by Nicola May
‘Well just listen to you. Flattery will get you everywhere!’
‘So, Declan, how long have you been on the shelf, I mean books for?’
I laughed and leaned forward, ensuring that as much cleavage as possible was showing without falling out of my push up bra. I was behaving like a harlot and enjoying every single minute of it.
‘Actually, you are my first encounter, and wow, what an encounter!’ Declan smiled.
When I had gulped back my fourth large spirit and Declan had brushed his hand over my thigh three times, I realised that I would not be returning to 21 Layston Gardens and Penelope the cat tonight.
‘Now what did you say your name was again?’ Declan teased. I laughed thinking how funny he was. ‘Amy Jane Anderson at your service sir, and is there anything else at all you might want to find out about me this evening?’
That was it – harlot status confirmed. ‘The Rules’ had flown completely out of the window. Retain a bit of mystery. I might as well have been undressing there and then in the hotel lobby, whilst licking his face. I was smouldering, I just had to rip this man’s clothes off. I didn’t however want him to know how drunk I was. It’s bad enough being a harlot, but a drunken one is even worse. I tried desperately to maintain my sobriety.
‘It would be interesting to see if you like room service as much as I do, Ms Anderson.’
I excused myself and went to the toilet to check out my face. Make-up intact, no dribbles down my top, fantastic. In fact, I was positively glowing. Making sure the other cubicles were empty I quickly sussed out the condom machine and strutted back to the bar, baby stoppers in bag! Just in case, I thought to myself, returning to innocence for a nano-second. I could imagine Liv saying, ‘What? Just in case his run out?’
Thank heaven I had shaved my legs and put on my sexiest G-string.
Declan tasted as good as he looked when he pulled me to him in the lift and confirmed that it wasn’t only his eyes that were big. It was the hardest, most passionate kiss I had ever experienced in my life. His tongue found mine and I forgot where I was for a minute, until ding! In walked a very sedate middle-aged couple who both frowned intently.
We ran laughing to Room 301. Declan slammed the door shut and pushed me against it. Our breathing was loud and hard and I could already feel the wetness between my legs. I had never experienced the ‘ripping your clothes off’ sort of scenario that was happening right now, and I was lost in the moment totally. Even the mere touch of my breast made me moan out loud.
Declan had a broad and muscular back. I love backs and just had to massage him. He had a small shamrock tattoo on his left shoulder and pecs to die for. I sat astride him and massaged his back tenderly at first and then quite hard, making sure my breasts rubbed against him as I went back and forward.
‘Amy, I have to have you now,’ he whispered.
After what seemed like hours of rising and falling to the beat of Declan’s amazing love-making we lay on the bed, sweating, red-faced and bright-eyed. I reached over to hold Declan’s hand. ‘Maybe this dating agency lark does work after all, you Irish beast.’
‘Maybe it does, Ms Anderson. Now what would you like for dessert?’
I lay back and smiled a huge smile of pure satisfaction and happiness. Whatever, whoever, there was no doubt that Geminis did it for me in the bedroom department.
We slept for what seemed like minutes. I woke up and looked across at Declan. He was the best-looking creature I had ever woken up next to.
‘I have to see you again – you know that, don’t you?’ I whispered
‘Amy, you know sometimes you can just get too much of a good thing.’
‘What’s that’s supposed to mean?’ Please, please don’t let him be a complete bastard. I had to see him again; he was too delicious not to.
‘I’m winding you up, you beautiful personage. Of course I want to see you again.
Let’s keep it mysterious though, no numbers exchanged – let’s get our person at the agency to set up another date. It will make it all the more sexy.’
I had been looking for this sort of excitement for ages. It was like all my birthdays and Christmases coming at once.
Declan was in a hurry to leave and gave me cash to pay for the room. Without looking up, the receptionist in robotic fashion asked. ‘Name? Room number?’
I replied without thinking. ‘Anderson, 301’
The receptionist seemed to wake up then. ‘Is your name Amy Anderson?’
‘Yes, that’s me.’
‘I have a message here for you, left late last night. We called out for you in reception but you were nowhere to be seen.’
Declan waved and blew me a kiss as he walked through the revolving door. I laughed and blew one back.
‘A message?’ I asked.
‘Yes. A Mr O’Shea called. He apologised profusely for the fact that his flight was delayed and said he would get Mr Starr to rearrange your appointment as soon as possible.’
– Nine –
Pisces: The letter D spells danger. Single? Hard as it may seem, try to use your head instead of your heart today in a romantic situation.
I arrived home. My head was spinning. The mystery of the whole event even outweighed the huge hangover I had.
Who an earth had I just slept with?
I thought back to our initial conversation and realised that I had done all the talking and had opened myself up to a complete stranger. This was dangerous. Or was it? The dating game was one of the complete unknown initially anyway. And I did not regret sleeping with this person, whoever he was. We were both consenting adults. I am neither a slut nor a prude, but sometimes you know when the deed has to be done and lawdy Miz Claudy, it just had to be done last night!
‘D for danger’ in my horoscope – what a load of rubbish. Darling, debonair, dishy, delectable Declan! Dangerous? Never!
‘Cordelia, it’s Amy Anderson here.’
‘Oh, morning, dear. Christopher was just about to call you to apologise for the Declan mishap. He is still very, very keen to meet you.’
‘Er, right. OK.’
‘Are you all right Amy? You seem a little hesitant. It really was a genuine reason he couldn’t meet you; his flight was delayed.’
‘I’m fine honestly, thanks, Cordelia. Could we maybe leave it until next Friday now, as I’m really quite busy at the moment? Oh and could you resend me a photo of Declan I appear to have lost the other one?’
‘Of course. Oh and by the way – Laurence Smith-Bouchier phoned. He’d love to take you for dinner again.’
Good grief. This was all getting slightly out of control. Going from the company of Penelope the cat for a whole year and now to the company of half of southern England and Ireland was quite overwhelming.
‘I’ll call you back re Laurence. Thanks Cordelia,’ I replied politely.
The man must be completely mad, I thought. I ran out on him and he still wanted to see me. A bloke with no self-respect – how novel!
Even more disturbing was the fact that Cordelia had not annoyed me once throughout the phone conversation. I too must be going slightly deranged! It was then that it hit me: I would probably never see the false Declan O’Shea again. This should have felt like a good thing in a way, as he was obviously a complete charlatan who had used me with no compunction. But my low self-esteem, which rose and fell on a regular basis, suddenly perked up again. He had obviously liked me – a lot. My loins were doing the thinking for me. The false Declan O’Shea was gorgeous and he had made me laugh. He had also made me orgasm in seven different languages. I had to see him again – but how?
– Ten –
Pisces: The new moon in Aquarius spells fun today. Take the time to catch up with some old friends.
‘Oh my God, sweetie, I just saw six of the little darlings poking their heads up at me.’
Brad shrieked with a white mask over his mouth.
‘Where? Where? I thought they were all dead.’
‘You’ve fri
ghtened them now.’
Brad and I were in my garden checking out the frogs in my pond, he looking like an extra from Holby City I love my house, especially my garden. It is a two-bedroom Victorian terrace and I have at last decorated every single room. It has a little square courtyard area with an archway of honeysuckle leading to a ten-foot strip of grass with rose borders each side and then further on is ‘The Pond’.
I had always wanted a pond. I was so excited when I first viewed the house and saw the pond from the upstairs bedroom window that I squealed, jumped up and down and then kissed the estate agent full on the lips. Which wouldn’t have been so bad apart from the fact that the estate agent was a sixty-year-old she, with a moustache.
Every year, the frogs carried out their mating ritual (watched over eagerly by me and Penelope), leaving behind their tiny black dots of babies in the hazy clouds of spawn that decorated the secret green surface of my pond. My ritual every morning after breakfast was to run down the garden to my pond to see the progress of my babies. They were defying all of my childhood knowledge of tadpole development in the fact that they were refusing to grow. I was so concerned that I had been feeding them raw minced steak. This resulted in the pond turning into a stinking shrine to my frog family.
It has also resulted in Penelope sitting on the edge of the pond sneering at me with jealousy for making such a fuss over pondlife. If it hadn’t have stunk so much I’m sure that he would have just dived in and eaten them all despite his fear of water. Penelope was a huge part of my life. His connection to James Crook was the only low point, as in one of the few romantic moments in our time together James had bought me Penelope as a birthday present.
Yes, Penelope is actually a tom. I was both delighted and disappointed when I went to the vets to pay the bill for what I thought was tubes being cut and was informed by a very young snooty female vet that. ‘Ms Anderson, your pet is actually a male and I have removed his testicles.’
Delighted, because the bill was quite a bit cheaper! Sad because I knew that Penelope would be confused for ever as I couldn’t change his name: it really suited him. Well, I did consider it momentarily, but couldn’t think of a male equivalent of anything that sounded remotely like Penelope.
Living with me, Penelope has heard more swearing, more heart rending stories, and licked off more tears than anyone else I know. In fact, I’m sure I once heard him squeak, ‘Shut up!’
I say squeak because he had a nasty accident as a kitten which destroyed his miaow box. I used to live in a one-bedroom flat that had a hot water system that was put in before they were officially invented, I reckon. I used to be able to make a reasonable cup of tea from the hot tap, it was so boiling. One day I went off to work one day and Anna, having stayed over night on my collapsing sofa bed, decided she’d have a nice long bath before she went home. The water came out of the bath taps so slowly that a bath took an hour to run which was actually quite handy because by the time you were ready to get into it, the water had cooled to exactly the right temperature. If you needed to top up you had to make sure your toes were well out of the way and I used my largest rubber duck to swirl the hot water all around.
Penelope, a mere eight weeks old, being a typical inquisitive kitten decided to check out the huge ‘swimming pool’ in the bathroom. Anna, patiently waiting for the bath to fill, feet up on the sofa bed reading a magazine, suddenly heard what she described later as a child screaming in my bathroom.
Penelope had done the unthinkable – taken a dive into two inches of boiling water. He was immediately rushed to the vet, with scalds on all paws and an affected mew box. I don’t know who looked more terrible when I got in, Anna or Penelope.
Ruminating sadly on all this, I suddenly heard a familiar slipper-shuffling noise from next door. A quavering voice called out, ‘Gloria? Gloria, is that you?’
Smiling, I mouthed a big ‘Oh No’ to Brad. ‘Yes. Hello, Jed, everything OK?’ I shouted.
Jed was my neighbour. He was eighty-two and going more deaf by the day. Ever since I had moved in he had called me Gloria. I had tried to correct him on several occasions and he had done his familiar slow nod, which only mildly disturbed the cigarette that was stuck permanently to his bottom lip, as if he had understood. However, the next day he would always say, ‘Morning, Gloria,’ as I did my pond dash after breakfast.
He also always said: ‘Rain today, I reckon.’
And I always replied, ‘Let’s hope not, Jed.’
That was the basis of our neighbourly relationship. However, today he excelled himself, maybe because it was a Saturday.
‘Morning Gloria. Rain today, I reckon?’
‘Let’s hope not, Jed.’
I had to hit Brad, as he was hysterical. For some reason Jed’s mere presence just cracked him up and then suddenly there was a cough, another shuffle and amazingly, more words.
‘Blimey, Gloria, that pond don’t half stink!’
I then was holding back my laughter. ‘You’re right there, Jed but Brad has offered to clean it out, so hopefully tomorrow we shall have fresh air again.’
With another shuffle and a snort he disappeared inside number 19.
‘Clean your pond out? You’ll be lucky.’
‘Oh Brad please, I’ll help you.’
‘But it’s a boys job,’ he whinged.
Eventually deciding that we needed expert advice before we went ahead with the awful mission of cleaning out the pond, we proceeded inside for a bottle of dry white. After a couple of glasses Brad suddenly announced ‘I know! Amy Anderson, can’t sing, eats like a horse, will strip for a packet of jelly babies!
That might get you a few more suitors.’
Laughing wildly we carried on along the same theme.
‘Brad Sampson, trainspotter, likes cabbage, can fart the national anthem’.
‘Amy Anderson, can’t cook, closet lesbian, used to be shot-putter from Cardiff’.
‘Brad Sampson, face like a smacked arse, likes pressed flowers and puppies in curries!’ That is so enough! I’m going to wet myself,’ I shouted as I rushed upstairs to the loo. Why couldn’t I meet someone as funny as Brad, I thought, and then the phone rang.
‘Amy?’
‘Yes, who’s that?’
‘It’s Carl.’
‘Carl? Oh hi there. Sorry, I was miles away. You’re my Piscean – sorry again, I mean you’re my date for Saturday. Christopher did mention you were going to call.’
‘Yeah cool. Well, I hope you don’t mind me phoning, Chris said it would be OK. He’s such a dude, don’t you think?’
‘He’s OK, I s’pose.’ I had given my mobile number to Chris for him to give out to prospective dates as I figured I could screen calls more easily that way.
‘I’ve been invited to a wedding last minute like, and rather than see you in the evening as I had originally thought, I wondered if you’d like to come along with me as my guest for the whole day?’
‘That would be really nice, Carl.’
‘Cool. See you Saturday then, babe.’
‘Wait a sec, where shall we meet?’
‘Oh yeah, the wedding’s in Windsor – can you make it there? How about we meet in the reception of the Royal Hotel at around eleven a.m.?
‘Fine by me, see you then.’
‘Yeah, see you, babe. Looking forward to it.’
I had to let H know. ‘H?’
‘Hi hon, what’s happening? Any news I should know about?’
‘Just spoken to the new contender. Cordelia has sent his photo through. He’s Spanish-looking with longish dark hair and surprisingly dark eyes. Pisceans tend to have light eyes – must be the Spanish connection. Anyway, he sounded like he was very laid back so we shall see. He’s taking me to a wedding on Saturday.’
‘A wedding!’ H shrieked. ‘Oh my God, how exciting, how romantic! Oh my God, and he’s Piscean – that means he will be romantic too, and you know what they say about weddings.’
‘H, calm down, love. Impressed you
’ve been reading up on the old star signs though.’
‘You know it will evoke all sorts of lustful feelings, you’re bound to shag him. Oh, and as for the reading up on stars bit I should know what Pisceans are like. I’ve been friends with the daftest one in the world for a few years, you know!’
‘H!’ I was now giggling too.
‘Could do with a bit of a clinch with a Spanish stallion myself. I’m really excited for you,’ she said matily.
‘Poor Horace, what he has to put up with. I’d best go and sort an outfit. Will you be free to dress me on Saturday?’
‘Sure I will. Talk soon.’
‘Seeya.’
‘I don’t know why you don’t stick that phone to your bloody ear, sweetie.’
‘Shut it, Brad. You’ll have to go. I’m going to The Oracle Centre to find an outfit for this wedding.’
‘Shopping, sweetie? Count me in. Let’s go.’
‘See you later, Pen.’
‘I’m sure your cat just said ‘shit off, bitch’.’
‘Brad! Come on!’
The phone rang. ‘Amy, it’s Christopher here. Just wanted to check that Carl had called you?’
‘Yes, he sounds nice actually. Well, apart from the fact he called me babe.’
‘He’s the one I mentioned on our first meeting – I thought you’d get along with him really well, so go for it, girl.’
I was never sure if Christopher was genuinely concerned or whether he got some sort of bonus if a date actually went well.
‘Oh, and Declan is still keen to meet up with you next Friday,’ he added.
‘OK, Friday it is for Declan and Saturday for Carl. Better to squeeze Declan in before Carl, I guess as if you think Carl’s the man for me, it might be my last fling!’
Joking aside, this whole date business was becoming quite exhausting. I did want to meet up with the real Declan, but I knew somehow that he wouldn’t live up to my experience in the hotel, so something in me was putting it off. I kept having rose-tinted daydreams that I would bump into the false Declan and we’d make mad passionate love again and he’d realise that I was the woman of his dreams.