The One - No one said it would be easy

by Goldsmith, J. F.

  I met Number Twenty-three one lunchtime in the pub that served as a stand-in canteen for me and my colleagues. Number Twenty-three worked close-by and we ran into each other every so often whilst heaping mash, broccoli and schnitzel on our plates. I immediately thought he was quite hot, right from when I first saw him. He was almost indecently handsome and had this very-bad-boy-ishness about him, coupled with a mixture of gentleman and sheer wickedness. And he also had the word “sex” engraved on his forehead. He had a very tasty body, I could tell that straight away, and a full head of dark hair he wore either tousled or gelled back dandy-style. Both looked very cool indeed. He was always exceedingly well dressed, in just the style I like best. Either cool jeans with a slightly bleached-out T-shirt and cool leather boots – hello James Dean. Or sometimes he was elegantly dressed in a tweed suit, Brit-chic style. Very sexy. Well, all in all, the guy was a feast for the eyes. Apropos eyes. He had terribly beautiful ice-blue eyes, which mercilessly exploited my weakness for blue eyes, because every time we met during our lunch break, there was a thunderstorm of eye-contact that made the very air crackle around us. We kept this going for quite some time – running into each other at lunchtime, letting our eyes do the talking. Still, neither of us dared make a move, after all we were surrounded by colleagues. Which made it damn near impossible to come out with something like “Hello beautiful man, wanna come out for coffee with me?” And so we kept in silent contact by running into each other every so often during lunch.

  I had no idea what he was called, what he did, anything. Until one day a new female colleague came to lunch with me, Number Twenty-three was hungry too and it turned out the two of them knew each other. They said hello and started to chat, whilst I stole glances across my soup spoon straight into his blue Husky eyes that looked at me more than the girl he was talking to. We nodded at each other without anyone noticing, which meant “hey you!” Now I was really hooked. Now I wanted to know, needed to know who this ominous and beautiful stranger was, but didn’t dare ask my colleague. Who wants to volunteer for why-do-you-want-to-know type questions? So I trickily checked my new colleague’s online network profile and what do you know – I found Husky man among her contacts. Strike! Super invention, these digital lists of friends. So there he was, black on white, his name, his job, nicely embellished with a pretty photo. Me heart leapt. Gotcha, I thought, grinning.

  Impatient as I am, I couldn’t wait any longer. I wrote him a nice little message straight away, something along the lines of “hello beautiful man who sweetens my lunch hours, who are you?” – the whole works. Without worrying about the possibility of getting in hot water and being sent packing by return. No rules of dating, no beating around the bush, no, just a nice and open declaration of interest. And why not? The reply came immediately: “I’ll tell you who I am over coffee this afternoon. Looking forward to it.” My heart throbbed and sank down into my pants – if you shoot to kill, they’ll shoot right back at you! At long last, I was about to actually get to know this dream guy I’d adored from afar for so many months. For really real! I sneaked out of the office for my unexpected and extremely important coffee date. I recklessly played hooky for the afternoon. I didn’t care. There are times in life when you have to know your priorities. Number Twenty-three was waiting for me at the agreed location, holding two caffe latte to go. He stared at me quite blatantly while I was walking up to him, took his sweet and leisurely time examining me from top to bottom (I was wearing hot-pants and boots, there’s no man alive who can resist this look…), and was barely able to hide his delight with what he saw walking towards him. I could practically smell his dirty thoughts. Which suited me well, because I had quite similar dirty thoughts myself. I’d have liked to kiss him and drag him into the bushes right away. Naturally, we didn’t, though. We greeted each other quite politely on the outside and full of excitement on the inside, then small-talked about this and that. It turned out that he was over forty, but he didn’t seem like someone in his forties at all. I liked him. I thought he was a bit crazy, but maybe all the super sexy guys have to be a little crazy and wacky. Luckily there was no great disenchantment – he was still very attractive to me, even after seeing and getting to know him close up.

  We walked for a bit and held on to our conversation, until he suddenly said: “And when are we going to sleep together?” He said this like it was the most normal question in the world. Granted, I wasn’t exactly Little Miss Innocent and of course I wanted to sleep with him too, and yes, the rules of dating don’t need to be adhered to every step of the way. But for a moment this question just threw me. I turned hot and cold and a flash of arousal shot in-between my legs. He didn’t exactly hang about, that one! He was even worse than me! Don’t lose your composure now – stay cool. Hide your confusion. Did I really want this, and did I want it like this? Mr. Mysterious, so quickly de-mystified? No time to let anything build up? Instead, just full speed ahead? All this I dealt with in a split second and replied with a “tonight?” and a wide grin and a heap of butterflies in my stomach. He grinned back, pleased. We took our leave and I sneaked back into my office, blushing furiously. I sent him a text message with further date-related information and was quite unable to concentrate on my work anymore. Mr. Unknown and I had a date! An F-date. This evening, at my home, I would welcome a guy with whom I’d barely exchanged more than half a dozen sentences, and would open my home and my legs to him. Maybe I was a tiny bit nuts. I wiped all thoughts of potential serial killers and the like right out of my head.

  The evening started with speedy and hectic all-in date preparations – I hadn’t expected things with Mr. Husky-eyes and me to move that fast! What to wear, what lingerie? Shaving of legs & co., pretty-up hair and face, and all to look natural and fresh, casually beautiful and not at all like two hours of bathroom terror. I was ready and waiting at the agreed hour – minute, to be precise – and in joyful expectation of Number Twenty-three’s arrival. He didn’t arrive. After endless waiting at long last a text message with a big “sorry” and “missed the tram, I’m going to be late.” Joyful expectation seeped out of me like the air out of a cooling cheese soufflé. Oh brilliant. Men in their forties who rely on trams are extremely un-sexy. That’s what teenagers do, take the tram to visit their girlfriends. Men of more mature years ought to be able to hail a taxi if they don’t have their own car. But no, he didn’t seem to want to part with 15 euros for a taxi, he’d rather stand about in the cold and make me wait for another forty-five minutes. Stingy and mean guys are crap. I tried my level best to keep hold of at least a little bit of my previous joyful and expectant mood. This took a lot of effort. Finally, what seemed like three hours later, the doorbell rang. He came running up the stairs, made a big fuss about apologizing, handed me a bottle of sparkling wine, took a hold of me and kissed me.

  His kiss didn’t taste nice at all: instant disillusionment. Oh crap! This did not bode well. His kisses were hard and un-gentle and the taste was revolting. Revolting, because Number Twenty-three was a smoker. I’ve been known to smoke the odd cigarette every once in a while, but really not often. His taste was dry and acrid and foul and stinky. Yuck! I didn’t say or do anything. Yes, of course I should have sent him packing on the spot, but – are there any women out there who have mastered this art? Most of us will continue to put up with horrible kisses again and again, even though we’ve had more than enough experience and really should know better. Crazy or what?! And this kiss was the very opposite of promising. The only thing that made me want more was the fact that he was a new man, and this situation has its own built-in sexual arousal. This certainly wouldn’t turn into a long-term steaming affair. That much I was sure of already. So, let’s get through the evening, see what’s what, and then good-bye.

  Number Twenty-three was all over me immediately. He pushed me against the wall, grabbed me from behind and made his way across my body. He had a hard grip on him, which in itself was quite hot. Yes, I liked his direct approach, but what’s the point if
all the time you have to try and avoid any possible kissing because the guy tastes like shit! However, I persevered anyway. In five seconds flat we were out of our clothes and before we could even get started in bed, Number Twenty-three suddenly dashed into the kitchen, opened the bubbly and came back with the open bottle. OK, why not have a glass or two. Number Twenty-three took a swig, but instead of swallowing it, he bent over me and tried to feed me the mouth-warm plonk, platypus-style. Oh for God’s sake, I thought, how bloody silly can you get! No 91/2-Weeks type games, if you don’t mind. I’m not into that kind of stuff.

  And most certainly not during the first time. I have enough to do just coping with all the new-naked-man-in-my-bed impressions, I don’t need to add any pseudo-sexy games. I had no choice but to swallow his drink, otherwise it would have gushed all over my bed. I could have saved myself the trouble, because before I even had a chance to discourage further such activities, he’d taken another hefty swig and was dribbling the stinky sticky stuff all over my body. He really enjoyed it and leisurely traced the trails left by the bubbly on my body. He distributed the stuff all over my breasts and between my legs, which seemed to turn him on quite a lot, because he groaned and had a gigantic hard-on. I groaned too, but more from desperation. This was an absolute no-no. Especially since the bubbly now had the smell of his acrid kisses. I had stinky gunk all over my body and wasn’t the foggiest bit turned on anymore. Super! In an attempt to get out of this somehow, I took charge. I pushed him down on the bed and wrestled the bubbly away from him. Then I went at him as befits a first time. Without frills and bubbly.

  He had a great body for a forty-something. Firm, well-built, perfectly proportioned. His cock too was impressive and of a pleasant size and shape. When I began to direct my attention there, he groaned and muttered: “Oh yeah that’s great, keep doing it. Oh yeah. Oh that’s so hot, I wanna fuck you in all your holes.” Haaang on – what was that? He didn’t really say THAT? I shuddered inside and told myself that I must have misheard. But no, I hadn’t. Funny that these things always sound so gross in real life. Well OK, even in porn flicks they don’t exactly sound sensual and sexy, but then, neither are the porn flicks, so it kind of fits together. But in a real bed with real people? Sorry, but no way! Everyone goes on about “dirty talk” but, let’s be honest here: dirty talk, or whatever miserable attempt passes for dirty talk, is really just gross and laughable. And so I pretended that I’d misheard. Especially since there was no way Number Twenty-three was going to get anywhere near all my holes.

  Since I didn’t really feel like it anymore, I quickly fitted him with Mr. Condom and deposited myself on top of him. I wanted him to come as quickly as possible so that the whole thing would be over. Sadly, that wasn’t what the stud had in mind. He turned out to be one of those I’ll-fuck-you-up-and-down-the-entire-Kama-Sutra freaks. For hours! Holy shit – I really knew how to pick them! He shifted and turned and draped me this way and that in all possible directions and variations. After what felt like hours I gave up trying to join in and just let him get on with it, I was saddle-sore and had long lost all sense of arousal. To top it all, he started to groan: “Come on baby, I want you to come! Go on baby, come! Come!” Oh for crying out loud! I had no intention of coming like this, nor was I able to. My only option was to turn this around. I said, with a pretend groan: “I can only come when you do,” hoping that would give me the result I was looking for. And it worked – luckily, he didn’t need to be told twice and at long last, after a few more in-and-outs, he had his climax and I had my peace. I did him the favor of coming by grabbing hold of his hand and moving it between my legs as though I was doing it to myself. It was the kind of orgasm that you need to release tension, where there’s no sexual arousal and everything is quite an effort. What a pity! How can a guy have such charisma, such an air of sexiness about him, and then, when it comes down to it, be so completely un-sexy? I was really very sorry. I’d have loved to be able to have all that sexy sexual excitement in bed with me and have a super-sex encounter with this very swish young man. But as I said, the merciless number one killer of sexual desire is bad kissing. Always. Not to mention stinky bad kissing. And not at all to mention everything else!

  Luckily, Number Twenty-three didn’t want to stay the night. He said he could only ever sleep alone and only in his own bed. Oh goodie: raging neurosis of epic proportions. Just as well the sex was lousy and there was no danger of me losing my heart to him. That would have been another disaster waiting to happen. And yet, despite all this I wasn’t prepared to give up on Number Twenty-three just yet. I was still too fascinated by the sexual energy that had sizzled between us all along. Surely this couldn’t have been it! And so I gave him a few more tries, we had some more dates and we had sex. The sex actually did get better, and I started to think that maybe I did kind of like him. However, nothing could make up for the fact that his kisses were disgusting. We both knew that we were only having a little whatever-it-was, neither of us was after a relationship. So it was all quite relaxed. Whenever we felt like it, we saw each other, and each time I told myself that this was definitely the last time, ever. Fat chance! Due to a lack of alternatives I kept making do with Number Twenty-three: the a-bird-in-the-hand principle strikes again.

  And then, all of a sudden, I couldn’t do it anymore. From one day to the next, I simply couldn’t bear him, I couldn’t stand having him around. Like a lake that suddenly dies when pollution levels reach a certain point. Or milk that suddenly turns sour – perfectly good to drink yesterday, a curdled mess today. Number Twenty-three had become unpalatable. He’d upset my stomach. Possibly it had to do with suppressing my disgust about his kisses all the time – maybe it just suddenly all came to the surface. I no longer replied to his e-mails, his text messages, his phone calls. Whenever I saw him at lunch, I pretended not to see him. I totally ignored him. I saw the question marks in his eyes but I didn’t remotely feel like explaining myself. Mind you, he didn’t exactly try to clarify the situation either. He seemed to lethargically accept my unspoken rejection. Theoretically speaking, we didn’t actually have anything that needed clarifying anyway. But with hindsight I think the least I could have done was tell him that I just didn’t feel like it anymore. It happens! But I couldn’t get myself to do that either – I just didn’t want to. And so I behaved like a complete asshole instead.

  One day Number Twenty-three walked up to me to say good-bye. He said he had taken another job and he guessed we wouldn’t see each other again. I just gave a completely uninvolved ”oh right, I wish you good luck” and he stared at me in disbelief. “I miss you. And I miss us,” he said pointedly and walked off with his head bowed. I was shocked to realize that none of this bothered me in the lightest. The only thing that bothered me was the loss of our pre-sex lunchtime flirting. Sometimes sex really does wreck things. Pity.

  Number Twenty-four: Pumuckl

  (A quick word of explanation: Pumuckl is the name of an imp from a British radio play/TV show for kids. He is short, red-haired and funny, and a hell of a lot nicer than Number Twenty-four!)

  Oh what I wouldn’t give to be able to strike Number Twenty-four from my sexography! The memory of this interlude of utter idiocy shall rot buried amongst the roots of a Sibirian elm in deepest Kazakhstan, smelly moose and cackling snow-geese shall all crap on it, sour rain shall flood its burial place and not even weeds shall be able to grow on this vilest of vile memories. What rankles most about Number Twenty-four isn’t even the fact that this entire sorry episode was utterly superfluous and that the guy himself was like a dip in the sewer. What really rankles is the idiotic stupidity of unequalled magnitude that I myself displayed during the time I spent with Number Twenty-four. Looking back on it now, it is inconceivable and deeply embarrassing that the unpleasant affair with Number Twenty-four happened at all. But, as we all know, everything is so much clearer with hindsight, and we’re supposed to learn from our mistakes, and even grow wiser in the fullness of time. Still – I would love to be abl
e to burn this part of my personal history on the bonfire of unnecessary emotional trials and tribulations.

  When I got involved with Number Twenty-four, I must have been under the influence of some brain fog-and-masochism inducing drug that someone had secretly added to my tea. There is no other explanation for this lunacy, this absolute joke. I met Number Twenty-four – believe it or not – at work. Where else?! He was part of the film crew and had been hanging around me for days. I didn’t find him even remotely attractive, he wasn’t my type at all: short, goggle-eyed, a face like a fish and ginger hair. One of my friends, who witnessed the unfolding of this sorry tale first-hand, gave him the codename “Pumuckl”. But as always happens, the more time you spend with someone, and the more exciting that time is, the more this person suddenly appears to be interesting and familiar. And suddenly the ginger hair didn’t matter anymore, the goggle-eyes appeared to be much less goggly, and he suddenly no longer had a face like a fish – more like a hamster. Hamster cheeks are undeniably cuter than fish-type faces. Also I suddenly noticed that Pumuckl was astonishingly muscular, he had very nice looking well-muscled arms that led to the assumption that the rest of his body was equally well toned. We then embarked on a kind of kindergarten-type flirting routine: teasing, making stupid remarks, badgering one another, and every so often, eye-contact that lasted slightly too long.

  What bowled me over was this: I once told our location manager, as a joke, that I wanted a horse and that he should go and get one right away. It’s part of a location manager’s job to work small miracles on set. I forgot all about it, but at the end of the day’s shooting Number Twenty-four suddenly appeared and handed me one of those little pink toy ponies, a My-Little-Pony thingy, with a turquoise tail and glittery stars painted on the side. It even glowed in the dark. He said: “You want a horse, you get a horse,” grinned and disappeared. I was speechless. And delighted. Speechless and delighted because, ever since I was a little girl, I’d wanted one of those pink-pony toys but I never got one. And now this Pumuckl just turned up and fulfilled one of my deepest little-girl wishes. Just like that! Number Twenty-four bagged me with a glittery pink plastic pony. And just like that, I was beyond salvation: I’d fallen in love with Pumuckl.