by Danny King
I was frantic – unbelievably frantic. Consequently Sally copped the back-end of a famine that had me putting in performances Casanova could’ve hung his hat on. She still occasionally mentions them with fondness today, though like Shakespeare and Caveman Ug they’re long gone.
Rather frustratingly, at the time of my drought, about four weeks before me and Sally finally got together, I had an interesting offer from a girl called Abigail. Abigail was something else, as trendy students have a tendency to say. Very sweet. Very sexy. And very vivacious.
She also always used to wear a hat, even indoors, which confused a lot of people back then.
Still, wacky attention seeking dress-sense aside, she was a fiery girl who made little secret of her love of life. Several of my friends shagged her and Tom told me he’d heard she was “filthy as a pig” – in a complimentary sense you understand. And it didn’t exactly take much either. If she took a shine to you, she would give you an unmistakeable look and you’d both be away. A dark corner in the Union, the university toilets, occasionally even a bed. Anywhere that was handy really.
And I know what this unmistakeable look looked like because one night I found it looking at me.
It came after an all-day session in the Student Union, which followed the handing in of a particularly awful assignment. Me, Tom, Abigail, and half a dozen others decided to bunk off our afternoon lecture and were soon full of beer and bravado at how rebellious we were being. It was actually a brilliant afternoon, almost perfect in fact; the sort of afternoon that you can never repeat, no matter how many times you round up the same faces and force beer down their throats because it was simply a spontaneous one-off. I myself was Johnny Personality and had everyone in stitches for hours on end, particularly the increasingly adorable Abigail. She even shifted around to sit next to me and we laughed, whispered and play-poked each other under the table until I suddenly noticed her hand in my lap.
“My, aren’t we a big boy?” she whispered, squeezing me in the most wonderful way. “I like big boys, the bigger the better.”
She pulled down my zip and slipped her hand inside then asked if I wanted to come to the toilet to fuck. Those were her exact words, by the way. “Do you want to come to the toilet to fuck?”
Honestly, that’s what she’d said. No one had ever said anything that shocking to me before and no one’s ever said anything that shocking since. Not even Norman.
I couldn’t believe it.
Mind you, if I couldn’t believe that, try and imagine how she must’ve felt when she heard my reply.
“Er, no. It’s okay. I might laugh and joke about these sorts of things, but I’m really not like that.”
What?
Seriously, that’s what I’d told her. I must’ve been off my chump. What was I thinking? I’ll tell you what I was thinking, I was thinking that I was all loved up with Sally and didn’t want to blow my chance with her by banging Jack the Hat. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t actually going out with Sally at the time, or that it had been more than six months since nutty Natalie had last knocked on my door, I just couldn’t go with any old girl when my heart belonged to another.
“Go on,” she whispered, increasing her grip in an effort to wrestle me into submission, but I couldn’t do it, so I eased her out of my trousers, made my apologies and went and played pool with Tom. I guess Abigail wasn’t the sort of girl who was used to getting rejected because she left for another pub shortly afterwards and never spoke to me again.
Where to start?
Did I regret turning down Abigail all those years ago?
I didn’t at the time, especially when me and Sally finally got it together, but a few years later I remembered the incident and couldn’t understand why I’d done what I’d done. I mean, what an idiot!
“I’m sorry but I’m not like that?” I’d said. Not like what? Not like the sort of guy who has exciting guilt-free sex while he’s young and single with a sexy girl who’s “filthy as a pig”?
I reiterate I must’ve been off my fucking chump.
I also can’t begin to describe to you how many times I’ve kicked myself for not dragging her into the bog and driving her through several cubicle walls. I really, really have. And it wouldn’t have affected my burgeoning relationship with Sally because I doubt she would’ve even heard about it. And if she had, what difference would it have made? She’d been with several guys and had even gone on a couple of dates while we were ‘just friends’, so it wouldn’t have made a penny’s worth of difference.
In fact, the only thing it would’ve done would’ve been to even up our personal scores. Or at least, got mine to within one of hers, so I was an idiot and I missed a spectacular opportunity. As the song goes, “what kind of fool am I?”
Abigail. Abigail. Abigail. I wonder what she’s doing now? I wonder if she’s still got that hat? And I wonder where she got it from?
I had a little fantasy about her a few years ago where I tracked Abigail down and told her I was ready to take up her offer. It was only a fantasy, of course, because I couldn’t see how she’d still be up for it some fifteen years on. Not the sort of delayed decisiveness that gets a girl hot under the collar. Still, the fantasy was great. I would be out and about and I’d bump into her in the shops and we’d pick up from where we left off. My heart would be pumping with excitement, the way it had done all those years ago, and after a while, Abigail would lean close, smile and give me that unmistakeable look.
“Hmm, still a big boy, I see,” she’d whispered, slipping her hand back inside my trousers. “Very big indeed. Now how about that fuck? Do me good and hard!”
The fantasy would then head off to the toilet, or a motel, or a car park, or the woods, or anywhere else I’d decide to take it and we’d indulge in fantastically frantic sex, the sort of sex in fact I’d not known for a long long time. And that would be that.
Occasionally I’d grind a little fact into the fantasy.
I’d think about looking her up on friendsreunited.com and work out in my mind how I’d approach her, what I’d say and where we’d meet and all the rest of it and that factual foundation would make the fantasy even more exciting.
Of course, I’d never really do it. Not in a million years. Abigail was gone, or at least part of a different time line now, and I was here all on my own still screwing my face up and holding my head in my hands every time I thought about the incident fifteen years on.
“Sandwiches!” a voice called from around the corner.
Tom leapt up from his seat and bolted in the direction of the corridor, dodging in front of two secretaries and his designer as he raced for first pick.
“Do you want anything?” Elenor smiled, standing on her tiptoes in order to lean across the partition and look down at me.
I hadn’t earlier. But suddenly I wasn’t so sure.
Sally’s Diary: January 11th
Our hamster died at school today. I don’t know why, she wasn’t very old, and none of the kids had been using her for batting practice, so it’s something of a mystery. Her name was Samantha and she was eight months old. I mention these things purely for posterity as it makes me sad to think of something that inspired so much love and happiness in so many children being forgotten about the moment she’s gone. We haven’t actually told the children yet and there’s some division as to how we should go about it. Jenny thinks we should do tomorrow’s assembly on hamster heaven and how fantastic it is up there, while Donald thinks we should tell them Samantha’s cage is being redecorated while we order another. Peter thinks we should stick the cage on eBay and split the money but Carol’s got most experience with this sort of thing. She says we should just tell the children that Samantha died and let them learn to deal with it. After all, death is a part of life and it’s our job to prepare them for what lies ahead, so sugar coating every little upset isn’t going to help them in the long run. She has a point. That’s the thing about Carol. She always has a point.
Andrew, on the oth
er hand, rarely seems to have one. He’s convinced Samantha was murdered and thinks we should set up an investigation into her “hamstercide”. He even offered to come in and head up the inquiry, promising to leave no stone unturned until he found Samantha’s killer, although he hardly inspired me with confidence when I mentioned her to him again half an hour later and he asked me who Samantha was.
Chapter 8. Party Games
My room was on the sixth floor and afforded me a great view of Croydon – if that can be considered a great view. Norman had negotiated a discount rate for all of us who wanted to stay but my single was still costing me £80. A twin or double would’ve cost only £20 more and Tom hassled me all week to share with him but I insisted on having my own room.
“Why? What d’you need your own room for? It’s not like I haven’t seen you in your socks before.”
“I’d just rather have my own room, that’s all. We’re not students any more, I don’t want to doss down any old place.”
“Sharing a room in a four-star hotel and saving us both thirty quid in the process is hardly dossing down any old place. What are you up to?”
“I’m not up to anything.”
“Then why won’t you share with me?”
“Because I don’t want to.”
“Are you getting your room for free or something? Is that it?” This conversation went on all week and almost threatened the return of my tenner but Tom eventually relented when he found himself a B&B half a mile down the road for only £40.
“Should’ve blagged a few caravans and we could’ve all kipped in the car park,” Godfrey reckoned.
“I’m sure the Croydon Park Hotel would’ve loved that,” I replied.
Anyway, back to my room. It was nice and roomy and soft and plush. It was also only a short lift journey away from our party downstairs (Joe Bananas having been already booked). I checked in at six, showered, shaved and changed into my party frock, then cracked open a bottle of Jim Beam I’d bought from the off-licence around the corner and took a couple of sneaky knocks. I hoped the hotel wouldn’t mind but I bought it in case I wanted a nightcap when the party wound down and mini-bars were always so expensive. And the drinks showed up on your bills too. And bills were sometimes looked at by others. And that might not be such a good thing. Especially if someone else wanted to come up to my room for a nightcap.
At that moment my mobile rang and I saw it was Sally. I pressed the green button and held it to my ear.
“Hello love, just me,” she said. “Just giving you a quick ring to see if you want me to record Taggart tonight?”
“Oh, er yes please,” I replied, a little off-guard. “Thanks.”
It was the last part of a three-part story tonight and there’s no point watching the first two episodes unless you’re ready to commit to all three. Stupid symbolic irony.
“Enjoy the party then and don’t get too drunk.”
“I won’t. What are you doing?”
“Oh nothing, just a bit of tidying and reading I suppose. I might watch Big Brother later if there’s nothing else on. Anyway, have fun. Bye love.”
“Yes, bye love. See you tomorrow.”
I listened until the line went dead then put the phone down and turned it off for the night.
*
The party downstairs was already a feeding frenzy of arms and elbows as five thousand years of civilisation was forgotten in the face of a free bar. A couple of streaky barmen rushed backwards and forwards under the taps as they tried to keep pace but the beast was loose tonight and he was thirsty.
“Andrew, you want one?” Tom called from the front of the melee.
“Bitter,” I replied fours times before he finally caught it.
A pint was passed back towards me but got lost in the crowd so I had to call for another one to be dispatched. After another ten minutes me, Tom and two pints of John Smiths finally met up and went in search of a table somewhere quieter.
Most years, the Christmas party had been a sit down affair but no one really felt like sitting down to a plate of turkey and sprouts in paper hats in the middle of January, so a buffet had been laid on instead.
“You should try some of those chicken legs, they’re lovely. I’ve had four already,” Tom told me.
“Well done,” I replied. I took a few sips from my pint and looked around the hall. There was still an enormous knot of blokes fighting over the free bar and the buffet was being continually raided by swooping secretaries but most of the rest of the hall was empty.
Naturally there were a few party martyrs dotted about here and there and some DJ off in the far corner playing with himself but the party was still several hours of hard drinking away from anything approaching fun.
“Who are you looking for?” asked Tom, after he spotted me scouring the darkness.
“No one.”
“Really? Well you look like a man who’s looking for someone.”
That wasn’t good. I didn’t want to look like a man who was looking for someone because people might start to notice and wonder who that particular man was looking for. And why.
“Just seeing who’s in,” I thought to elaborate. Tom left it at that.
“By crikey, this is going down well,” he gasped dramatically, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand and finishing his pint at a canter. He stared at me for several seconds, as I took a gentle sip of my half-full pint, before finding the need to shake his glass in my face.
“Come on, it’s your round,” he told me.
“It’s a free bar Tom,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but I went up and got the last one. Now it’s your turn.”
“Get it yourself,” I told him, damned if I was going anywhere near that scrum while I still had a drink.
Tom kicked the table and sighed, muttered and growled as I nursed my pint for as long as I possibly could, but he was equally damned if he was going up again and snapped at me to “fucking drink up” every time I tried to engage him in conversation. When I finally drained the last few suds Tom practically tipped me out of my seat and told me to get four pints and a couple of shorts while I was up there.
“Give us a shout when you’re getting served and I’ll come up and grab them off you.”
That didn’t look like any time soon as most of the rest of the company had the same idea and were ordering as much as they could before the bar started charging.
Off to one side, the wankers from Xtreme Kite Surfing Magazine had formed a chain and were attempting to bury a table at the back of the hall in pints, pissing everyone else off something rotten. They’d monopolised one of the barmen for more than fifteen minutes, leaving just one other lad to serve the rest of the company and tempers were starting to fray. One or two blokes attempted to steal pints from the Xtremers’ (as they insisted on calling themselves) larder but a couple of them stayed back to protect it and the whole thing threatened to kick off.
Incredibly, it didn’t occur to them, or more likely, they just didn’t care that the reason the bar was so congested was because of their hoarding and they would’ve continued all night had Norman not stepped in and suggested they tried drinking what they had before ordering any more. The Xtremers naturally tugged their forelocks the moment Norman took notice but were back boasting and toasting their mischief with their trademark crossed forearm X salutes as soon as he was gone.
They were wankers.
The extra barman told on the waiting time so I was able to make it to the front, attract his attention, lean in some of the Xtremers’ spilt beer and make it back out again with four pints and two shorts in a little under ten minutes.
“I’ll tell you, if that’s what it takes to get a couple of free pints, I’d rather pay for my bloody beer,” I concluded.
I took heart from the fact that the drinks I’d gathered would probably see us through to the last stampede when the free bar closed. And when that nightmare unfolded, it would be Tom’s turn again.
I sat back down and was just
about to get tucked into the fruits of my labours when a long pair of legs suddenly appeared next to me.
“Oh hi, you came. I’m so glad you did,” Elenor squeaked excitedly.
I turned around, looked her up and down and practically bristled all over when I saw how stunning she looked. She was always sexy, of course, even around the office, but suddenly she’d polished up like half a million quids’ worth of sex vouchers. I could scarcely think to speak. Her hair had been piled up on top of her head in some kind of exquisite bun, leaving just a couple of curls to keep her temples company. Her neck was bare and her shoulders naked, a tiny strap kept her gold sequinned top from collapsing under the weight of her enormous tits and she’d managed to find a tight lycra belt that could double as a mini skirt. Her legs were a golden nylon sheen and tan loops that peered from under the hem of her skirt told me she’d gone the stockings and suspenders route rather than cluttering things up with tights. All these garments and a scattering of silver were piled on top of a pair of pointed stilettos that looked like they could’ve been used for keyhole surgery and which added three inches to her height while taking away half a stone in weight.
She was, for want of a better expression, a shag just waiting to happen.
“Yes,” I finally replied, figuring I should say something before I tossed my marriage certificate over my shoulder and leapt on top of her.
She twisted her legs and chewed on her lip for a bit before feeding me my line.
“So, do you want to get me a drink?”
“Yes, sure,” I said automatically before remembering what that entailed. “Oh bollocks.”
Tom looked at me from the safety of his pint and told me to get us both another couple of shorts in if I was going up and suddenly I was in the thick of it again, fighting my way through bedlam while Elenor’s cheeks warmed my seat.
“’scuse me. Sorry. Coming through. Sorry. Can I just... sorry. Sorry!”