Tel

  Chapter 7

  When I woke the next day it was two o’clock in the afternoon and preparations were already being made for a second night out. I can’t say I was overly delighted to be doing it all again, one night was plenty for me, but when in Rome and all that. Of course, I kept my previous night’s activities well under wraps; no one needed to know the gory details and I wasn’t intent on passing them on so when James quite crudely asked,

  “Did you smash it last night then Tel?”

  I replied, “Yeah of course I did.”

  And when he enquired, “How did you get the black eye?”

  I lied and told him, “I tripped.”

  It couldn’t be further from the truth but I wasn’t about to brag about the truth was I? Besides imagine if news got back to Jess that not only was I still a flop in the sack but I had become an excrement throwing flop in the sack. I’m sure any feelings she might have had for me would have soon disappeared on hearing such news.

  I decided to cleanse myself from the embarrassment of the previous night and have a thorough scrub in the shower. I figured that, at the very least, I’d caught a couple of diseases from Rocky so wanted to rid myself of them in order to prevent any permanent physical damage. However, whilst I was down there busy cleansing my dangly bits with supermarket own brand shower gel it occurred to me that I hadn’t checked my man eggs for rogue lumps in quite some time. I admit I didn’t regularly do it, very seldom if truth be told, but if I’d learnt anything from Loose Women, besides sexism, it was that I should really have a root around and look for suspicious bumps on quite a regular basis.

  Now, I’m not saying I found anything of note but it’s hard amongst all that saggy flesh. What women find attractive down there is a mystery to me, the two veg look a bit like my Grandmother’s face and, let’s be honest, what’s parked between them isn’t the prettiest thing in the world is it. It’s a bit like a cat fish just without the teeth. Anyway, it was quite intricate work which is why when James burst through the door and found me bent over with both hands fiddling around down there he automatically, and quite without justification I might add, presumed I was giving myself a mid-afternoon treat. Of course I wasn’t but as much as I protested, James was adamant and proceeded to call me Sir Tuggsalot. At first it was almost funny, men do enjoy a light ribbing of one another on occasion, but there can be overkill in anything and by the thirtieth time of James shouting Sir Tuggsalot at me it became tedious, particularly when he balled it across a group of girls in the pub later that night. I wouldn’t have minded normally, I wasn’t particularly keen to meet anyone after what I’d been through but I kind of got the impression he only did it to impress this girl he had got all pervy over.

  Not two minutes before she came to know me as Sir Tuggsalot, he had spotted her sitting at the bar, all serene and wonderful looking or so he thought anyway. I’m not sure the impact she had on him was totally justified but, gee whizz, did he bang on about her.

  She had this luscious long blonde hair, although I did question whether or not it was actually her own, and she was sort of beautiful but I couldn’t quite get a look at her real face because there was a lorry load of make-up on it. Her nose and ears weren’t, at first glance, in proportion but she did have these fantastic dimples that near enough knocked me off my stool. She wasn’t slutty but she was provocative all right; with a skin tight white top glued to her upper body and a flowery mini skirt which exposed smooth, toned legs. I’ll admit, my loins tingled for her ever so slightly but my loins tingled for most women back then. I was on quite a dry spell and, unlike James, certainly hadn’t had the luxury of humping Jess every night for the past few months so I reckoned he was in a better position to control himself than I was but I couldn’t have been more wrong in that respect.

  “Jesus wept, she’s sexy,” he drooled.

  Yes she was to a certain extent but, in my opinion, she wasn’t worth risking a relationship with Jess for. I would have gone all Van Gogh and chopped off my ear to be with Jess but there he was, having stolen her from me, now giving sex eyes to a stranger across a crowded bar. He could barely move he was so in awe of her. He was obsessed, he was fixated, a psycho some might say so I worried for the poor girl when he said,

  “I have to meet her Tel. I have to.”

  You know what he should have done? He should have left her well alone. Infidelity, in the long run, only leads to heartache and pain and if I was any kind of friend I would have walked him out the door and away from temptation but, I shamefully admit, I wanted him to pursue her. Knowing that ‘cheaters never prosper’, as my Mother liked to say, eventually something bad was bound to come of it. Oh, I know, it’s only a real low life who thinks like that but, if I’m honest about it, that’s exactly what I was when it came to Jess.

  “Yeah, maybe you should mate. She is gorgeous.” I said, like a conniving son-of-a-bitch.

  At the time I didn’t see it as manipulating the situation, rather giving James just enough rope to hang himself. It pains me to admit it because a real friend probably wouldn’t have encouraged him but I wasn’t thinking straight. Maybe I was still bitter about him and Jess. Maybe thoughts of her slender body in that blue shirt spurred me on and maybe I felt it was okay for me to feel that way because she was clearly the last person on his mind.

  “Listen Sir Tuggsalot…” he said about to ask for my help.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Jesus wept, sorry, sorry, I mean excuse me Terence, will you do me a huge favour Sir?” he asked, feigning a sarcastic posh accent again before returning to his dulcet Brummie tones for the request. “Will you be my wingman please? I know you’re not the best with women but could you try and keep her mates busy for me?”

  It wasn’t a glowing endorsement but I could see why someone like me, a bumbling buffoon, would be better than a perverted alternative like some of the other guys in our party. However, before I committed to anything, my conscience eventually got the better of me.

  “What about Jess though hey?”

  “Oh yeah, Jess,” he said, rolling his eyes, “how about we just forget about Jess for a minute and let me have some fun?” he almost pleaded. Clearly, their relationship was rockier than I imagined. There was hope for me yet.

  “You two okay?”

  “Let’s not talk about it? I’d much rather discuss our strategy for Dimples over there,” he declared, smiling as he did so.

  “Okay, fair enough.” I said. “I’m not too sure though, you know I’m terrible at this kind of thing,” I continued, suddenly feeling the pressure of waltzing up to strange women and trying to force a conversation out of them.

  “Jesus wept Tel, you’ll be fine. All you need to do is ask them a question or two, let them do the talking and try to look interested. Just keep the questions flowing. Besides, you scored last night didn’t you?”

  “Yeah, yeah of course,” I replied, not wanting to admit what actually happened. I shared a lot with James but there were some things I would always keep to myself, and being in love with his girlfriend and destroying a stranger’s bathroom window with faeces were just two of them.

  “Well then, you’re in the zone, you’re on fire, you’re ready to do damage. Just keep the ladies busy. Even you can’t screw that up right?”

  My guess was I could, quite easily really, but there was more in it for me than merely the opportunity for a second night of embarrassment.

  “Okay, okay, I’ll do it but don’t blame me if they walk off. You chose me remember, not the other way round,” I said as he nodded enthusiastically. “Do you want me to go in first or come in with you or…how do you want to play this?”

  He thought hard for ten seconds, stroking his chin as he did so. Clearly he was unsure how best to deploy my particular set of skills, deciding on a course of action which limited the potential damage I could do to his chances with Dimples.

  “I don’t want you to scare them off so
it’s best you don’t go in alone but I don’t want to be lumbered with her friends either so…let me get in first and position myself next to Dimples. You follow behind and get talking to The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and Big Bird from Sesame Street,” he said, referring to the pale skinned girl with a nose ring and tattoos and her tall friend with glasses.

  I knew the odds of getting consecutive nights of action were against me. I’d always been a once in every twelve months type of guy so it would be just my luck that one of them had a boyfriend which I would find out by the six foot three, sixteen stone rugby playing brute tapping me on the shoulder and rocketing a fist in my chops.

  A sudden bout of nerves gripped my whole body. I tried to be as cool and nonchalant as I possibly could but as the nerves kicked in and I became all flustered I somehow developed this gangster limp and strolled up to them as if was Al Capone.

  “Hi girls,” James said confidently. The three girls politely replied in unison with a sceptical smile.

  “Hi,” I said following him as a bead of sweat dripped from my armpit.

  I waited for James to say something else but he had already directed his attention to Dimples and had his back turned to me, engulfing her in his snake like behaviour. She started laughing before I’d even got my second word out.

  “Hi,” I repeated somewhat moronically. The two girls gave each other a glance, wondering who the idiot was they’d been lumbered with.

  I must have been getting awfully anxious because I suddenly began sweating like a burglar on the run. It was hard enough getting women to be interested in me at the best of times but trying to do it whilst my arms were dripping with perspiration was an even bigger challenge. It’s a psychological problem, there’s no doubt about it, but once those pits start pouring there’s not much I can do because it’s all I think about. Do they smell? Is my shirt soaked through? Can people see? How bad is it really? Oh, it’s a disease alright, one I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy, even those bastards down at Clays. The pits go first, then it’s the forehead, then the back and before I know it my groin is swimming in fluid. It really is a jungle of sweaty trouble but the only way out of it is to battle with the mind.

  Admittedly, hand dryers do temporarily help, I’ve lost count of the times I’ve walked into the men’s toilets and caught a bloke with his arms thrust to the sky and pits firmly planted under the dryer but I had promised James I would be his wingman and if I sauntered off to the dryers without even starting a conversation with the girls, I risked the chance of possible hell not breaking loose between him and Jess. I’d also look like a first class lunatic.

  “I’m Terence I said,” although I didn’t offer my hand to shake, leaving it rigidly at my side. It was damper than the drinks they were holding so I wasn’t about to swamp them in my salty fluids. I refused to budge even when Big Bird offered hers and said,

  “Pleased to meet you,” before withdrawing her hand, looking hurt but slightly concerned at the same time. I guess when a guy approaches you in a bar you don’t expect him to be manically perspiring and rude as hell to boot.

  “So, are you girls having a good night?” I asked, eager to get the questions underway and not seem like a serial killer.

  “It was okay,” replied The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo unimpressed by my company.

  “Great, great,” I said, wiping sweat from my forehead. “That’s just great. Say, what do you girls do for a living?” I asked looking in Big Bird’s direction.

  “I’m a Trainee Architect and…”

  “I’m a talk show host” interrupted The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo. I didn’t believe her, probably because of the shocked look on Big Bird’s face but I wasn’t about to start calling her a liar. Big Bird was clearly the nicer of the two but I felt a sad need to impress The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo even though I knew talking to her, in the mood she was in, would only result in a sweaty disaster.

  “Oh really, is that right? Who do you work for?” I continued, walking into a sarcastic response.

  “Talk show TV. In fact, we were just discussing the next show weren’t we?” she said, looking at her perplexed friend for acknowledgment, who nodded half-heartedly, not knowing what the hell was happening. “It’s about men actually,” she continued. I got a feeling of impending doom and a trickle of sweat ran from my back into my butt cheeks.

  “This doesn’t sound good,” I said and meant it.

  “We think a popular topic could be why random men try to chat to girls in bars when they haven’t been invited to.”

  “Oh,” I said understanding clearly what she was implying.

  “Yes, we think we could get a hell of a lot of mileage out of it because, let’s face it, so many of them think it’s their god given right to interrupt women who, might I add, are perfectly happy in their own company but the men feel like they’re some kind of white knight waltzing over with their funny walks, sweaty foreheads and cringe worthy chat up lines in the hope the women will drop everything and fall to their knees right there and then.”

  “Yep, that’s men for you,” I replied cunningly, trying to inject some humour into the conversation. Big Bird laughed but The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo refused to crack a smile. I was pretty sure she despised men and had, at one time or another, been found chained to the gates of The Houses of Parliament, screaming for women’s equality or the right to wear trousers in the work place or anything else which gave her the opportunity to argue with the opposite sex.

  “I’m sorry about her,” said Big Bird, “she can be a little grumpy sometimes.”

  “Oh that’s fine, I really don’t mind,” I replied, lying.

  “Have you got a problem?” said The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Are you ill or something,” she continued, pointing at my face, “You’re sweating a lot.” She wasn’t asking in sympathy, more of a way to embarrass me, which unfortunately worked very well indeed.

  “I…., am I? I hadn’t noticed,” I replied placing my drink to my brow in a vain attempt to cool it down.

  The Girl with the Dragoon Tattoo guffed with sarcasm before saying, “Yes of course you hadn’t.”

  By then, James was practically dry humping Dimples off her chair so I felt my duties had been done and I was free to go and dry out in the toilet. I told Big Bird it was nice to meet her but ignored the other one, not feeling the need to thank her for her cold hearted callous comments. She was full of hatred but I guessed it was for men in general so I didn’t worry too much. It was a shame though because underneath all that bitterness and piercings she could have been a very attractive young lady; in with a chance of catching a glimpse at little Terence but what was her loss had now become my imagination’s gain.

  In certain pressurised situations I have always been a fairly nervous character so sweating was not a new thing for me but it doesn’t particularly endear you to onlookers when it kicks in. No one wants to see a guy riddled with sweat, no matter what the situation. It’s unpleasant to see a sportsman interviewed after a game, salty water oozing from his pours, so to witness it in a social setting has to be rather repulsive. I couldn’t help it though. I knew it wasn’t natural but just speaking to Big Bird and The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had turned me into a human water bomb and left me barging my way through a room full of people, leaving a trail of perspiration in my wake, desperately trying to make it to the toilet. Moisture was flying in all directions, down women’s backless dresses, across their tanned legs, in their eyes, forcing them to recoil in a disgusted horror. It was horrific, well at least it was in my mind. In reality, it probably wasn’t that bad but when you’re self-conscious you believe all kinds of damage are being caused by your insecurities.

  When I did make it to the haven of the toilet cubicle I briefly calmed the abundant hidrosis but I was still pretty damp and my boxers were like swimming trunks so I had to pass the time by reading the graffiti on the wall.
I could have put an end to my weekend’s misery by ringing Chrissy for a good time but I wasn’t sure if Chrissy was male or female so I stayed put and played noughts and crosses on the toilet door instead, that is until the toilet attendant started banging on it and demanding how long I would be. I’d only been in the damn thing five minutes but he deemed it far too long for such palatial surroundings so I left without giving him any money for the paper towel he thrust into my hands after I’d washed them. He also offered me some Eastern European air freshener which he tried to pass off as Lynx Africa but I didn’t want a pit rash to go with my damp patches so declined his generous offer.

  Making my way back to the bar, after what I can now only describe as a panic attack, I passed James hand in hand with Dimples, overdosing on sexual tension. He gave me this dirty rat wink before lowering his voice and saying,

  “I’m off Tel. Do me a favour and stay away from the room for a few hours?”

  I didn’t need to ask why. Dimples was about to be romantically seduced back at a dishevelled and smelly guest house but by the manner in which she eyed his crotch like a stick of chorizo I’m sure she didn’t care too much where she was seduced although you never really do know where you stand with women if truth be told. I asked him that he at least let me back in by two in the morning, I’d had my fill of Glasgow’s night life for one weekend and although he passionately agreed to my demands, I had a sneaky suspicion I would be sleeping on the hallway sofa for the night. The opportunity for an unbridled, no holds barred, illicit bounce clearly appealed to him and if he was going to cheat on Jess, I knew he would make the most of it.

  Some people might say I should have discouraged him but I wasn’t a model best friend, not when I got goose bumps every time I thought of his girlfriend and wanted him to get caught just so I had the opportunity to mend her broken heart. Thus I waved them on and wished them all the best for their night of debauchery.

  By the time I’d scrambled through a maze of drunken, horny revellers and made my way back to the rest of the group I was pretty done in to be honest. I know, I know, men of a young age should be virile, eager to party and capable of forty-eight hours without sleep, surviving on red bull and large quantities of alcohol but not everyone can have the staying power of a dog. I’d pretty much reached my limit and I wasn’t ashamed to say it. After all, I’d suffered a traumatic experience the night before at the hands of a woman who would put the heeby jeebies into Russell Brand. Less than a day later I’d lost about three stone in sweat as a man hating, Emily Pankhurst loving Goth had bullied me into a toilet cubicle in a panicked state of despair. If you add in the mental torture of sending James off on an adulterous session with my blessing, I thought I was more than worthy of calling it a night but James had the room key and, by then, was on his way to bursting through it with one hand on Dimples bra strap and the other on his belt. I bet that scum bag could undo a bra strap with one hand as well. There would be no bra around the waist issues for that adulterous letch. Sexual deviants never struggle with bras.

  What I did next was stupid. In fact, it was down-right idiotic, after all I had no intention of being friends with her, let alone anything more but I was bored, half cut and a touch lonely if truth be told so I got my phone out and text Victoria.

  I didn’t expect a reply. It’s fair to say we hadn’t started out like Romeo and Juliet but she did say, after she’d pounced on my larynx and covered me in clay, that I should get in touch if I ever felt the need to and that night I felt the need to so I blasted out a text as I stood at the bar, beer in hand, listening to Webber’s Best Man tell him that, as it was his stag, he had a divine right to sleep with any girl he wanted to just one last time.

  Hi Victoria, it’s Tel. I thought I’d just say hi and see how you were doing?

  The Best Man didn’t give a shit about love and marital happiness, you could tell all he wanted was someone, anyone, to do something they shouldn’t, which is why he was whispering into Webber’s ear and pointing at some long legged brunette in the process. I might have stepped in and said something if a) I had been brave enough and b) my phone hadn’t vibrated in my pocket.

  Hello Tel! Soooo great 2 hr from u. What r u up 2 hun? I’m just out wit da girlies, shakin my thang!

  I kind of despised her more when she replied with that, enough to maybe have even punched her in the arm if she had been stood in front of me, such was my loathing of her general personality, despite the fact I wasn’t the kind of guy to hit women. I didn’t loath her enough not to reply though because, like I said, I was feeling kind of lonely and frisky all of a sudden and, at the end of the day, I was still a man.

  That must be a sight! Are u in brum? I’m in Glasgow on a stag do. Little bit drunk to tell you the truth…

  & u think of me when you’re drunk? Ur a naughty boy aren’t u?

  I must admit my nether regions started tingling when she sent that. She’d clearly realised I wasn’t texting to catch up on how her latest www.getmehitched.com experience had been. She clearly knew this was my attempt at a booty call from three hundred miles away but, all the same, I never expected her to be so forward. I’d popped my cherry some years ago but I was still a virgin when it came to sex texting.

  Sometimes. Sometimes I’m very naughty.

  Ooh, I didnt realise u were so dangerous tel.Maybe we shud hav a 2nd date???

  Well, I didn’t really want a second date if truth be told. I was horny yes but a second date wasn’t something I was intrigued by. I wasn’t entirely sure what I wanted to be honest, blokes tend to do the silliest things when they’re drunk and horny, but what I did know is that I didn’t want a second date. I could barely stomach the girl, let alone be dragged back to the The Cock at Wishore to pay £54.35 for hand reared lettuce leaves whilst she Facebooked her old man.

  Maybe…or maybe we should just skip the date…

  To Victoria, I guess to any woman really, it probably seemed like I wanted to have sex with her but, in all honesty, I didn’t. I just liked the fact she believed that I did and wanted it in return which is why I kept sending provocative text after provocative text.

  Hmmm, straight 2 the point. I like ur style Telly. What wud u want 2 do instead?

  The trouble with sex texting Victoria was that every time she sent a text she wrote something which made my skin crawl a bit. No one called me Telly, not even my mother who, by the very fact she brought me into the world, had a divine right to call me anything she wanted. Still, I could barely ask Victoria to put a sock in it just when things were heating up so nicely.

  Maybe a date in the bedroom would be more appropriate vix…en.

  I was trying to be clever playing around with her name but she wouldn’t have understood what I was getting at, not with her IQ.

  I could kiss ur ittle snake with my naughty mouth…

  I was pretty sure she meant oral sex. In fact, I knew that’s what she was referring to but why didn’t she just say that rather than text like a three year old. I felt more like a paedophile than a porn star when she sent that one.

  You could. That would be nice. I could…caress your breasts.

  Just caress them? Why don’t u bighty wighty them?

  I wondered whether, on our date, I had given the impression that I liked being talked to like a toddler still in diapers. I was pretty certain that at no point I had portrayed a liking for baby chat, especially when sex texts were being exchanged, but Victoria seemed to think otherwise. She must have been determined to put a stop to any chance of a stiffy.

  Yes, I will bite them…hard.

  Not too hard I hope, just tickly them with ur tongy.

  OK, sorry. I will tickle them with my tongue b4 thrusting my big dick in ur face!

  You can imagine that the last text kind of halted proceedings. I knew, almost immediately, she wasn’t into having a penis thrust in her eyeballs but I had sent it anyway, partly because I was sick to death of being spoken to like a three year old sex addi
ct and partly because I didn’t have the first idea of what I was doing. For all I knew it could have all been a game to her; sitting around with her pals laughing her socks but when you’re drunk, shame doesn’t come to the forefront of your mind.

  Maybe we shud continue this sum other time telly. Love ya. Vix x x

  Oh that’s a shame, sorry. I think I overstepped the mark. Will get in touch soon to arrange something. x

  I had no intention of arranging anything. I didn’t want to see her again, I didn’t even think it was a shame that our texts had stopped, I was just your typical lonely young man, which was a shame because I was like everyone else in believing I was different, that there was nothing typical about me but really I was no more special than the next guy. Still, sexting Victoria, if you can call it that, passed the time. Sadly, it didn’t stop me being dragged off to a lap dancing club, which cost £20 just to walk through the door but at least I got to see The Best Man throw three hundred quid at some stripper called Heavenly who thrust her fangita in his face and promised to do all kinds of nasty things to him until his money ran dry and she moved on to the next mug, leaving him to be thrown out for playing with himself in the toilets.

  I guess, if you look hard enough, there are positives to take out of any situation.