An Idiot in Love (a laugh out loud comedy) (26 page)

              As the week progressed and the date grew near, the apprehension return with bite. It worried me that I was going on a potentially one-sided blind date. I sought out Matthew’s advice to see if he could help me determine who she was, he didn’t have a clue but he did suggest I meet her and sleep with her.

              I waited for her outside the restaurant with a rapid heart. I tried to act casual, to lean back on a lamppost, foot up, eyes down, but I never could pull off cool and casual. I looked like a rapist on the prowl.

              I caught the eyes of a couple of beautiful women coming towards me on the street, and I prayed that she was one of them, that they had been there on the SpeedDate, that I had completely forgotten about them and now I was going to have a night to remember with one of them.

              When a taxi pulled up a few feet away and she climbed out, I remembered her instantly. She hadn’t slipped my memory at all. I even remembered her name.

              ‘Hey, Ashley,’ I said, putting on my best smile and walking towards her.

              She clambered out of the car with the decorum of a lemming. She paid the driver and then joined me on the pavement.

              She wore a long black dress, but not very well. It was loose around the shoulders, the straps slipped off repeatedly. It hung over her figure like an American Football uniform.

              Her eyes were as mesmerising as I had remembered, the brightest green I had ever seen, but the rest of her was also as I had remembered.

              She was far from attractive, and looked like a man in loose fitting drag. I didn’t want to let her sense my disappointment though, I felt guilty for thinking those thoughts about her, especially since I had agreed to go on the date. I knew I would just have to battle through, get to the end of the night and then calmly and politely brush her off.

              In the restaurant I drank my way through a bottle of wine before the main had even arrived. Ashley noted my thirst and didn’t seem to mind, she joined me and we got through another three bottles before dessert. It began as a way to get through the evening, but when the alcohol started flowing I began to enjoy myself.

              She was a little boring, tedious and awkward, but I was more than content to stare into her eyes and listen to her recall her life story. By the time the night was out, and I had drank a few bourbons to finish the meal, I had even convinced myself that she was an incredibly beautiful woman, who, now I had gotten to know her, was just the girl I was looking for.

              The rest of the night went by in a blur. The walk home, the kiss, the invitation inside, the sex. It all sped by in a drunken haze.

              The next morning I woke up in a strange bed, in a strange house. I was naked and clammy, thin bed sheets stuck to my body. Ashley was naked next to me.

              My head rang with a relentless ache. My breath was dry and smelled of stale wine and bourbon. My body also ached, partially from dehydration, but also from the deep scratches that Ashley had carved into my back the previous night, some of which had bled onto the cream sheets and were already healing into painful scabs.

              The events of the previous night began to flood back. I threw the sheets off my fatigued body and brushed my hands against my face to restore some vigour, removing the sleep that had wedged into my eyelashes and the corners of my eyes.

              The first memory to bite my fatigued, tender brain, was her voice: she had insisted on talking about everything, no matter how mundane, in every detail. It gave me a headache just remembering it. I had listened to and ignored more information about her then I could have ever hoped to hear.

              Then came the memories of the awkward, sloppy kissing: she had a way of using her tongue long before our lips met, like she was lubricating them in preparation. More than once I had taken a break to surreptitiously wipe my mouth on the back of my hand.

              Then the end of the night: after a stumbling walk home, hand in hand, arm in arm, there had been the violent, demanding, strange and aggressive sex. Not only did she scratch my back, claw my buttocks and play my stomach like a bass drum, but at some point she had forced her finger into my anus and then tried to get my to lick the contaminated appendage. Thankfully I hadn’t been that drunk, unfortunately I didn’t remember much more.

              I shivered at the flashbacks of what I remembered, and winced at the thoughts of what I didn’t. I turned to see Ashley lying next to me; she was snoring silently and making sporadic gurgling sounds. Her left hand was tucked under her cheek, her fingers and the pillowcase moist with drool.

              Then I remembered her leg.

              She had removed it during sex.

              I looked down at her body under the covers and sure enough her silhouetted form was short of a right leg, the imprint under the covers stopped halfway up the thigh. I saw the missing prosthetic limb on the floor, over by the other side of the bed.

              I clambered out of the bed. My clothes were on the other side as well, her side. I had stripped off completely; even my socks were discarded in the pile. That was Ashley’s doing, she had insisted I let her strip me completely when we had scrambled onto the bed.

              I tiptoed around the bottom of the bed, manoeuvring around the jutting mattress atop the solid wooden bed-stand. My foot creaked on a loose floorboard, I panicked and stood still.

              Ashley continued to snore, oblivious. Content, I ambled forwards carelessly. I jammed my toes against the bottom stand of the bed and screamed as the tiny digits parted against the wood construct.

              That was enough to wake her.             

              She looked at me with questioning morning eyes; beautiful green eyes, even more radiant in the first light of the day.

              ‘Where you going?’ She thrust herself up onto her elbows and glared at me. I expected a morning greeting, maybe some light questioning, but she was already in full accusative mode. This wasn’t the first time someone had run out on her.

              ‘I’m going home,’ I said honestly, too tired and dehydrated to lie.

              I made a move for my clothes, ignoring the throbbing pain in my toe, but she dived out of bed and grabbed them; bringing the bundle to her chest and pulling them back into the bed with her.

              I pulled myself back upright, the simple action tiring me out. ‘What you doing?’ I asked breathlessly.

              ‘You’re not going anywhere,’ she said defiantly, hugging my clothes like a child with a confiscated toy.

              I watched her eyes dip from my face to my naked body. She surveyed it quickly with a lustfully sly grin.

              ‘Look, last night was a mistake,’ I told her, ignoring the suggestive looks. ‘I hope I didn’t give you the wrong impression, but I don’t think this will work out.’

              ‘The wrong impression?’ she spat. ‘You mean when you fucked me?’

              ‘Well, yeah.’

              She made a loud groaning noise and then she shoved the clothes underneath the blanket. I could see the bulge over her stomach and leg.

              I sighed deeply and slumped my tired, aching head to my chest. I could see her clothes on the floor, clumped into a ball near where mine had been. A skimpy G-string and a long dress that would probably fit me better than it did her.             

              ‘Don’t you dare!’ she snapped, seeing my intentions. She swung out of the bed again, leaving my clothes nestled between her leg and stump. She picked up her dress and underwear and pulled them back to the bed with a pendulum swing.

              ‘What do you want from me?’ I wondered, arms out.

              ‘Come back to bed,’ she insisted.             

              ‘I told you--’

              ‘We can make it work. We just need to spend some more time together.’

              ‘But--’

              ‘You had a good time last night didn’t you?’ she asked.

              ‘Well yes, but--’

              ‘Then come back to bed.’

              I stared at her and thought about giving in. She did have the most mesmerising eyes--

              I couldn’t give in. I couldn’t let her eyes lure me like the song of a sickly siren.

              I saw her leg on the floor, discarded towards the far wall, out of reach of the bed. I waddled over to it and picked it up. ‘I’ll take this then,’ I told her, thrusting it angrily towards her.

              She shrugged apathetically.

              ‘You need it more than I need my clothes,’ I told her, waving it around triumphantly.

              ‘Nah. I’ll be fine,’ she said, trying some reverse psychology.

              ‘I’ll leave,’ I said. ‘And I’ll take it with me, then what?’

              She smiled. ‘Then you’ll be naked, carrying a prosthetic leg down the street. Are you that desperate to get away from me?’

              I thought about that for a moment. I
was
that desperate. I gave her an ultimatum: ‘Give me my clothes back or I walk out of here, and you never will.’

              ‘You don’t have the balls.’

              In the heat of the moment, feeling temperamental from the hangover and annoyed with the persistent woman in front of me, I felt like I didn’t have any other choice. I stormed out of the bedroom and out of the house, cradling the leg in my right arm.

              I heard her call after me, but I ignored her. I was angry, I was tired. I wanted to get home and sleep without the one-legged beast drooling next to me.

              I slipped on my shoes which had been left near the front door. The reality of my nakedness hit me when I stepped out into the street. A chill wind saturated the air and brushed across my flesh like a cold seductress.

              I stayed at the front door for a while, surveying my surroundings. She lived in a quiet slice of suburbia; semi-detached houses littered the street ahead. A high perimeter hedge obscured the views to the left and the right, stopping the next door neighbours from seeing my dangling humility.

              I was going to turn around, I had come to my senses and realised I didn’t want the world to see my bits blowing in the wind, but then I heard Ashley. She had hobbled out of bed and hopped to the bedroom window. She was shouting down at me.

              ‘You finished with your games yet?’ she called down. ‘I’m bored and horny, come back up here and fuck me.’

              I cringed, and shivered. It was difficult and traumatic sleeping with her drunk, there was no way I could manage it sober.

              I clambered onwards, waving my arms around in a marching walk. I slowed down at the head of the garden, giving her a clear view of my retreating cheeks as I opened the gate and disappeared into the street.

              I was happy to see that there was no one else in the street, but it crossed my mind that there was sure to be a lot of people between here and my house -- a good twenty minute walk through estates and busy roads.

              I hadn’t brought a mobile phone, and if I had I certainly wouldn’t have stored it in my anal cavity. If I did have a phone I could have called Matthew, who would have relished such a situation, but could have saved me from embarrassment.

              I walked on with my head down, not knowing where to go or what to do. I knew that the last thing I wanted to do was walk all the way home looking like this, but I walked on regardless.

              I passed a number of houses and saw curtains twitch out of the corner of my eye. I was using the prosthetic leg to preserve my dignity, but I doubted that would absolve the moment of any absurdity.

              I stopped. I turned around.

              I had left on an impulse, a moment of anger and desperation. That moment had passed in the cold, moist air. Now I felt ashamed and exposed.

              Ashley’s house was visible, but I had already walked a couple of hundred yards. I didn’t want to have to walk all the way back to her, not when the prize was having to face her again.

              Swallowing what little pride I had and ignoring all the voices in my head that screamed against it, I headed to the nearest house.

              It was an unorthodox method, but I was sure I could find someone to help me. Someone who would let me use their phone or give me something that would hide my nudity better than Ashley's leg.

              I knocked on the door, hung my head and waited. It was going to be awkward, but it had to be done. I had images of a small child answering the door and then their father beating me up and accusing me of paedophilia, but I pushed them to the back of my mind.

              I heard someone approaching the door. They fiddled with the lock. I heard the small device click.

              The door swung open. I slowly lifted my head.

              ‘Ally!’ I said merrily.

              The woman with the film star looks and the interchanging personalities was standing in the open doorway with an appalled and worried look on her face. Her eyes moved up and down over my naked body a few times, before settling on my face.

              She still had her hand on the doorframe; I saw her flesh squeeze as she gripped it hard, ready to swing it shut in my face.

              ‘I’m so glad to see you,’ I said, releasing all my anxieties in a long breath. ‘Can you give me a hand?’

              She looked down at the leg, I followed her eyes.

              ‘Or a leg,’ I added, laughing meekly. She didn’t look amused. ‘It’s okay, just ignore it.’ I stood the leg up by the side of the house; it fell over, apparently not used to standing without ten stone of human attached to it. I repositioned it steadily, it fell again; I ignored it. ‘I need your help,’ I told her.

              She tried to say something, but she was speechless. She cowered backwards, the door edged closer to the jamb.