‘If anyone askes we met in a bar… If you’re looking for a stay at home wife who f**ks like a pornstar and cooks like Mary Berry probably give up now. If you’re intrigued by the idea of taking out a slightly dysfunctional creative genius you may just be in luck. Bit too classy for one night stands but not looking for a live in boyfriend either (far too in love with my own bed)
Big fan of gin, banter, gourmet burgers and The Smiths.
Find me in the queue for Greggs battling it out for the last sausage roll…
After several failed attempts and looking for love in the wrong places,that became the blurb on my internet dating profile.
I’d soon begun to realise that practically all men are either taken, rebounding or complete and utter sex pests. A tragic fact that was playing havoc not only with me but all my single friends alike. I had become part of a community of single girls all at different points in life but on the universal wave length that being a solo woman in the gauntlet of modern dating where technology made everything hopelessly confusing was a tough, tough existence.
But the difference here was that I didn’t deserve a relationship, not because I am a bad person or a cheating slut bag, but because I was on my own rebound from life and no one could save me other than myself. In fact you could say I’d successfully managed to sleep through summer.
From the nasal blockage of high pollen count right up to the first changing colour of the leaves he was there. And with very little day time routine I allowed him to carry me and my increasing wine dependency in between my dedication to afternoon naps and early 00s ITV Bill repeats.
He was my drug. A quick hit to make me feel womanly and desired but like all highs there were side effects, cheap substitute hits, judgement for taking something potentially damaging and of course the come down.
But I didn’t care. I was a cat stuck up a tree with a crate of fresh cream. The dairy overload was likely to give me the shits but the jump to the ground seemed far more difficult especially as there was no guarantee I would land on all fours.
The fact that he was rebounding from a ten year relationship wasn’t ideal but with very little to focus on in my mundane lack of routine I was able to get hooked onto something that wasn’t real.
He’d be a dick I’d react like a total dick and together we would dick things up. It was a like a match made in the bargain booze liquor isle.
Summer 2015- I didn’t wear a pair of shorts, I didn’t go to a festival, I didn’t have an ice cream, I didn’t wear sandals, I didn’t go to the beach.
I slept, I got drunk, I ate shit, I wore stilettos, I got laid.
And I didn’t fall up the escalator at Angel station once…. (Because I wasn’t there)
Say you’ll remember me
Standing in a nice dress, staring at the sunset, babe
Red lips and rosy cheeks
Say you’ll see me again even if it’s just in your wildest dreams
It’s amazing what a failed fling can teach you about being a woman. I don’t see anything as complete failure as each situation teaches us more about ourselves. The good, the bad and the down right questionable, everyone will bring out something different in us.
And it was with this relationship that I found sexual empowerment as a woman.
Hands up who’s had pissed up sex and the guys either tried to get rid of them shortly afterwards, smuggled them out like an illegal immigrant in the morning OR the worse crime of all- REFUSED TO SPOON.
Admittedly sometimes you’re so ashamed you want all of the above but this was never like that.
In the world of pornography feminists tend to fall into a number of camps. But it’s not something I’d ever felt strongly about. Like most people I’ve watched porn now and again but I’d never looked at the women and thought you dirty slut bags or oh what objectification. I was completely indifferent to it (mainly cos I didn’t really like the idea of watching someone with an unachievable body shape get shot in the face with man juice) As it made me feel both inadequate and slightly vom tastic. And I’d certainly never seen enough of it to know one porn star from the next.
However he had a favourite and her name was Sacha, Sacha Grey….
Now due to a mixture of intrigue and nothing else to do with my Tuesday morning I checked her out.
And oh my, she was filthy.
Even I couldn’t sit through more than five minutes of her growns without wanting to gag her to stop the noise. But she was certainly very good, she was simply playing a role. The starlet that the punters wanted to see.
I gave her a google…
Now as well as winning awards such as best oral scene in ‘throa-t a cautionary tale’ and best anal sex scene in ‘anal cavity search 6’ *VOMS*
She’s an incredibly intelligent woman and the same age as me. She graduated school a year early, is a singer, has written books, acted (in none adult material) and quite the advocate. She took Grey from the famous Oscar Wild novel portrait of Dorian Grey (legend) and her twitter shows a normal pretty girl with the description
‘Funky. Hot sauce enthusiast. Single Malt Drinkin, Dean Martin Wannabe.’
She is far from a dirty ho bag, she’s an incredibly intelligent hot woman who not only reads and shit but has used the adult industry for empowerment and literally bang herself from working class routes to where she wants to be as a woman. Leaving the industry in 2010 she writes, reads, sings and supports worth while causes. Far from the stereotype of the blond eastern European perma tanned wailer most people would associate with such things.
Now I’m not saying I’m about to lose three stone and flash my vag on red tube but it’s quite the perception changer.
Curvy and carrying extra pounds in the wrong places I never attempted to hide my body around him like I had done so many men despite the fact that I was fully aware his ex girlfriend was incredibly slender. Even in the most awkward of situations I never once felt unashamed or unattractive.
But that gets me on to another point- my treatment of other women. I had never met his former lover but it was as if I knew everything about her and I despised her. Not because she’d treated him horribly and wanted him back but because I hadn’t heard a decent thing about her. And there I was judging someone who’d I’d never met, another woman who for all I knew could have a very similar story to tell.
And that’s the thing- we judge , we all do it. Someone who I don’t know has been feeding back things about me and my behaviour to family members who already have it in for me as it is. Someone who to paint such a picture must not only not know me but despise me too – for no reason other than what we can perceive online.
So why do we do it? Why do we judge people we know nothing about? Why as women are we meaner to each other than the opposite sex?
It’s an age old question with an answer I’ll never know but we’ve all been there.
But are we ever the guiltless party ourselves?
A lot of people have out grown me recently because whilst the world has kept spinning I’ve just stayed put in my own little diamond of Peter Pan syndrome. A Robinsons squash that was once good strong but now needs to be diluted to taste..
Who the fuck am I and what was I doing?
Who needs to drink excessive amounts of white wine five days a week to function? No one. Who bathes in it until she can’t see and then can’t justify her behaviour because everyone goes oh well she was just drunk so why believe her?
Me
Pinot Grigio- The greatest lover I ever had…
I’m so lost.
Heavy night, it was a heavy night, feels like we’ve come back from the dead…
We’ve stopped taking booze to the bedroom with us because we don’t need it we are worryingly each other’s natural highs. That and the fact that wine turns me into a gremlin and I spill it everywhere. The last time he poured half a bottle of pink down the sink because it was damaging me then laid down the duvet off the bed and slept with me on the floor curled up and comfy so I couldn’t hurt myself. When he was mean his actions were questionable but in reality he did care deep down.
As usual we have a lovely Sunday followed by an end of week fight, and this time it’s brutal it’s his week off and he promised to take me out at the weekend but cancels to go fishing. As usual it stems around the fact that he freaks out about effectively being in something that’s heading towards a relationship and bolts then trots back when he’s worried I’ve found another stallion to mount me.
Nearly the end of August, still no sunburn.
At the beginning I was the one kicking him out of bed as my hayfever got the better of me. Now he’s the one lifting my weary head. Because I have got comfortable.
It gets to the bank holiday. I am broken from debauchery. He wants me to come out I flounder, he’s treated me like the back end of a foot and mouth ridden cow for the previous week so I should tell him where to jog on. But I’ve asked for this, I’m the sexting master. I am a weak woman and women have needs.
I keep him waiting and I don’t meet him and his friend until after midnight. I’m back in Cannock I’m stood in the exact same place as my friend dipped her ass to ‘watch me whip it, watch me nay nay’ but it feels utterly bizzar.
Watching him dance like a loon I soon realise I had nothing to worry about in regards to him being out on the trot. It makes me like him more. His friends quite fit. I admire his jumper.
We drink we dance we shot. Oasis plays. We got to get a cab. We fall over. We go through the Macdonalds drive through. His mate eats my cheese melts and I vow I will never forgive him.
The taxi drops us at his. This unchartered territory. There’s a dog, oh god there’s a dog.
NEVER INRODUCE ME TO DOGS THEY WILL ALWAYS WIN
Said dog is so soft and sleekly and gives me a good old munch. We go to bed and surface around twelve , he goes down to try and find my handbag, his mum asks what he’s doing , he says he’s looking for something she says
‘It’s in the hall with the shoes- how many sugars does she want?’
There is soon a cup of tea in my paw and I begin to feel more human. We stay together upstairs till four and I meet his dad for the first time on a venture to the bathroom in a dressing gown with half a hair extension hanging our – smooth. We stay together till four and then he leaves to get his car. I fanny around in the bathroom desperately trying to reattach my stray hair extensions which are beginning to look like rats tails.
When he returns he comes to get me says I’ll have to meet his mum.
Okay I can do this.
I take too steps, fall arse over tit down the stairs, a hair extension in one hand and the dog licking the other as his dad walks in wondering if someone has been maimed. I thank his mom for letting me stay and she says everyone falls don’t the stairs the first time they stay. He admits that every girl he ever bought back (although I am the first in a decade) has done the same. I feel beyond special (not) and munch the dogs for sympathy.
He takes me for dinner. It’s five, we should be hungry but when the food comes the gammon turns my stomach and his face is a whiter shade of pale. He sips a stella and I chug a wine in an attempt to feel normal again.
He drops me home, we kiss. That’s the last time I see him.
We’ve got to close again, on the Thursday he’s out with his mates and they take his phone because he’s texting me too much… he is thirty fucking four.
I go cold then warm back up he stays warm, then goes a bit dickish I go bat shit.
I have spent every day for three months in contact with him and now it’s gone I’m slightly lost at the same time as beginning mightily pissed off. The thing is this isn’t the first time he’s gone cold turkey.
I feel about as classy as a pound shop tampon.
I’ve wasted a summer, have been a drunken tit and probably hurt more people than I would care to mention in this whirlwind of crazy.
What would Taylor do?
Crawling back to you, do you ever think of calling when you’ve had a few?
Maybe I’m on the rebound too? I’m no field of daisies cotton scented dream myself.
I’ve had problems recently which I’ve sat on until they burst.
And exs have come back to save me. Be it the Original Casanova sorting out my beef with the ‘department for work and piss take’ or my sixteen going on seventeen year old sweet heart sweeping me off the street wiping away my tears and feeding me Dominoes while his baby giggles and dog munches my feet.
Each gesture brings me to tears and my love doesn’t stop. But that’s because people don’t stop but as we grow the meaning of that love gets cateorgorized like a library. Naturally some go to the back with the dust covered encyclopaedias whiles others end up in the bloody short loan section that charges you a fortune a day when you’re overdue…
And that’s where the lust and compassion I’d had for him ended up.
The short loan section.
In the months we spent together I helped him through it all. And even though we both knew our situation was only temporary he vowed he’d never go back to her. I said he could leave me for whoever he wanted and I’d deal with it but if he went back to her that would be it.
And that was exactly what he did.
When he told me it was like a sharp splinter of glass going down my throat and cutting straight that bit that pangs when you get sad or anxious. I can’t get the image of them at it out of my head an I feel like a complete and utter moron.
Don’t be mistaken, I did not love this man but I cared for him a great deal. And after all the time I spent comforting him, holding him and taking away the pain I felt cheated.
So much so that I made the cringe worthy decision to plug my grief into a poem based on the last scene of ‘Ten things I hate about you’
*disclaimer – adult content below*
Dear Fish Boy,
I hate the way you fuck with me and act like you don’t care,
Then when we’re out you’re all over me and don’t like it when other guys stare.
I hate the way you wear the same clothes that camo belt seriously has to go.
And when you’re mean to me I just go running back, don’t ever think I’ve stooped so low.
I hate it when you treat me like shit but still expect me to rim your ass,
Then wonder why I won’t take it hard – a girls gotta have a bit of class!
I hate it that you’ll never be over her and just see me as your rebound girl,
But I still give you what you want and deep throat your cock till it make me hurl.
I hate your bad grammar, your silly dumb laugh and the fact that you made me cry,
I hate that I work hard to make you smile and that you don’t even try.
I hate it when you’re always stoned and choose stella over me,
I hate it that you know my body inside out and have even seen me pee.
I hate it when you throw silent strops and then refuse to reply.
When I see those big blue whattsap ticks but you only respond when you’re high.
I hate your causally racist remarks and that you can hold your booze better than me,
I hate that when you spoon me it makes me feel safe and that you make a banging cup of tea.
I hate that you say you don’t want a Mrs. But still expect me to tickle your back- It’s confusing for a girl like me…..
I hate that I’m the best thing you’ll ever have but it’s a fact that you just can’t see.
I hate it when you make me smile and that you have the cutest dogs.
I hate that your the best in bed, I’ve had my fair share of frogs.
I hate that I like to send you filthy pics and act like a dirty whore,
But mostly I hate the way I don’t hate you,
Not even close,
Not even a little bit,
Not even at all.
I saw him one last time and he looked different. There was a bottle of half used baby oil (not with me obvs) in the side door of the van and it made me heave.
I felt so alone.
I felt so silly.
He looked different, he’d changed almost (apart from perving on the arses of unsuspecting blond bar maids that is)
Even though we were meeting on unsettling terms he’d made an effort. Which I hadn’t in my converse and baggy top (I’d learnt years ago that heavy make-up and tits out on such occasions just make you look like even more of a lost cause)
I was wearing the expensive coco chanel perfume my mum had sent me for my birthday but I’m so used to it I could even quite make it out on my skin. By the end of it I’d always worn YSL Paris with him another scent that masked into me as it reminded me of my aunties bedroom in the early nineties.
He smells lovely and I accidentally breathe it in not for sensual reasons but because it’s where my head falls and the scent is comforting.
He pushes me away and lights a spliff.
He talks about her, we argue and instead of slapping him, crying or saying something I’d later regret I slam the van door bang shut to the point that it echos and stop home. In my converse like the 17 year old Avril Lavigne wannabe I once was.
This isn’t his fault, it’s ours we were both rebounding from something, for him, her, for me, my former life. And if he hadn’t have run back to his darling I would have run back to mine (London) eventually anyway.
It still doesn’t stop it from hurting like fucking hell though.
I think comforting thoughts.
The smell of my mother’s perfume on a woollen jumper, the feeling of being wrapped in a towel and dried down after a bath, hair parted at the side with a fine tooth comb. Green jumbo pyjamas. Those are my earliest memories. Images of mother hood…
We could never procreate our kids would be nuts either that or his once ex would stab me in the tits.
He said that I’m incredibly clever/witty/funny. That he thinks one day I’ll make it big but not in Wolverhampton, that wouldn’t I rather have the red carpet than a miserable midlands flat?
God knows what I want. I feel like I’ve lost my mind but then I realise it’s just another chapter in another tale.
I am still pro choice, pro feminism , pro cats just slightly more empowered and changed by my summer adventure. Everybody hurts but It doesn’t have to define us.
I’m judged for my exploits but what does it matter if I still have my self worth?
I think of Sasha and I hold my head high
He says that one day he wants to end up in my book.
Well darlin’ I’m promising nothing.
And yes as you said- I can be soppy as fuck but am stronger than I think.
To quote an old friend ‘women are like tea bags, only when you drop them in hot water can you see their strength!’
But for what it’s worth it’s been fun Babe
x
The 558 To Fleet Street.... 