away, along with the handsome geeky guy in glasses who works in
marketing and the overweight guy with the big hands who regularly serves me in Tesco. I've never been able to visualize someone else while I'm actually shagging, only when I'm masturbating. It's always seemed dishonest and well, kind of tricky. I think men are more capable of that than women, as Neanderthal Brian from work once pointed out:

‘If you're pissed and horny, it doesn't really matter. Doggy style and lights off solves the problem of having to look an ugly girl in the face.'

Ugh. Cannot believe I considered sleeping with him.

Sunday February 27th

Annoyingly I haven't yet been able to fully complete my masturbation challenge. Ejaculation is still eluding me, and so I've moved on to the next one: group sex, or, more specifically, a threesome. It might be some time away though, as Oliver has decided to go skiing with his mates for a week. The cheek of it! Here I am waiting for some three-way action and he'd rather get pissed and fall off a mountain somewhere.

Lucy has asked me to go and see her boyfriend's new band on Saturday. ‘It'll be a laugh – there'll be cheap booze and they're actually really good.'

Translated this means: ‘I have to go or he'll think I don't care, and I'll be bored shitless if you don't come along.'

I've never been crazy about seeing unsigned bands; the gigs tend to be full of noisy boys and their noisy mates who've been forced to buy a ticket. Of course I agreed to go; I'm not doing anything else and I really need to make
up for my atrociously quiet past weekend. Lucy, of course, was thrilled.

‘Hurrah! He has some nice friends, you know. And isn't sex with a younger man on your list?'

‘No offence, but your boyfriend is twenty-one. What the hell would I do with a twenty-one-year-old?'

‘Whatever you like.' She grinned.

‘I was thinking more twenty-eight or twenty-nine.'

‘Oh for God's sake, try to be more adventurous, woman!'

The much younger men I slept with when I was also much younger were useless. Lots of fumbling, rubbing three inches above where they should, and assuming that almost fisting me would be a turn-on. I'm sure a lot of younger men are wonderful in bed, but I don't think I have the patience to find out. I'm trying to take my sex life to the next level, not regress back to when I was seventeen. But maybe she's right. I said MAYBE.

Monday February 28th

‘You're wrong about much younger men,' Lucy announced in work this morning.

‘And how do you know I'm wrong?'

‘Because I'm right … In any case, you're meeting one of Sam's band mates, Richard, tonight. It's all been arranged. He's seen your picture and thinks you're a fox. Be at the The Box for 8 p.m.,' she said.

‘What are you, my pimp? If he thinks I'm a fox then he's obviously mental. Why are you setting me up with someone who's clearly unstable?'

‘He's very attractive. Looks like that bloke off that film you liked.'

‘Jesus, Lucy, that narrows it down. Who? Jason Bateman? Peter Sellers? Simon Pegg?'

‘No. Thingy. Vince Vaughn.'

I doubt that. I suspect Lucy is trying to lure me there under false pretences, fully aware of my knee-trembling lust for Vince Vaughn. It's a cheap trick.

Tuesday March 1st

I was totally unconvinced but nevertheless curious about Lucy's ‘meet' and so, wearing my best underwear (under my clothes obviously), I made my way to the pub, hoping there was enough Jack Daniels on the premises to make everyone more attractive, including me. But I should learn to trust Lucy more. I spotted her at the back of the pub, sitting with her boyfriend and Richard, who had his back to me. When he turned round he looked exactly like a younger, messier, but just as tall version of Vince Vaughn. I went red and gave Lucy a huge ‘I owe you big time' smile.

The evening went well, but even though I could have straddled him right there and then purely for looking so hot, my initial fears were confirmed when I realized we had very little in common. He drank pints of cider like they were soft drinks, showed me three YouTube videos of Batman parodies and found it hysterical that I was born in the Seventies.

‘Did you wear flares and love Abba?'

‘I was two.'

‘But the Seventies, man, that's so funny. Were you a hippy or a disco chick?'

‘I WAS TWO! When were you born?'

‘1990.'

I was twelve when he was born. TWELVE. ‘Well, that's like me asking if you were a New Kids on the Block fan.'

‘Who?'

‘Forget it.'

I like my men to challenge me, and the only thing he would have challenged me to was a game of tennis on his flatmate's Wii. Fortunately the more drunk I got the more endearing he became, and I still had my mind firmly on completing the challenge of sleeping with a younger man. So when he uttered the words ‘You're totally hot for your age' it was only a short time before we ended up back at the flat he shared with his mate John: a nice place but with a surprising number of scatter cushions for two straight blokes.

Anyway, we started messing around. The kissing was great, but he was overeager and I constantly had to give him slow-down signals. At that point, I didn't feel confident that this was going to be anything other than a mediocre shag but, to his credit, he went down on me as soon as my underwear came off and actually seemed to know what he was doing. Or so I thought. He stopped halfway through and announced he had a confession to make:

‘I can't find your clit.'

‘Eh? What do you mean you can't find it? Your tongue was just on it.'

‘Was that your clit?!'

‘…'

After that I then went down on him … for about twenty seconds before I became aware he was going to come and decided to let him fuck me instead of having to gracefully wobble off to the bathroom and spit. His cock was huge and had a slight curve to it which rang my G-spot bells.

The sex was good, but I got the feeling he was nervously trying to work through some mental checklist. I think someone told all teenage boys in high school that foreplay involves touching all the good bits, but as soon as you actually penetrate a woman you must forget that these bits exist and ‘JUST THRUST LIKE YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT, LADS!' He had explored every area – my breasts, my thighs, my neck, and even my ears, but as soon as he was inside, that was all forgotten and I was left to stare at his concentrating face. Even his beard appeared to be concentrating.

‘Lick my nipples.'

‘I did.'

‘There isn't a lickage limit, you know. Anyway, it makes me wet.'

‘Oh. Sorry.'

‘Don't worry, you don't need to apologize.'

‘Sorry.'

After all the fun I'd been having with Oliver, my expectations were high, but I know it's unfair of me to expect someone to get it right first time or know exactly what I want. Anyway, it wasn't all bad – when Richard stopped acting so nervous I caught glimpses of a guy who'd be pretty fabulous in bed. If this had been Lucy she'd have turned into a drill sergeant, screaming, ‘ASSUME THE POSITION,
SOLDIER!' after a shaky start or some misplaced tongue action. Also on the plus side, approximately two minutes after we'd shagged, he was ready and willing to go again. After the third time, my vagina had made it painfully clear it couldn't take any more. Then he started boring me with talk of music and an oh-so-hilarious incident that occurred during an ‘awesome' gig with his mate ‘Speedy' the previous weekend, resulting in them both throwing up in his nan's house. I must have resembled the Road Runner with the speed I took off at into the night.

So I can cross the younger-man challenge off the list, and it actually wasn't bad. Richard was very enthusiastic about my body, almost to the point where I had to check there wasn't someone else with ‘winning tits' in the bed beside me. I felt sexy with him, and being in control made me feel powerful: strong like bull. I like the new me.

We exchanged numbers and maybe I'll give him a call sometime. He might not rock my world, but I might be willing to let him rock my bed. A girl has needs, after all.

Wednesday March 2nd

The commute to work was extra dull this morning as the train got stuck outside Central for twenty-five minutes and I didn't have my iPod to distract me. But I perked up slightly when I noticed a man in a sharp suit across from me cross his legs to reveal a pair of Hannah Montana socks and perfectly smooth legs. While I waited for the train to move, I decided he must be called Xavier. Xavier had a wife called Shirley and six children who all played the piano together
at the same time. He worked in a publishing house by day, but by night ran an underground Disney rave night where everyone got off their tits and danced to Miley Cyrus and hardcore remixes of ‘Step in Time' from
Mary Poppins
. My dreams were shattered when he pulled out his phone and called in late to the office:

‘Hi, Nicola, it's Alistair. The train's delayed but I shouldn't be long. OK, just tell Mrs Harris I'll be there shortly and give her some property schedules to look at while she waits. Cheers. Bye.'

And with that the imaginary Xavier died in a terrible tractor accident. In space.

Later that day Oliver texted me about the anal challenge for about the billionth time from the ski slopes, obviously pissed: