Meeting Her Match

Tomorrow?

‘But I’m dying of frustration!’

‘Excuse me, AtYourService, you seem to think a week lasts six days. You don’t get to come until tomorrow.’

‘Srsly?!?!’

‘V srsly.’

Oh, the despair. I prayed for no sexy scenes during the movie, but there were several moments when I had to shift uncomfortably against the velvet and cross my legs tight.

Back in the bar afterwards, I thought about getting drunk. Would that make things worse or better? I sniffed at my first gin and tonic, seeking out traces of ardour-dampener and finding none, when suddenly the biggest ardour-dampener in the world strolled up and inserted itself right between me and Louisa.

‘So how was the film, ladies?’ it asked with a misplaced chortle. Had anyone said anything funny? I thought not.

‘Duncan!’ gushed Lou. ‘How lovely! Who are you out with?’

‘Oh, nobody. Just a Friday night out with my favourite person.’ He chortled again. Why do people chortle? It’s so unattractive.

‘How do you know we’ve been to the cinema?’ I asked, suspicion of Lou’s motives evident from my tone.

‘Saw you come out,’ he said. ‘Followed you. What did you see?’

OK, that seemed to let Lou off the hook, though I supposed even Duncan wasn’t incapable of a spot of light subterfuge.

‘All the Single Ladies,’ said Lou, beaming sweetly. ‘Kind of appropriate for Chez and me.’ I wondered if she was going to nudge him and wink next.

‘God, can’t believe you’re single,’ he said with a disbelieving shake of his puppy-like head. ‘What’s wrong with the men around here?’

‘Most of them are sailors,’ said Lou pensively.

Duncan did a weird kind of snorting thing.

‘My mates warned me against coming here when I applied for the job,’ he said. ‘Said it was rough. But it’s fine! Can I get you ladies a drink?’

‘So you’re single then, Duncan?’ Louisa moved ahead with her scheme.

One excruciatingly tedious hour later, I left Louisa and Duncan alone, the alcohol plan having failed to dull my need for orgasm.

Just another night.

In my bed, I relived Duncan’s conversational techniques in order to dampen my ardour. He was a man who enjoyed doing poor impressions of celebrities and saw no purpose to speech other than to try and make its recipients snigger. His singular unfunniness stopped irritating me after a while, and I began to feel sorry for him, which in turn irritated me again. I didn’t want Duncan in my consciousness, either as an annoyance or a figure to be pitied.

Beside my bed, my phone bleeped.

‘Y did u go home? Me n D goin 2 TigerTiger, come on, dont b a killjoy x’.

They’d end up snogging and then she would regret it and there would be an awkward atmosphere between them for the rest of the academic year.

‘Gone 2 bed. B careful x.’ I texted back, wondering how I had the gall to advise somebody else on self-preservation when my own life seemed such a high-risk enterprise these days.

SecretSadist took pity on me in the end and didn’t make me wait until nine o’clock at night to end my orgasm ban.

Instead we arranged to “meet” online at three o’clock that afternoon.

I had to get a messy, hungover Lou off the phone by five to, which was difficult, because sh

e had many lamentations on the theme of having just kicked Duncan out of her bed to express.