I ordered the first Martini of the day just after 2pm - I was first to arrive at our table for ten. We always seem to go to the same restaurant in Soho and noone knows why - the food is over-priced and just shy of mediocre, and they always try and stick us at the back so we don't annoy everyone else. But we always whinge until they move us back into the main stage where we proceed to annoy everyone. I think it's the familiarity of the routine that keeps us coming back.
After a good three hours of rose and chips and a chicken burger without any chicken in ('Gays just can't do food' commented one of the gays) we moved onto the roof of a nearby members club. There we ordered endless fizzy lemon vodka drinks that tasted like melted ice lollies and sniggered amongst ourselves as we spotted two tv co-presenters, both of whom have partners, holding hands furtively underneath their nearby table.
By 7.30 we were happily done in, and since most of us had plans for the next day we agreed to cut our losses and pay up on the million pound bill. As I happily shambled down to the Embankment in the sun I realised I was really not quite done yet for the day. So I texted the man I've been seeing occasionally/getting drunk with for the last month as I knew he was out carousing in the City in aid of a colleague's birthday. If he didn't reply by the time I arrived at the tube then it was game over and I would defer back to the shoe-filled dustbin with windows that I call home.
He got straight back to me.
'Yeah swing by for a drink' he replied before courteously adding 'I'm just warning you that I'm completely hammered'. He then gave me the name of a bar to meet at which turned out to not be the bar he was in at all, but that began with the same letter of his actual location. Half an hour later I was getting seriously annoyed and it seemed maybe my mission was in jeopardy. Using an endlessly tiresome combination of clunky sat nav and flashing my legs at outdoor lager-supping bankers I finally arrived at the right place. Admittedly there was nothing much right about it; it was a notorious City pulling palace, full of ruddy-faced 20-somethings hopped up on sambucca and grabbing lustily at every passing female.
I spotted my boy immediately - he's awfully tall (an absolute deal-breaker for me since the rip-off Louboutin wedges I was sporting with my short shorts made me 6ft 2). He was surrounded by a gaggle of adoring women which seems to be a customary scenario - it seems to happen every time I leave his side for more then two minutes but I rather like that about him.
He was wearing a pink glittery feather boa around his neck and had his shirt unbuttoned to the navel in order to showcase his impressive abs.To be fair if I had a body like him I'd happily tootle about naked, 24/7.
I nipped stealthily to the bar and ordered myself a double vodka shot just to get back in the game. I waited for him to locate me and was heartened by the speed with which he left his little pride of cubs and swaggered over. He seemed pleased to see me and I got a bit overexcited and babbled about how I'd just been verbally assulated by some cokehead in the lift at the members club. He had berated me for being tall and then really stuck the knife in as I exited the lift by yelling 'And you've got teeth like Donny Osmond' which I found quite hilarious, as insults go.
I realised he was with quite a few colleagues which was new; he's met a handful of my friends (and even my boss, bizarrely - long story) but I've never met any of his. I had some pleasant banter with a couple of girls who seemed to be friends-of-friends and we laughed aout how there should be a special cloakroom next to the dancefloor for people to check in their dignity, haha, heehee, another bottle of rose, yeah why not.
Time to throw a few shapes, him with his shirt now hanging off him and pulling-pants waistband on full alert, me navigating skilfully through the sticky slicks of Redbull all over the dancefloor.
I went back for a breather to the colleagues who were now downing Jager bombs with gusto as they loosened their metaphorical ties. One of the women who had been so pleasant earlier suddenly turned to me, her face contorted with rage.
'What are you doing with HIM?' she hissed.
'Having lots of sex mainly' was the reply that died on my tongue as a very small leap of intuition told me this she was probably getting rhetorical on my ass.
'You know he's got a kid, don't you?'
He told me he had two, plus an estranged wife, but we've never really discussed the matter any further. We're still in that glorious, newly-minted bubble of 'us'. But she wasn't finished yet.
'When I watched you come in... in THOSE SHOES'
I looked down and cast an admiring glance at the incriminating footwear and wondered where on earth this was all going. I swayed between two explanations: either he has a large dossier of shady secret stuff going on and she (so selfless!) doesn't want me to get involved, OR, she totally wants a go on him. However the fact I'd been drinking for about 8 hours straight by now meant I didn't give a damn either way.
I diverted my attentions to my beau's young assistant who had just pitched up and seemed like a lovely well-mannered young man. So lovely in fact that I realised as we were chatting away that my arms with resting lightly on his shoulders and his were wrapped round my waist. Probably not the standard etiquette for meeting someone's co-worker for the first time but it felt oddly natural. Mind you ripping off my clothes and doing handstands against the bar would also have probably felt like a really amazing idea at that exact juncture.
I decided to steer out of trouble and headed back to the dancefloor to whoop it up to the predictable wall of David-Guetta-Rhianna-Gaga-ooh-back-to-Rhianna soundtrack.
The night went downhill fast. None of the girls were now speaking to me. For some reason I thought it would be amusing to wrap my legs round the beau's waist and be carried around whilst simultaneously licking one of his exposed pecs to everyone's thinly-veiled disgust. The assistant - who was so young I could have feasibly given birth to him - tried to kiss me up against a patio heater. The bar actually ran dry of Jagermeister. Four of the birthday gang started illicit affairs with eachother and sloped off to get cabs to adulteryville. Time for home. Where I could have the beau all to myself; no feather boas, no bitchy girls, no stupid drinks,no adolescents on heat and most importantly no more Rhianna.
He had to travel to some far-flung wedding the next day and so left about 4am after a frenzied couple of hours that left me feeling like I'd been hit by a car. I must have dozed off as I heard the door shut and the loud clunk of my keys being posted back through the letterbox as he locked me in (for everyone's benefit). A little stab of insecurity jolted me wide awake. Was he just leaving beause he really needed to get up the next day? Or was he desperate to get away - maybe there were more illegitimate children to be fathered before the dawn broke? Should I have tackled him about shouty weird girl getting all up in my grill?
I must admit I'm intrigued as to what will happen next.