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

by Steven Scaffardi

  “That is a shame,” I said. “Why don’t you sing me a few lines?”

  “No, I couldn’t,” Kayleigh said quite bashfully.

  “Oh don’t be...”

  And before I could even finish, Kayleigh said “Okay” and got to her feet.

  “Imagine a quick beat and soft piano riff,” Kayleigh said clearing her throat. “Here goes.”

  In my eyes, the purple moon sky rises,

  Soooooooo high...

  In my eyes, the blood red sun rises,

  Soooooooo high...

  This part of the song was accompanied by a strange dance movement which involved Kayleigh’s arms dancing towards the sky like two snakes. It was kind of odd, but I smiled encouragingly.

  I wanna get high, in the sky,

  Take a look at my face, you can see it in my eye.

  I wanna get high, in the sky,

  Until I do, you can’t have my apple pie.

  And before you ask, yes, she did say apple pie. I even checked myself.

  The dance moves speeded up and thrown into the mix included Kayleigh raising her knees one at a time at a ferocious pace. People were starting to look as she repeated the routine quicker. As far as I could see, the whole song needed to find as many words as possible that rhymed with sky. Lye, spy, necktie, thigh, goodbye, fry, hawk-eye, magpie, sand-fly. The list went on.

  My favourite line was I wanna get high, in the sky, you can be my Daniel San, and say BONSAI! As a fan of 80’s films, I thought that was a nice tribute to the Karate Kid.

  “What do you think?” Kayleigh said, out of breath.

  “That was... different,” was the best I could manage.

  “Would you like me to teach you the dance?”

  “No, God no,” I said, a little too hastily. “I mean, I don’t like dancing.”

  Kayleigh shrugged and went back to her sandwich. It was at this point I had a flashback about Kayleigh. I remembered the time she managed to lock herself in one of the cubicles at the bar where we worked.

  She spent the whole night there.

  So she wasn’t the brightest spark, but that was okay. I was after her body and not her mind after all. And if things didn’t work out between us, I could always introduce her to Ollie.

  During her routine, I’d noticed that Kayleigh had her tongue pierced. That always intrigued me, as next to a mallet to the testicles, I always considered a bolt through the tongue to be the next most painful experience you could put your body through.

  “Did that hurt?” I said pointing to her tongue.

  “No, not really,” she replied. “Not as much as when I had my clit pierced.”

  “Excuse me?” I nearly choked on my prawn sandwich.

  “I got it done just before I went on holiday last year,” Kayleigh said picking up another sandwich. “I was lying on my front, sunbathing around the pool,” she continued.

  “Yeah?” I nervously said.

  “And I slid forward to get up...”

  “Yeah...?”

  “And it got caught on something...”

  “Yeah...?”

  “And it ripped,” Kayleigh said as nonchalantly as you like, biting into her sandwich. “So now I don’t have a clit anymore.”

  I looked at one of the prawns in my sandwich and suddenly felt quite sick.

  Date Three

  Who: Lucy Mellor

  When: Friday, July 24

  Where: Drinks in South Croydon

  Background: Met at a friend’s party last year and had some chemistry but nothing was ever taken further because I was in a relationship.

  We practically fell down the hallway when we got back to Lucy’s flat; our lips locked together. The evening had turned out to be a fantastic success. Lucy had flirted outrageously from the get-go and all the signs were there.

  Things were getting heavy. She slammed me against the wall, biting my lip. We bounced off the opposite sides of the hallway until we eventually stumbled into the living room. She pushed me down onto the couch and locked her legs around me.

  This was really going to happen, third time lucky! Finally my drought would come to an end. It had been a long drawn out process. My libido had been clinging to the lifeboat for months, drifting aimlessly out to deep, lonely, secluded waters. But not anymore. Tonight would be the night I would be rescued, drained of all bodily fluids and pulled to dry shores.

  Lucy was insatiable, grinding up and down against me. She moaned like a wild animal, while I could do nothing but make strange groans like a man desperate not to ejaculate while being dry humped to death. Her dry hump technique suddenly moved up a gear, and she got rougher as she took the pace up a notch. The friction was now starting to get a little too much for me so I pulled her down onto the sofa and got on top of her.

  She grabbed me and pulled me towards her and started to rub herself against me again. The sensation of jeans and underwear rubbing against my genitals was now starting to take its toll. I needed to take control. So I reached down and started to unzip the fly to her jeans. She grabbed my hand and whispered “stop” into my ear.

  “I just want to let you know,” she said between kisses. “Nothing is going to happen tonight.”

  What? What was this – some sort of sick game?

  “What do you mean?” I asked, trying to keep calm.

  “I don’t want you to think I’m the type of girl who sleeps with a guy on the first date.”

  Why would she say that? She had invited me back to her place. She practically molested me in the taxi ride home. She had given my penis friction burns, the scars of which may never heal. She had done everything to fill me with hope that she was exactly that type of girl.

  “I won’t think badly of you,” I said. “I promise,” and I took my chances to reach for her zipper again, only to be denied. Again.

  “Let’s take things slow,” she said sliding out from underneath me so we were now laying side by side. “Let’s just cuddle for a while.”

  Cuddle? Like the after sex cuddle? But with no friggin’sex? Men don’t like cuddling after sex at the best of times. After sex our work is done. If anything we would prefer no physical contact. And if you have come to the guys place and you are a one-night stand, don't ask us to call you a taxi either. Think yourself lucky that we are even pointing you in the direction of the bus stop. You should leave immediately after the sex is over. Preferably without stealing anything on the way out.

  Surely there had to be some sort of law about this sort of thing. Maybe I could take this to Parliament.

  Then I had a plan. I turned into Lucy so we were face-to-face and started kissing again. I edged closer and imitated my very own form of dry humping. She was into it, this was going well. Her moans started up again and slowly I reached my hand back towards the forbidden fruit.

  “Dan, I said no,” Lucy said slapping my hand away. She sat up and ran her hands through her hair. Maybe I could beg, would that work? I shook my head as I imagined an image of myself, homeless and holding a sign that read Will have sex for food. Begging for sex was never a good look for anyone.

  What I needed was a line. The type of line straight from the script of a romantic Hollywood blockbuster; a real heart-melter. I had to say something that all girls wanted to hear; something that would have her eating out the palm of my hand to rescue this situation.

  Then a moment of inspiration.

  “I’ve got to tell you, Lucy,” I started, stroking her face. “Looking into your eyes, I think you could be the first girl I fall in love with since I broke up with my ex.”

  And the Oscar goes to…

  “You think you might fall in love with me?” Lucy said. I proudly smiled back at her and nodded. “That is the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”

  Hey, I took a shot. Looking back it wasn’t the best line I could have used.

  “More ridiculous than inviting someone back and then not having sex with them?” I shot back.

  Again, probably not the smartest
thing I could have said but I was mad. I was even considering bypassing Parliament and taking my case to the European Court of Human Rights.

  “I think you had better leave,” Lucy said sitting up and buttoning up her blouse.

  “Fine by me,” I sat up ready to storm out of there, but realised I had a slight problem. The problem being I was still pitching a tent. “Can you give me five minutes?”

  Chapter 20: Shop Horror

  Friday, July 31 - 5.15pm

  Drought Clock: 210 days, 19 hours, 22 minutes

  “Daniel!” Dick bellowed across the office. “I need to see you and Kelly in here now.” It was 5.15pm on Friday afternoon. We had managed to avoid Dick for a whole week, so it was inevitable he would now attempt to ruin the start of our weekend.

  “What now?” I said to Kelly as we both made our way to Dick’s office. He was sitting at his desk holding a piece of paper in his hand. We closed the door and sat down.

  “Can someone tell me what this is?” he asked waving the piece of paper in his hand. “I’ve just seen that we are forecasting to miss budget again next month.”

  “We are trying to drum up some new prospects, but people are being very cautious at this time of the year and not spending,” I offered as an explanation. “If you look at the plan for quarter three, we are planning to make up the money when the market picks up.”

  Dick’s expression was blank. “That’s not it,” Dick informed us calmly. “The problem is you are not asking for the business. I was looking in your proposals folder and found the one you sent to Collins & Spackman Limited.” He just stared at me as the silence grew louder and louder.

  “Yes?” I finally asked.

  “It is rubbish. Every time you send a document like this to a client, you are hurting my brand,” he sat back in his chair, fingers linked behind his head in that annoying power pose of his. “You are hurting the Dick Moo-Cell brand.”

  Kelly and I quickly glanced at each other, both knowing what was coming next. Dick proceeded to tell us that we needed to be more inspirational. More dynamic. More like Dick Mussel.

  “You should be leading from the front. Let me show you,” he said as he excitedly arose from his chair and started to draw some sort of diagram on his white board. “What are they?” he asked pointing at what could only be described as a group of six match-stick men holding poles. We both stared at it blankly.

  “They are your competitors,” Dick finally informed us. “They are holding machine guns ready to shoot you down.” He then started to draw little bullets on the board. At the bottom of the drawing was a series of squares and two more matchstick men. “Who are they?” he said pointing at them.

  “Us?” Kelly said making a total guess.

  “Correct! That is you two down in the trenches taking on our competitors who are shooting at you from all angles.” He drew a few more bullets. “You guys need to come over the trenches and start attacking because otherwise you are going to get shot down.”

  “Okay, I think we understand,” I said in hope that he would let us leave the room so we didn’t have to witness any more of this excruciating and painful pep talk.

  “This is me.” He completely ignored me and drew a tank. “I’m at the back, making sure my soldiers are okay. I don’t want to come over the top to rescue this war, but I will if I have to.” He then took a red pen and started to draw what I presumed was blood on the two matchstick characters that represented Kelly and me. “But if you die, then I will do what I have to do.” He looked at us like he was waiting for a round of applause, and then back at the white board. “I’ve also got a fighter jet,” he said drawing an airplane on the board that fired bullets down at our competitors, plus further red pen to draw blood squirting from our enemy.

  “Guys, I know morale is low, but we have to win this war.” He put the top back on the pen and walked around his desk to us. “At the moment morale is so low, it is down here,” and he suddenly dropped and laid flat across his office floor. “But we need morale to be up here,” and he sprung to his feet and did some strange kind of star jump, reaching for the sky. “Do we understand what needs to be done?” he said drawing for breath.

  I didn’t have a clue, and I’m pretty sure Kelly didn’t either. But there was no way one of us was going to admit that and risk having to watch any more of his carry on. “We understand, Dick. We’ll get straight on to it Monday morning,” I told him.

  “Good. I’ll look forward to seeing some positive results next week.”

  We got up and left his office as quickly as we could, both trying not to laugh until we got back to our desks. “What the hell was that all about?” I said.

  “I have no idea and don’t want to even try to dissect what just happened in there,” Kelly said smiling. “I don’t know about you, but I could do with a drink after that.”

  “Good idea,” I replied.

  People were already escaping the office for the weekend, like buffalo stampeding for the door to escape the monotony of office life. Dick stood at his door watching as his empire disappeared for 48 hours, probably already scheming how he could make his minions lives even more unbearable next week. He took one final look and then disappeared back into the shadows of his lair.

  “Quick, let’s make a run for it now before Dick pulls us back in to his office to give us any more motivational speeches,” I said as I closed down my computer.

  “Or even worse – asks if he can come with us to the pub,” Kelly quipped.

  We made our way down to Bishopsgate – a hub of bars packed with city suits and people with more money than sense. Some of these guys were a real throwback to the Filofax brigade of the 80s and 90s. They had swapped their Filofax for a BlackBerry, but they still oozed that yuppie persona. A privileged education, but a complete lack of common sense. They drank champagne like it was lemonade and it would not be an unusual sight to see them stumbling around by 7pm, shirts half-untucked on one side and ties loosened, or in some cases being worn around their head like Rambo. Loyalty amongst some of these guys was practically non-existent, as it was not uncommon for a member of the group to be cut loose, and found staggering about alone in a nightclub in the early hours of the morning.

  We grabbed our drinks and found a spot to stand in the sea of bodies who were gathered around to celebrate the end of the working week.

  “So what are your plans for the weekend?” Kelly asked.

  “I’m thinking of having a bit of a chilled one,” I told her. “I could do with the break.”

  “Well, in that case, you can come shopping with me on Sunday,” Kelly said.

  “No way, I hate shopping.” I couldn’t think of a worse way to spend my Sunday.

  “Please, babe, it’s Paul’s birthday and I need help picking something out for him,” she pleaded, giving me those puppy dog eyes.

  “Don’t you have any girlfriends you can take with you?”

  “I would, but I could really do with a guy’s input and advice on this one.”

  The thought of having some female company where I didn’t feel under pressure to try and get inside her pants did appeal. My recent experiences with the opposite sex had been disastrous to say the least. It would be good to hang out with a girl I didn’t have to try and impress. It could help build my confidence up. Plus I had Rosalie coming over this Sunday to clean, and I had been trying to avoid her since the underwear incident.

  “Okay,” I finally gave in. “What time?”

  “Midday. I’ll meet you at Oxford Circus.”

  So there it was – I was committed to doing the one thing I hated more than anything in the world. I didn’t even like shopping for myself. When I had to go I treated it like a military operation. I know exactly what I want and where I can get it, and I am in and out as quickly as possible. Somehow I knew this would be different.

  *

  By Sunday morning, I was already starting to regret agreeing to meet Kelly. The previous day I had played 14 hours straight on a new footba
ll management game I had bought the previous week. It had taken me two hours just to get through pre-season as I had taken time to carefully organise my scouting strategy and had shrewdly delved into the transfer market. As a result, I had picked up a couple of real gems in Brazil and Argentina and was sitting second in the league after 22 games. At one point, I pretended to hold a news conference in my living room to discuss my upcoming top of the table clash against Manchester United.

  The thought had occurred to me to text Kelly and tell her that I was not feeling very well, but I didn’t want to let her down. Manchester United and the Premier League crown would have to wait for a few hours.

  I made my way to Oxford Circus via the Northern and Victoria Lines. The tubes were packed with tourists and couples heading into the hub of London’s shopping capital. I got off the Tube and the crowd dragged me up the escalators to street level. My phone beeped the second I stepped outside the tube entrance with a text from Kelly: Meet me in Top Shop xx. I groaned inside. Top Shop on Oxford Street has to be as close to hell on earth for men as you can possibly get.

  There should be warning signs for men at the entrance to let them know what they are about to let themselves in for. I took a deep breath and entered, scanning the place for the impossible task of finding Kelly. I made the plunge and started weaving in and out of the hundreds of women who had dragged their boyfriends or husbands out to go shopping.

  All the men have that same pathetic look of defeat on their faces as they trail behind their women like shadows, carrying their bags, and holding up items of clothes so the women can inspect them more closely. We all share a common bond, a common misery. We could be in the pub with our mates watching the football, which is what Sundays were created for. Shopping is not a sport, and we are never going to think of it that way.