Three men and a little ‘lady’

Oh god.

I’m a mwag.

But before I tell you how revoltingly drunk I got last friday night, let me fill you in with a little tangential context, (for a change).

Since midsummer I’ve been building myself up, physically and psychologically, for my first big kickboxing fight. In a ring. With some other bitch.

It’s been a great, if daunting, focus for me after what has been a rather large comedown of a post-summer.

Veins have appeared above my skin, I pretend they’re not there, for fear they’ll rise further and burst. I appear to be eating the diet of a horse – oatcakes and carrots mainly, but a LOT of them, and still my stomach is that of a gymnast and my legs occasionally gangle and splay like a thin person’s.

I gave up drinking. I was training three times a week, even if it involved getting a terminally long bus through town on a saturday morn amongst cagouled bag-hoarders and hut bulles on their way somewhere.

It felt good, like I was heading for an achievement. Progression. Something to work towards. The future.

And then just about a week ago, I got the heeby jeebies after training. My teacher asked if I was fighting in november. Yes. I said. But also in october – if that’s alright?

Bit of a silence. Hmmmmm, adrenalin comedown? I skulked off to blog one out, (thursday night’s epic for me), and put it to the back of my mind. But then on the tuesday it was revealed that I hadn’t been entered into the fight. And I hadn’t paid my eleven pounds.

So I did a proper speech. Said how I was really ready, had been gearing up for it, could do with a bit more sparring practice but yeah, well up for it.

And the teacher heard this as ‘I am a puny pathetic wimp who doesn’t keep my word and am petrified of other girls’. So I explained again, (yes, I know I’m not the most straightforward of speakers), and she offered me this ‘truce’.

‘Well, come along anyway, bring your kit, and if someone drops out you can fight!’

Hmmmmmm. A completely shit compromise, methinks.

Then she adds a bit of insult to ‘injury’ (if only):

‘Then you can fight in november and have a non-decision’.

Right. So I can fight with loads of other gimps in fucking november and not even know if I’ve won. Up yours.

Not being one for negativity, I try and turn it round in my head. What good could come from this confusion? All the girls at class can’t understand it, my whole family and friends keep asking me about it, and I’m not sure what the best simple line to say is. Erm. I’m not fighting. The teacher didn’t enter me. Crap.

The only consolation was that I had turned down a guest place at the last ever show of a famous dance outfit, because it was the night before my phantom fight. Perhaps I could go and get fucked off my face with a load of musicians instead? So I text my mate. But the spaces are more than full. Bugger.

I feel like I’ve gone and dumped myself again. Is it me who doesn’t say what I mean, or is it that nobody else gets me? What part of ‘I’m ready’ could be interpreted to mean ‘oooo I’m scared, wibble wibble, please don’t make me fight!’?

The same part of ‘I love you’ that was misconstrued to mean ‘myeah, whatever, yeah, that’s fine, let’s go our separate ways’, with the boy.

Right. How to deal with this defeat that didn’t even produce a bruise?

I’m going to go out and get fuckfaced, that’s what. Frig all this moderate sobriety, (erase spain, readers, erase spain).

And I’m sitting with monsieur henderson on his birthday, drinking overpriced tea out of thimbles, and who should saunter towards us? The boy. Yes, the boy. The boy in glorious, sunlit technicolour. Me in soggy-arsed tracksuit bottoms. Always the way, always the way……

And I’d been thinking how nice it would be to see him, not whilst honking out some heartbreak hotel numbers on the ukulele, but just to have a drink with him. Might clarify things further….

So I ask him out on friday night, apparently spontaneously, but secretly pre-meditatively, (how’s that for a word?) Yep, he’s free. It’s in the can pete, it’s in the can. Might be a bit toppy, pete, might be a bit bottomy, with any luck pete……

And I’m going to get wankered. And see some bands.

I opt for the writer’s dress costume - a bit tired now but comfortable and fairly calamity-free. New shoes. A bit high and wobbly on the cobbles. Half a bottle of vodka in my bag. A classic disposition.

We meet. On time, like in olden days. We drink, like olden times. We talk bollocks at each other, like golden times. We opt for duty, and get up to head off to a dingy karaoke bar where a friend is honking out some good uns.

And bump smack bang into mummy. Yes, you may remember mummy from way back when….

We have a pleasant chat about scientology and horses, and I make a note to use this as a bloggortunity for my next project; undercover cunt (U/C), where I expose dark practices under the guise of an innocent bystander. Yes, mummy, I would love to come to the scientology do with the grandiose marquee, thank you.

At the gig we bump into my lovely wife, who has been silently disapproving of our date, but at least I told her about it, unlike my husband, who will only catch news of my dangerous decision to meet my ex as he reads this.

Sorry. I am weak. And eternally randy.

The boy receives a text from a musician friend of his. A name from the old days, when we were fanciful and hooning round london bridge, bruising hips on cello cases, ejaculating on sheets and escaping near-murder in seedy hovels.

We go to meet him and his friend in another musical establishment. I now have three men to my bow. I curtsy instead. It’s safer in a short dress. And we watch a band together, the half bottle of vodka in plastic going down a treat. Then to the bar for more drinks and inane yabbling.

I end up with the pretty blonde one, who remarks on how nice it is that me and the boy were together for ages, then not, then are again. Yes. That does sound rather fucking nice I think, but this is a double date now, and the boy is busy chatting up the other man. We’re not together, I explain, imploring the boy to finally lay his balls on the bar and explain something to someone.

But no, a few jägermeisters later and there’s nothing to explain, as we fly off to another venue, skip the queue and take up residence on stage next to an awesome screaming trumpeter. I blab on about my non-sensical existence. I take one of the new men to the toilet, holding his hand. I chat to a jovial fatty about something or other, and my blog cards are all over the shop, and my wallet’s left on the table as we move on, yet again, to a last-chance establishment.

And there we blab more, and I realise I haven’t had the boy on my own all night. Yes, this night was another attempt to finally draw some kind of line under some kind of chapter in my life, and woe be gone nothing’s materialised. And suddenly one of the new men has gone home. And now there are three. Which is a far more complusive number.

I remember I was seeing a guy once, full-blooded phallus, empty-blooded brain, obsession with lollipops and japanese schoolgirls, who rammed me from dusk till dawn. A few stone lighter, three days later still in bed, he commented how he thought I could probably take on quite a few men. I asked him; honestly, how many? And he came up with an honest, if slightly ambitious number.

Six.

Six whole men. All for me……

Anyhoo. There’s only two here, and one of them is quite small, and one of them is a child, so it must be manageable…..

The blonde disappears inside to let some out, and I am left alone, at last, with the boy. And he tells me he’s off home soon. And it’s quite clear there’s no room at the inn for this magdalene, and he looks petrified, the poor lamb.

The blonde returns. The boy sits next to him to like a scavenging parasite, sorry, networker, and I desperately look for a way to corner him. COME ON! Just tell me to fuck off will you, so I can set about causing certain destruction elsewhere. But no. I see no other way, and plonk my stocky load upon his lap, full pelt. Even anaesthetised by the vodka and other tonics, I can feel his bony knees screaming to my fleshy arse, ‘go away, go away, hideous woman!’

So I let him go. What’s to lose?

Then there were two. Okay, this should be easy. The blonde is lovely. Bubbly and smiley, he knows me now - he’s been wedged in the front seat of the godiva express all night. I have a good old pre-menstrual moan about my terrible longing for what was never there; the scent of roses in the morning air.

And he’s got the horn. Scanning the desperate, late-night crowd, he picks out a shape which looks vaguely human. Her face looks like a spade, I say. He doesn’t care, he says. Near her is a fatty. A smiling, joking, fun fatty. She’d be up for anything, I suggest, but he’s up for the spade. The hideous spade.

I evade my glance as some kind of unparallel transaction fails, and we decide it’s best out of there. And there’s no way I know where my home is, so I’m going with him. The booze train takes us back to a high rise flat nearby and suddenly everything’s brightly lit. My brain, still dimly lit, turns me into some kind of manic machine.

I shriek around the flat, pointing at non-descript, generic up-with-the-joneses fixtures and fittings that the previous owners have inflicted upon the place. IT’S SO GAY! I keep yelling at everything.

There was a strange half-vibrating chair, broken by god-knows what, a guitar that seemed completely allergic to me, there were large glasses filled with brown potent liquid that I administered confusedly.

And there was godiva, the blonde, and the other one.

Jules et Jim, I think. Jules et Jim.

Again, time has slipped away and there’s no awake left in any of us. The blonde (jules) nips off, invariably for a drunken wank where you forget to be conscious half way through. And then there were two again.

I look at the sofa. It’s a gay reject of a leather squeaker. Everything’s too bright, there’s no way I’m sleeping in here. I look at jim. Words tumble out, and no thoughts follow.

‘I’mnotsleepingonthatgaysofa
i’msleepingwithyouinyourbedan
icantbebotheredtohavethisconversation’.

He laughs. He offers me the floor. Not fucking likely. I take all my clothes off save for my primark panties. I collapse.

And now it’s day. I’m not sure which day.

And now I’m nearly naked with this jim. In the light of a day. By proxy.

Proxy is good. He’s nearly naked too. I have no idea what time it is. I just know I’m not fighting right now, and judging by my inability to be vertical, I have definitely achieved my aim of getting completely rat-holed. And now I’m in a completely new space with a completely new person. And I like it. And he’s a musician. But not a child this time.

And we have a lot in common when it comes to important things such as mental illness and suicide, which is what most of my encounters seem to be based on nowadays.

And we spend the day together, me so riddled with toxins I can’t even look in a mirror, thank god for my poor eyes, and him, easy going and enjoying my demented company.

But as it gets to around teatime I look down at my costume for the day – ragged writer’s dress, bruised bare legs, oversized flip flops and boy’s sunnies, with a furry lesbian jacket and zebra bag, and realise that not only is my carriage about to become a fucking pumpkin, my ugly sister emigrated to australia two years ago and glass slippers don’t fucking exist.

We head back to his flat – I don’t appear to have many belongings anymore, and I think I’d better go and have a look round his gay laminate flooring. And as we are about to enter the hungover lift from hell, an unknown number calls me.

It’s some guy called james with the most feeble voice I’ve winced at in a long time. He’s calling from a bar. I realise he must have my wallet there! I tell him I love him. He goes silent. I tell him I’ll come and get it. I think he’s scared.

Only when I terminate the call do I wonder how he got my number. I realise he’s not the jovial fatty I imagined he was from the night before, and that to him I must be a monstrous stranger. A stupid stranger who leaves her wallet splayed open, blog and all, on the table in a crowded bar on a friday night.

Now it’s definitely time to leave. I bid farewell to the smiling, contented jules et jim, barking various imperatives at them as I stagger out of there. And into the bar to pick up my wallet. A nonchalant lump gets in before me looking for his keys defeatedly. No fucking chance. I barge through him, and present myself, stinking in my be-flip-flopped glory.

The feeble man from the blower looks at me passively. But I’m not going to explain to him. Oh no. He must know that this creature presenting herself before him can only be….

He reaches behind the bar and holds my wallet, the slight whiff of a question mark lingering between us. I open it. And then I see it. The calling card. The cursed card of cannes I use to get leery business men off my back and into a divorce suit with their wives. THAT’s how he knew who I was.

James the weak, meet godiva the rank. Best viewed in the dark after a bottle of turps.

Liked by artists, tramps and madmen alike, the world over.

Now chant it together; ladies, men, and infants:

Mmmmmmmmusisians……….Mwag x x

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For those who spotify:  http://Open.spotify.com/track/3ofD5S8sLXoPdnMgY4gIsO

And for those who don't (the video is not my fault):  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nOaJlYY2Q9k