Laid in Chelsea

by Ollie Locke

  The BAFTAs was one of the most amazing nights of my life. I’m not usually a big fan of red-carpet events as the photo wall makes my eyebrows sweat and drip into my eye, causing me to look like I have contracted Bell’s palsy. Thankfully I didn’t do anything stupid that night, like walk up the red carpet with my flies undone. Oh no, wait, I did! We’d been nominated for Best Reality and Constructed Factual, alongside Don’t Tell The Bride, An Idiot Abroad and The Young Apprentice. We were in complete disbelief that we’d even been nominated so we never imagined that we could win. TOWIE had won the year before, which was voted for by the audiences, but this time it was the BAFTA boards who were deciding whether we should win.

  I was asked by the bosses of Made in Chelsea whether I minded giving the speech if we won. Of course I said yes, although I sadly didn’t get a chance to stand up and accept the award as we lost out to The Young Apprentice.

  It was an incredible evening and the venue was packed with amazing stars, my favourite being Jennifer Saunders. Absolutely Fabulous is comedy genius, and I was so in awe of Jennifer that I virtually stalked her the entire evening, but I didn’t have the bollocks to go up and say hello. When later in the evening Jennifer walked past and casually said ‘oh hello’ to me, I couldn’t believe it. Had she caught me stalking her all evening behind the pillars? I was even more astounded when she followed that with ‘You’re off that Made in Chelsea, aren’t you?’ At this point, I nearly had a little wee in excitement. She went on to say that she didn’t watch it but that her daughters love it, and asked for a photo with me. Well, that was worth sweat in the eyes, I assure you. I even said I would be on Absolutely Fabulous whenever she was ready to have me, but she smiled and disappeared into the crowds. I then got drunk and snogged a famous actress, but that’s another story for another time. Let’s just say she never called me back.

  When I woke the next morning, I took a step back and tried to look at my life from the outside, to see how crazy it had all become. Five years earlier I had been cleaning up poo in a urinal, but now I was in a TV show that had just been nominated for one of the most esteemed television awards in the world.

  It was something I could never have dreamt of when I first interviewed for MIC all those years previously. It just shows how your life can change almost overnight when you take a risk.

  Filming Series 4 was great – I enjoyed everything about it after the emotional rollercoaster of the previous three series. Previously there had been a lot of tension between Gabriella and me, but I finally felt that we had both moved past our break-up, that we’d reconnected on a friendship level, and that we had rediscovered that laughter which had drawn us to each other in the first place. Gabriella and I had a DMC (deep meaningful conversation in boarding school speak), and I told her that I’d never meant to hurt her, which was true: I hadn’t. We got everything out in the open once and for all – there had been so many things left unsaid. After that chat, everyone began to speculate about whether we were going to get back together but we didn’t know what was going on between us, let alone anyone else. I guess there was some unfinished business between us somewhere, because before long friendship turned into flirting. In one episode, we went away to a health spa and there was definite chemistry between us. To be honest, I’m surprised that something didn’t happen there, which is why what happened next didn’t come as much of a shock.

  I was talking to the Made in Chelsea producers over drinks after filming one day about places I’d like to visit and I mentioned that I’d never been to Amsterdam. I was desperate to see what it was like, and thought it would be a good place to go for research for this book. The producers agreed that it would be a great setting for an episode, so when Gabriella, Cheska, Binky, Richard and I went over there on holiday for a few days, a small filming crew accompanied us to the city of sex. We all went out for dinner and to a nightclub on the first night, where Gabs and I ended up chatting … and eventually kissing. It felt completely alien, but at the same time completely familiar as I remembered her kissing technique. After years of bitterness and hatred it was strange to be back there again, but on the other hand it felt completely natural as we had been there so many times before. Plus we both remembered how well we worked in bed. We were filming all of the following day so everyone else wanted to have an early night. But we were only in Amsterdam for 48 hours – a city I’d been dying to see – so I wanted to explore. Gabriella felt the same so we ended up necking some wine and heading out to the notorious Red Light District.

  We walked down the narrow cobbled streets, saw the prostitutes striking suggestive poses in the windows bathed in a warm red glow, the weed cafés billowing smoke reminding me of the smell of my schooldays. So it seemed like a brilliant idea to get really, really drunk in a bar that I think was called The Grasshopper, but it may well have been named after another insect. Copious amounts of alcohol later and high from passive weed smoking, we ended up back at the hotel – and the two of us in Gabriella’s room with a bottle of white wine that we had persuaded reception to sell us. Before long the conversation turned to relationships and we reminisced about how much fun we’d had and how well we’d got on. At this point I’m pretty sure I should have gone back to my room and had a cold shower, but I didn’t. There was the unmistakable air of sexual chemistry even though I had been so certain in the past that we would never sleep together again. Though I guess we were in the sex capital of the world.

  Gabriella decided that she would be more comfortable in her tracksuit bottoms, so she stood up and took off her trousers to show her thong. Why she didn’t go and do it in the bathroom, I don’t know. Or maybe I do. She bent down to pick the tracksuit bottoms off the floor wearing only her thong, and emboldened by the alcohol I said, ‘Why ruin the fun by putting those on?’ She smiled her devious smile, jumped onto the bed and said, ‘Well, you need to take yours off too.’ Amsterdam was incredibly cold so I regret to say I was wearing long johns, which hardly gave a sexy impression when she came to peel them off my legs after a long day of filming. I soon discovered that you can’t take off long johns in a sexy fashion! However, they seemed to do the trick and 10 minutes later we were having sex.

  We always had amazing sex and that night was no exception. Afterwards, Gabriella felt a post-coital cigarette was needed, and always a gentleman I stumbled down to reception to ask for one, wearing only my long johns, much to the amazement of the poor Dutch woman sitting behind the desk. She kindly and quickly gave me one of hers, I guess to ensure that this drunken British idiot who recited the only Dutch word he knew, ‘bloemen’, which translates directly into the word for flowers (thank you, Ross Geller) would go back to his room before the other guests saw him. We shared the cigarette while looking out of Gabriella’s hotel-room window over the Dutch skyline beyond, for which Gabriella received a stern note on her front door the next day warning her that if she did it again she would face a 300 Euro fine. Sorry, Gabs, I’ll buy you some bloemen.

  Weirdly, when I woke up in the morning the first thing I thought wasn’t ‘Have I honestly just slept with Gabriella again?’ it was, ‘Why am I sleeping in long johns and why did I not brush my teeth last night?’ It does make me terribly grumpy when I don’t floss.

  We all spent the day together filming and of course everyone knew what we’d been up to. I assured myself that it wasn’t going to happen again, but needless to say that night we did it again … twice. It wasn’t ideal and it’s not something I would ever make a habit of, but sometimes things happen when you’re in the moment and you don’t think about the consequences. I don’t think you should ever go back to a relationship that hasn’t worked because it failed for a reason. After all, I tried with London Girl and it never worked. Unless both of you have changed dramatically you’ll still have the same problems (and history) you had before. None of that just magically disappears.

  We got back to London and both decided to draw a line under it all – it was closure on both of our parts. That was, without a doubt, th
e end of the road. We’d never really had closure before so in a way it put an end to a very long, drawn-out chapter.

  Sex absolutely rules the world. However awful it is to imagine, our parents had to have done it at least once. I have an awful feeling that mine were at it like rabbits when I was very young, as I was told over Sunday lunch one day that I was conceived on a sofa on the morning of Ladies’ Day at Ascot. What a lovely mental image to keep every time Ascot week comes around.

  Sex complicates situations, is a bit of an effort, can be incredibly messy, but above all it feels great in the right circumstances.

  You may be interested to know that my magic number at the moment stands at 14, but hopefully I’ll manage to push that up by a few before I properly settle down and get married to someone who doesn’t mind that my hair will undoubtedly be glossier than theirs.

  I’m lucky to have had some incredible relationships, and incredible sex. They always say that sex is so much better when you’re with someone you care about. In my opinion, that is bollocks. If men were being honest, they’d agree that the best sex is with a girl they’ve been seeing for three weeks who is crazy wild in bed and who gives you a very inappropriate blowjob in your car on the way to go and see your mother for Sunday lunch (now, I’m not saying this has happened to me, of course). In bed she is a porn-star fantasy that a girlfriend could – and should – never be. Can you imagine falling in love with a wild temptress? You’d inevitably find out that she has been shagging your better-hung brother. So while I don’t think that sex with someone meaningful is necessarily the most exciting, it is probably better for you in an emotional and physical way. After all, the likelihood is that if they’re wild in bed when you barely know them, they’re probably quite promiscuous, which is fine if they’re always careful but how can you know that for sure?

  I just can’t understand why someone would put something so precious into something they don’t know anything about without any protection. It’s like putting your hand into a deep hole in the Indian Ocean – crab territory! I for one am incredibly careful about where I put mini Ollie. It’s one of the only things I haven’t had cut off, changed its appearance or had pinned back.

  But to be honest, I’m not sure I have wild all-night sex in me any more – I like to listen to Radio 4 at night, and I’m only 26! Desert Island Discs almost gives me the same feeling as an orgasm when I find out what luxury item the guest would take with them – and you don’t even need a smoke afterwards.

  Also, another benefit of staying away from random club-night shags is that you avoid the horror of the Walk of Shame. It’s almost a pasttime of mine to drive through Fulham on a Sunday morning to see girls wandering down the King’s Road in last night’s dress – but without their shoes. You know in an instant what they’ve been up to – and how much they regret it.

  I’ll never forget this one time when one of my friends pulled a girl and took her back to his house. She managed to rip her dress during their night of passion, so she was left with nothing to wear home the next day. He still lived with his mother and the only thing he could think to offer her was his younger sister’s Disney princess outfit. It was all he was willing to lend to a girl he was clearly never going to see again, so she had no choice but to wear it home. Thankfully she was small enough to fit into it but can you imagine being on the Tube at 9am, trussed up like Cinderella? I’m told she took the wand, told him to fuck off and rocked it!

  It’s 3 January 2013 and I’m at the end of writing this book. I’m on an 11-hour flight to Mauritius, one of the world’s most romantic tropical islands. The hotel has champagne on ice ready for our arrival. Candlelit dinner reservations for two have been made. The honeymoon suite is booked. Everything is perfect. Except one thing – I’m sharing the room with my straight, fireplace-building male friend. However wonderful he is, he’s not a girlfriend (we are sleeping in twin beds, I hasten to add). Yes, that’s right, 26 years into my quest for true love, and she was proving to be as elusive as ever. Or was she?

  At that point, I had been single for a year and a half and although I won’t look back on that time with a huge smile on my face and cheer at all the wild sex I didn’t have, it enabled me to get to know myself. I always used to laugh at people when they said being single is good for you, as it sounds so pretentious, but I now understand that it’s the truth. It made me realise that as much as I wanted to be in a relationship, how could I really get to know someone else if I didn’t know myself yet?

  I was recently asked by some friends if I could have any superpower in the world what would it be. Some people replied the ability to fly, others said to be invisible or to be billionaires. I said that all I wanted was a montage of my life set to music that followed all of my relationships so I could watch it back like a film when I’m old and gay – sorry, grey. That’s when someone said to me, ‘Well, you’re already doing that.’ I had never thought about the show in that way before. No matter how happy or sad the memory, all of those adventures, those make-ups and break-ups are recorded forever. And now they’re written down in this book too.

  As I arrived in my honeymoon suite, minus the girl, I took comfort in the knowledge that I still believed in true love. I knew that the right person was out there, and that I would one day find the happiness and contentment I desired. Little did I know that upon my return to a wintery London there would be a girl that would catch my attention. And luckily I caught hers too. Who knows what adventure this story holds, but no doubt you’ll watch it happen. I have had 10 incredible girlfriends in 10 incredible years, all of which have shaped and formed the person I am today. I may not always have been lucky in love, but I have what others may desire: a history and great memories.

  About a week before Christmas 2012 I got a text message from Tilly’s boyfriend, saying that he was planning to ask her to marry him on New Year’s Eve. He said he wanted to tell me first as he knew how close we were. I sent my congratulations and told him they were made for each other. It made me think of every moment I had ever spent worrying or crying myself to sleep because I couldn’t be with her. I wish someone had told me then that I would not end up with her, so I could have just moved on.

  When I think back on my life, I always end up at that night in Southampton, crying on my mother’s shoulders about my unrequited love for Tilly before going out to the nightclub where I met Jesters Girl. That evening’s events may well have changed my life forever. If I were to give you one lasting piece of advice, it would be simply to take a risk. Because you never know what journey it may take you on, or where you might end up.

  So, here’s to love – the one thing we can’t explain, and the one thing we can’t live without.

  P.s. Love, if you’re out there … hurry the fuck up!

  Ollie Locke xx

  The sun is shining through the curtains on a Sunday morning in early May 2013. Beside my bed empty bottles of Evian are strewn, the result of the night’s dehydration. I stretch and turn over, and through one open eye, notice that I’m not alone.

  Now, as you may have already gathered, this is a surprisingly rare occurrence – I don’t usually succumb to random nightclub snoggings. I notice a pink bra hanging over the laundry basket, which means whoever is in my bed is female – which in my position is worth a thought. Slowly I pull the covers back to discover a head of brown hair, not dissimilar to mine of yesteryear. I stretch out my leg in a sly pokey fashion in the faint hope that I can nudge this mystery figure into turning towards me, thus revealing their hidden identity. The hairless leg confirms that it is, in fact, a woman, and after I perform several further nudges and a mock bronchitis attack, she slowly turns over onto her back.

  At this point, however much I would love to say it was none other than Pippa Middleton, lying there stark naked in my bed after a wild night out in Chelsea, there was no denying it. There were no misplaced hair extensions or Ollie lookalikes; it was Gabriella, gently snoring away like an angel with a sinus problem.

  My m
ind is suddenly flooded with flashbacks from the night before. I remember Jäger Bombs in Raffles, singing along to ‘Blame It On the Boogie’ in Bunga Bunga and getting into a taxi from 151 when the sun was rising. I remember Gabriella laughing as I gave what I genuinely thought was a terribly sensuous private strip show in front of my mirror, which recalled a certain saucy evening in Amsterdam (or just an awful Eighties porno remake).

  Then my brain treats me to an even scarier flashback: making what seemed a fairly steamy amateur porn video of the strip show. And I remember what happened afterwards.

  Horrified, I stretch out my limbs with military precision, in an effort to find my charging phone without waking my snoring ex-girlfriend. I quickly disregard the four customary missed calls from Mother and head straight to the videos, when a calm (and very much awake) voice threatens, ‘Don’t you even think about watching that video!’

  After all this time, and yet another break-up, Gabi and I had woken up together again. By now you’ll realise that our on-off shenanigans are often more ‘on’ than ‘off’, and as for that line we had decided to draw under things – well, wherever we are in the world, if we’re both single, I don’t think it’ll ever fully be over.

  So much has happened to me in the six months since this book was first published and it wouldn’t be fair to leave you in the dark, so I wanted to write this chapter to bring you totally up to date.

  For a start, there was Ashley. It all started in a caterer’s van outside Richmond: she and I had a shared interest in the olive counter, and in getting the name of the bearded woman serving us. From the beginning, I felt there was something there: she was kind, warm and a refreshing addition to our group. After misnaming Brenda, Ashley and I wandered off with olives in our hands and no idea what the next six months would hold.