Tel
Chapter 5
I was kind of in good spirits after my date with Victoria. A man’s mind works in mysterious ways so although I knew it had been a disaster (after all she had forgotten my name, had started planning for her next online victim half way through our date and I was left £54.35 plus tip out of pocket) I am a simple creature by heart and took great satisfaction in the fact that she actually went out of her way to ask for a kiss. Fair enough, it was conceivably the worst snog I’d ever had but that’s not the point. The point being that anytime a woman asks for a ‘kisseypoo’ it suggests there is something she finds reasonably attractive so my confidence was boosted no end as a consequence.
The burst of confidence was probably why, come Thursday evening of that week, I decided to send an email to the Compliance officer at work, informing them of the unscrupulous actions of several of my colleagues and suggesting an investigation needed to take place. I’ve never been the greatest writer in the world so I kept it to the point, edited for spelling mistakes before sending what I thought would be an unwelcomed but valued email nonetheless. It went like so:
Hello,
I am not entirely sure who to turn to within the company but, being from compliance, I hope you will be able to handle this situation with the utmost discretion and professionalism.
I have been at Clays for roughly two years now and for the last year or more I have noticed malpractice within the company which I deem severe enough to be reported to the FCA. I understand this will cause pain and embarrassment to the company but I feel it is my duty, and yours, to highlight such an issue.
I can go into the finer details when needed but the crux of the allegation lies with a number of senior management covering up reconciliation practices which do not entirely meet the standards set for our company. There are a number of client accounts which have not been reconciled correctly in many years, with certain members of management hiding this via the disposal of documents and the creation of false data. Even though we are audited on an annual basis, unless the auditor has an advanced knowledge of reconciliation, he/she would find it hard to spot the discrepancies, especially as they often look to Clays staff to help them explain the figures/practices, believing the majority of what they are told without question.
It is my belief that our customers are being unfairly treated and have a right to compensation which is why I would like to privately discuss this with you in more detail.
Kind regards,
Terence
It goes without saying that I quickly left the office after I had sent the email. Not because I was scared, I just didn’t have the energy to deal with it so late in the day so I rushed to the train hoping my phone wouldn’t ring demanding I return to explain myself.
The train journey home usually gave me a good excuse to stare blankly out of the window and reflect on life but after sending an email pointing an accusing finger at the people who paid my wages, I thought better of pondering what might be and instead occupied my mind by listening to this young thirty something bloke, in a shiny three piece grey suit, who was creepily schmoozing some poor women on the other end of the phone. I could tell it was a woman he was banging on to because he was visually salivating at the prospect of getting some action and was rooting around in his trouser pocket like there was a wasp down there.
“Yeah, I’m really happy at the minute. Everything is just so great,” he said, clearly the opposite.
“Did you know Scotland invented the bank note?” he asked, quite the Lothario.
“Did you know Scotland invented the decimal point?” he continued with his unparalleled knowledge of the Tartan country.
“Work? Oh well, I’m running this major project at the minute, where we’re selling new products alongside existing BAU products,” he continued, boring me half to death with his mind numbing chat.
I couldn’t help but wonder what type of girl was on the other end being so badly seduced. I pictured a woman in her prime, much to offer the world but scared of spinsterhood and loneliness and dreaming of how dishy and debonair this chap could be, wondering what their children would look like and whether or not he would cry when she walked down the aisle but all the while knowing, deep down, that she was fooling herself.
He was no doubt picturing her in her under-crackers and wondering whether or not she put out on the first date.
“Ha ha ha ha, you are sooo funny....well, I’m getting off at Dorridge; maybe I can come and help you with your shopping?” he boldly asked, which of course meant he wanted to help her with her knickers. Smarminess oozed from his every pore, a little like an Apprentice candidate.
I felt for the poor girl. She was on a slippery slope to a broken heart with this guy. I’m a bloke so I can recognise a scuzz bucket from a mile off. Ahead of her were a couple of weeks of flirting, a touch of romance and eventually unfulfilling but satisfactory sex; not love making, just sex. Then, the tide would turn and she would experience months of unanswered calls, spur of the moment late night texts and conversations with her friends about how he would say one thing but act the opposite before, predictably, he would find a moment to casually reveal they should just be friends, probably just after he’d had an orgasm and she’d convinced herself he was the one.
Some men are born to be scuzz buckets there’s no doubt about it. They purposely set out to mess with women’s minds or another man’s if that’s their taste but in the defence of men in general, it’s not ingrained in all of them to be so deceptive and hurtful. The majority of them don’t set out to mislead and cause suffering; it’s just that occasionally their groin dictates their behaviour. It’s a mentality passed down the generations, merely seeing something appealing and wanting it, desiring it, pining for it, with no thought to the future, merely the present.
On the other hand, rightly or wrongly, I’ve always been of the mind that most women consciously strive for a relationship, musing and hoping for the perfect bond between man and woman, spending many an hour dreaming of how it might emotionally come to fruition. Most men are unconsciously dragged into one, simply hoping for companionship without any thoughts of marriage, children and ‘life-long happiness’ but before they know it they find themselves in a relationship and have to make mature decisions which affect ‘us’ rather than ‘I’. It’s not that they’re being selfish or uncaring, it’s just that women, at any stage in life, have always been far more mature and level headed than men so they, most of the time, know what they want much sooner.
I knew the scum bag on the train, belting out his Scottish facts, wasn’t thinking a year ahead, three months ahead, hell, even a week ahead. He was living for the moment, hoping and believing his words would persuade this woman to give him a chance, any chance, to break down her defences and lead him to her Holy Grail.
I couldn’t listen to him though, it was just too painful to hear, knowing where they were headed so I moved further down the carriage to save myself the heartache and in doing so nearly had my scrotum decapitated by a Lycra clad cyclist’s handle bars as he pushed his way onto the train, eager to find a home for his bloody Brompton. I’m always getting chopped in two by cyclists in overly tight fitting outfits thinking they look like Chris Froome even though they have about 90% body fat.
It didn’t matter a great deal though, after all I had no use for my testicles at the time but I should have read the signs and realised my luck was going to be out that weekend. If I had done I may not have made several horrendous decisions over the duration of it but people often say hindsight is a wonderful thing and so it was that I travelled to Glasgow on the Friday, for my first ever stag do, excited and optimistic but naïve to the potential pitfalls of such a trip.