Reason 14 – they can be really charming!

Reason 14 was a friend of a friend and was well and truly a ladies man. He was suave, sophisticated and extremely good-looking and every time I saw him he had a new piece on his arm, usually of the blonde, voluptuous, plastic variety, but hey, who was jealous? It was only when I made some enquiries to our mutual friend about Reason 14 that I was warned to stay well clear. I was given a few examples of his extremely bad behaviour:

Apparently, after a new secretary has started at the law firm at which Reason 14 worked, he made a bet with a colleague that he would get her into bed within the month. The colleague shook on this, saying that he would attempt this also, and so, the poor girl was pursued. Both men, in their early thirties, began with casual chats and knowing smiles, followed by invitations to lunches or coffees. Evidently, the girl seemed to be quite taken with both men and they both mutually decided to up the ante, by asking her out for drinks with both of them one Friday night. The girl agreed as long as she could bring a friend along. Both men figured that this made a fair, even number and secretly, both realised that perhaps the loser of the bet might have his loss lessened if the friend was anywhere near as attractive as this young secretary.

The Friday night arrived and Reason 14, his friend and the secretary all made their way to a nearby bar where they were meeting the other girl, and when they arrived, both men were pleasantly surprised. The newcomer to the group was not only attractive, but she was blonde, voluptuous and well… plastic. It only took one beer for Reason 14 to take his friend aside and instruct him to “go for gold” with the secretary, as he was more than happy to take second prize if it meant that second prize was the airhead with the great breasts. The deal was done.

As the evening progressed, it appears that Reason 14 stopped drinking, citing that he had to drive home, but proceeded to assist the two girls in getting rather inebriated on champagne. No surprises that by the end of the night, the friend was eating out of his hand, giggling and flirting as she did so. Reason 14 made his move and offered her a lift home. It was accepted and they were on their way. [Incidentally, for the curious, the secretary and the colleague went home separately, so neither party won the bet.]

On the way home, Reason 14 stopped at a park and turned off his car’s engine. One thing led to another, and he and the girl ended up having sex in the front seat of the car. Romance was not Reason 14’s strong point. She was drunk and apparently “up for it” and he was sober and determined to get some – it seemed the perfect arrangement. After the act though, the girl decided that she needed to get herself cleaned up, so asked for a few minutes outside of the car to be able to straighten herself out. Reason 14 said “Sure”, rested back in his car seat, and she got out of the car. Seconds after the car door closed behind her however, Reason 14 had the engine started and drove away, not before tossing her hand-bag out of the passenger side window and leaving the poor girl stranded at some ungodly hour of the night.

What a charmer!

Reason 11 – they don’t always like to give as they receive

I was living in Tokyo, working for an IT company, and like most gaijins who don’t speak Japanese, didn’t meet very many Japanese men. Being six foot one and an African-American didn’t really help my plight with the less height-enhanced members of the Japanese male community. I would often find myself longing for even one sideways glance on the subway, instead of the furtive shuffling followed by the intense study of the stitching in their shoes, which is what I invariably received. On top of this, was the added slap to my ego that a large percentage of the foreign men living in Japan were chasing the petite, coy Japanese women – an understandable pastime but not necessarily a forgivable one.

One day, I was walking through Roppongi, when I met an Australian man – Reason 11, John. He seemed nice enough (although in hindsight perhaps I was so desperate to have any male attention at all – that despite his abruptness and often quite distant behaviour) we became lovers. We didn’t spend much time together, maybe only one or at the most two night a week, but we continued sleeping together for quite a while – meeting up in bars, having a few drinks and then returning to my apartment for sex. John would never stay the night, and I was never too concerned, assuming it was because of the distance he had to cover to make it home, rather than anything else untoward. We were fulfilling each other’s base needs.

At first, everything was okay, and I was under no delusions that our relationship was anything other than one based on lust and sex – really only to satisfy a physical desire we both had, probably because neither of us were getting any action elsewhere. The problem from my end, however, was that the sex just wasn’t that good. A few minutes of John’s frantic gasping as though he were in pain, a prod and a poke here and there and it was virtually all over. He was very fond of receiving oral sex but wasn’t exactly forthcoming in returning any favours I indulged him with.

One day, John and I were lying in bed, sharing a kiss before we were about to make love. We were both naked, and Reason 11 was lying on top of me, between my legs, kissing my neck. I thought it was an apt time to ask if he might perhaps give me a bit of oral pleasure and so whispered my request as seductively as I could.

I don’t know if I would have got a worse reaction if I had asked Reason John to sacrifice his first-born child. He stopped kissing me, got out of bed and pulled on his clothes while looking at me with a look of absolute loathing and disgust. I was so shocked (appalled?) by his actions that the only thing I could do was pull the bed-sheet up to my chin and stare amazedly at him, as he hurriedly searched for strewn shoes and socks. As he rushed to slam the door shut behind him, the last thing he called back to me over his shoulder was, “You are disgusting. What the hell do you think this is?”

When I recovered from the shock, all I could do was laugh.

(*It was only later that I discovered that for the duration of our affair, John had been married. I guess I wasn’t too shocked by this until I found out the reason for his divorce. John’s wife had discovered the equivalent of thousands and thousands of dollars missing from their bank accounts. It turned out that our boy had a severe addiction to prostitutes. Funnily enough, I didn’t date any other men for the rest of my stint in Japan.)

Reason 8 – they rely on SMS-ing too much

I had been in a relationship with Reason 8, Steve, for about twelve months and we had gotten along famously right from the very beginning. As soon as I had met him I had realised that he had the potential to be the perfect guy. He could cook. He could clean. He was witty and charming and active and damn it, he was great in bed. I had always been an extremely independent woman and both friends and family were amazed that I seemed to be committed to this one guy – something they had long lost hope of seeing, particularly as I was nearing my mid-thirties and had never been in a relationship longer than a few months before getting itchy feet and wandering eyes.

A year or so into our relationship, I decided it would be a natural progression for Steve and I to move in together (in hindsight, possibly my first major error). It wasn’t something that I was overly concerned about – I wasn’t intent on invading anyone’s personal space, or inviting myself into facets of Steve’s life in which I wasn’t welcome… No, no. It just made perfect sense to my practical self that since we spent all of our time together anyway, in either his house or mine, we may well pool our resources, cut our expenditure and streamline our operations. We could consider the whole episode a business venture between two like-minded individuals who enjoyed each other’s company. Yes. A business venture.

After a few weeks of discussion, I realised that Steve wasn’t in any way ready to be moved in with. I suggested that we postpone (indefinitely) our co-habitation, and all discussion about it, and Steve hastily and eagerly agreed. The dialogue was shelved and our relationship continued along the happy trail it had been coursing. We returned to spending two or three nights a week at each other’s houses and being inseparable between Friday nights and Sunday evenings. I had my much-loved solitude a few nights during the week and the taboo subject of living together was never discussed.

A further six months later, around the 18 month mark in our relationship, Steve decided to broach the topic of living together again. He explained that he hadn’t been ready previously, but had reconciled that my proposal had been correct purely from an economic viewpoint, and that in order to streamline operations, we should try living together. I nodded as he said this and explained that I didn’t want him to feel pressured into doing anything as I was more than happy with they way things were (“and if it ain’t broke, why fix it?”).

“No, no,” argued the fellow pragmatist Reason 8 - he felt it was in both of our interests to look at it as a business venture and move in together as a cost-saving initiative. I think he even thought that this was his idea. I explained that I enjoyed things the way they were, but if he really felt strongly about it, I would be prepared to remove some of the clutter in my house for him to have some space for his own clutter. He could move in at the end of a month when the notice on his own apartment ran out.

So, I spent the following month clearing the spare room to create space for my soon-to-be live-in-lover. Steve seemed to be often busy in the fortnight preceding the move, explaining that he couldn’t see me most nights because it was taking him so long to pack up his many possessions – he didn’t seem to want any assistance either. I really thought nothing of it, reconciling that I would be seeing more than enough of him before too long and revelling in the lone-time I was able to enjoy.

The daySteve was due to move in, I hadn’t seen him for 10 days, although we had been speaking often on the phone, and sending text messages constantly (we were a couple of the new millennium after all – it was all about the text messages from start to finish).

I called him in the morning and he said that he was on his way over with a truckload of furniture and car full of clothing.

I never saw or heard from Steve again. Except the text message I got after leaving a few messages asking where he was. “Sorry babe. Can’t do this. Need space. CUO (“See you round”) Steve x”. So much for our adult, mature business proposal. The whole 18 month partnership was over with a single text. Steve never returned my calls or emails, and one day I came home to find all of my belongings that had resided at his house in a carton in my apartments foyer. For all I know he could have been dead. I didn’t ever get up the gumption to send him my ideal (not-very-mature) text back: FU U 8=9 (“Fuck you, you knob”) J

Reason 5 – they are not very discreet

I grew up in a relatively small town where everyone knew not only everyone else, but their business also. This was never of huge concern to me as I had the same partner for over seven years and we had moved from the small town to a larger city in search of glittering careers. Like all good things this relationship eventually came to an end, but my ex-partner and I stayed on fairly good terms. After the initial post-break-up mourning period, I was ready to get back up on the horse and so, ventured out in the larger city with a group of old girlfriends – all of whom had moved, like myself from the same smaller town. There was a fairly large group of us, gathering for a friend’s birthday and like all good newly single girls, I imbibed in probably one too many glasses of champagne. I got chatting to a gentleman (Andy (aka Reason 5 – so obviously not actually a gentleman)) and after I had decided that I was mere seconds off turning into a pumpkin, he, chivalrous thing that he was, offered to see me into a cab. It will come as a surprise to very few that we exchanged phone numbers and saliva on the footpath outside the bar that my friends were in, much to the delight of the crowd that gathered at the windows to cheer and whoop in delight at our two or three minute interlude. The next morning, I woke with a raging hangover, and a slight feeling of guilt concerning my ex-boyfriend. But, I consoled myself, we were no longer a couple, and it was no longer his business as to what I got up to on drunken nights out with other friends.

It wasn’t until a few hours later, guilt having subsided, but hangover still fully intact, that the ex rang, asking what I thought I was doing with someone like Andy. “Huh?” was the only articulate sentence I could offer. My ex-boyfriend then explained that he knew Andy very well indeed, because when they had worked in the same industry in our hometown, he had been notorious for emailing all of his associates with gory and intimate details of his actions with random members of the fairer sex. Apparently, his emails were quite infamous. The ex was upset and explained to me (in no uncertain terms) his opinions of my kissing compadre and myself. I sat on the end of the phone, nursing my head, taking it all in, but the bombshell was dropped when my ex told me that Reason 5 was also living with his girlfriend – she just happened to be out of town this weekend. I gently explained that I had to go and hung up.

Five years in the wilderness of couple-dom and my first foray back into the single realm was with a cheating man who could very well email a lot of people I know with tales of drunken kisses on the footpath outside of a bar. I couldn’t have imagined a worse welcome back to singleness if I had tried.

I duly avoided Andy’s calls when they came and made a few excuses to elude him. I am honest enough to admit that he was certainly not the most persistent man in the universe. What had become of his girlfriend, I didn’t ever ask, but I had since heard on the grapevine that their love had died.

After a few more months, I moved back to my afore-mentioned hometown, to take up my dream job and be nearer my family. Not long after returning home, I met my current partner, and again, due to the size (small!) of our hometown, my new partner knew both my ex, and the notorious Andy, through work and mutual friends. I suppose that word got back to the city on the illustrious grapevines that all small towns grow so fertilely, that my new partner and I were together, but imagine my surprise when I got to work one day, to see in my inbox an email awaiting my attention. It was from Andy. I was intrigued.

Even after our brief interlude I had not received any emails. I clicked to open it, interested to see what the title “Slops” meant. Imagine my horror when I opened the email to find a picture of myself, kissing Andy, from all of those months before. Someone had obviously had a camera out in force that night, and as could probably be imagined, the photo was as flattering as it could only have been after a good few solid hours of champagne drinking. Worse still, was the note accompanying the photo, which was addressed, firstly, to my current partner, secondly, to my ex-boyfriend who had already been crushed by the initial fact, and thirdly to somewhere between forty and fifty others ranging from close friends to people I had never even heard of.

And the text with the unattractive photo read: “Hey mate. Just so you know that you’ve got my slops. Never forget that I got in there first.” Andy was an absolute charmer – in case I had ever had any doubt. And even if it was only a kiss on the footpath at three o’clock in the morning, I certainly won’t be forgetting Reason 5 in a hurry.

Reason 2- they don’t know the meaning of “the night of your life”

I was at the swimming pool in my apartment building with a girlfriend of mine and we had decided on having a “girls day”. This meant trashy magazines, large bottles of water, sunshine, un-waxed bikini lines and, most importantly, an absence of men. This was the perfect accompaniment to hours of giggles and gossip about the latest scandal with some blonde celebrity or other, or more likely, our group of incestuous friends.

We intermittently dipped before taking up positions in the dappled shade to continue our conversations and as we did so, I noticed a particular group of men moving closer towards our corner of the pool. At first I thought that they were listening in our conversation but eventually I realised that they were trying instead to strike up some sort of chat. One took the rather mature move of splashing us as he dived into the pool, and before we knew it we were engaged in a lively discussion about pool etiquette – the boys insisting that they should offer us some drinks to make up for the friends inexcusable behaviour. While we declined drinks, my friend and I did talk to the three men for a few more hours before the sun started to sink and we decided to make a move for home.

As I was packing up and putting some clothes on, one of the men, Guy, asked if he could have my number and suggested that we go out one night. I reasoned to myself that meeting someone by the pool made a pleasant change from meeting strangers in smoky bars and cheerfully handed my number over. (More to the point, this gentleman obviously wasn’t overly perturbed by my tubby tummy, or unmade up face – the idea of someone being interested even though I was au naturale appealed no end).

Guy called me during the following week but because I had started a new job and was working back late a lot, I was unable to see him. He was very understanding about this and we spoke for about twenty minutes each time he rang. When he called the following Saturday to find that I was at work making a dent on a particularly heavy workload, he was appalled and demanded that I let him cook for me that evening. He told me to make my way to his place for “the night of my life” (his words, not mine) and promised to spoil me in a way that I deserved to be spoiled. Where I would probably normally find this erring on the corny side of romance, I had been enduring intense pressure at work and felt in desperate need of some TLC. As a wise woman once said, occasionally it’s nice to be doted on. I certainly felt in need of some dotage.

I made my way to Guy’s house armed only with a bottle of wine and a smile, looking forward to getting to know this man a little better. When I arrived, Guy was carrying his golf clubs into the house, having just come from a game nearby. He welcomed me inside and promptly excused himself to go and freshen up, but not before ushering me into his lounge room, where I sat and flipped through some magazines.

When Guy emerged, in a crisp polo-neck shirt and neatly ironed, expensive jeans, he took a seat beside me on the lounge and asked me about my day. I told him about my new position and he asked sincere questions about where I intended to go with my career and what I was doing to get there. We talked like this for about thirty minutes before I asked if we could perhaps open the bottle of wine I had brought over. Guy jumped up from the lounge and practically sprinted to the kitchen to fetch the bottle, an opener and two glasses. I smiled to myself, thanking my lucky stars to have met such an attentive, attractive man.

After our second glass of wine, I began to feel hungry (especially after having a full day in the office with nothing but a salad sandwich to sustain me), and after the third I was practically ravenous. As I rose to visit the smallest room in the house, I asked as to what Guy intended on cooking for dinner.

It made me smile when I walked back into the lounge room to find Guy with a brown cardboard box, and even though I was mildly disappointed that he had decided not to cook, I rationalised that it was late and it was sweet that he had organised a pizza without me realising. It wasn’t until he lifted the lid to reveal a half-eaten pizza (oh yeah, and one slice of the remaining half had a bite taken out of it), that I realised that he hadn’t in fact ordered a pizza, but taken last night’s left overs out of the refrigerator.

Touching it gingerly, I was further surprised to discover that the pizza hadn’t even been heated, so I suggested that I do so quickly in the microwave. Guy ushered me to the kitchen where I also found two plates, some serviettes and a knife and fork each. After the pizza was heated suitably, I made the next unfortunate discovery – the pizza was drowning in chillies. And I don’t like spicy food.

The smell of the pizza had enticed my empty stomach now and I was starving, ready to eat a small child. I asked Guy if he had any other food in the house and he apologised, saying that he didn’t, but wondering whether we wanted to go for a walk to see what was around. I agreed to this, not questioning what he had intended to cook for my promised “spoil-a-thon”. We wandered out onto the street to see what we could find in the way of a gourmet dinner, or in the very least, a burger, or takeaway Chinese. Even a kebab would have sufficed at this stage.

As we walked, Guy explained that he had been expecting to have a friend drop some money over to him earlier in the evening, with which he had intended on taking me out for the so-called “night of my life”. I didn’t say anything but made a mental note to myself that he was obviously a bit short of cash.

We wandered around the neighbourhood in a futile search of any food outlet that might be open and eventually stumbled across a bar. I suggested that we go in, in the hope of a bowl of wedges or chips (anything?!), but Guy suggested that we get a take-out of drinks before returning to his, where, he assured me, he had “one more thing up his sleeve”. I agreed to this, with the same blind faith that has surely led men to their deaths and began looking for a nice bottle of wine. Guy grabbed three large bottles of beer (incidentally a beer I never drink – of course!) and pulled me away from the wine shelves. As we walked to the counter to pay, he told me that he didn’t have any money. I asked him if he wanted to borrow some, to which he replied, “Why don’t you just pay?” I’m all for equal rights, so handed over my money, not particularly bothered at all by this – except that I was getting hungrier and as a consequence, more irritable by the minute.

As we walked back to his house, Guy continued to talk about the “one more thing up his sleeve” and by the end of our journey I actually found myself eagerly anticipating whatever he was about to serve up to me. When we got back, I made my way, with a beer I don’t drink, to the lounge room (where I decided that if I had paid for it, I might as well drink it) and Guy headed in the direction of the kitchen.

I could hear pots and pans clashing about and grew excited at what was to come and about halfway through the first bottle of beer, Guy emerged from the passageway, a look of glee on his face as he handed me a tray, on which rested a bowl and a packet of biscuits. “I bet,” he smiled, “that this will be like something you’ve never had before.”

I grinned expectantly before he continued. “Not enough people take risks and these two foods together are great. Wait ‘til you try them.”

Because I was sitting, I couldn’t see what was in the bowl, but I could see that the biscuits were a generic brand of savoury snacks. Imagine my surprise when the tray was lowered to reveal a bowl full of… tepid tinned spaghetti.

Now, I am not a snob, nor would I consider myself in any way high maintenance. But this? This was more than an insult. The spaghetti wasn’t even heated properly and the generic brand crackers were stale and I had had enough.

I thanked Guy for his trouble and explained that I was no longer hungry, but I was damned if I was going to be going before those beers were finished. They were twelve of my hard earned dollars and even though I didn’t even LIKE this brand of beer, I refused to see them go to the cause of this decrepit loser. I sat patiently and made nonchalant small talk as we finished the remaining beers after which I made my excuses to go. When I told him that I would call a taxi, he protested, asking me if I would stay the night. When I declined his kind offer, he suddenly turned nasty (before he was just pathetic) and demanded, “Nobody has ever said no to me before.” That was my cue to leave.

As I stood outside on the foot path waiting for my taxi, Reason 2 came out to wait with me, seemingly trying to make a last ditch effort to make amends. Or so I thought. As the taxi pulled up beside me, instead of a rudimentary kiss on the cheek, Guy left me with this, “Remember in the bottle shop you asked if I wanted to borrow some money? Can I borrow some now?”

Give me men in a smoky bar any day.

Reason 1 – they don’t even want to know our names

It was an Easter Sunday evening a number of years ago and I had met a friend, Emma, for a few drinks in our local bar. Emma and I had been good friends throughout university, and had remained in touch while Emma had spent the previous two years galavanting across Europe in pursuit of men, or as she called them “life-experiences”. Since neither of us had any qualms of spending the Easter Monday in bed with raging hangovers, we decided that the most pressing need we had was to rekindle some old university memories when Sunday worship meant a good few hours in various bars (or other dubious establishments) trading our hard-earned Austudy funds for heavenly amber fluid. The incidence of Monday-itis once too often in my post-university “real job” meant that I was no longer ever caught out after dark on a school night – I was desperate to enjoy the evening to its optimum.  

After a solid four hours of sipping Stella Artois (our tastes had matured somewhat from the ill-tasting “cheap piss” of university days), Emma suggested we take the revisitation of our student lifestyle one step further by venturing into the city centre to a less than salubrious venue. Here, she argued, we could continue drinking, dance to a few tunes, and perhaps if we played our cards right, engage in some scintillating conversation with members of the opposite sex. I had finished the last of my drink before she had even finished her sentence.

 

At the “establishment” (it would be unfair to other bars and clubs to put this hell hole in the same genre), our drinks moved from beers, to spirits and mixers, and finally, in the telltale sign that the night is well and truly messy, to shooters at the bar. Emma and I chatted to a range of men, of all shapes and calibres and generally laughed all of them away at some point of the conversation. Until Reason 1 sidled up beside me and asked me how my night was progressing. At first I laughed and explained that I was in the worst possible bar I could possibly be in, in the worst possible state I could possibly be in, drinking the worst possible drink I could possibly be drinking, with the worst possible influence I could possible have dancing along beside me – but other than that was having a grand old time. Reason 1 laughed along with me, pointing out that Emma was about to gyrate off the dance floor. I giggled as I watched her lose her balance off the stage and fall into the arms of a starry-eyed admirer. Then I turned to face my speaker. Reason 1 was tall, good-looking, with a foreign accent and a nice shirt and trouser ensemble going on. I was pleasantly surprised. Reason 1 was also keen to buy me a drink. Who was I to refuse?

After a number of drinks and some fascinating conversation that I had lost hope of actually having (okay, so maybe my drunken conversation wasn’t fascinating, but it’s my story), Emma staggered over to give me her intoxicated endorsement of my new-found friend. “He’s decent,” she whispered hoarsely, well within earshot of Reason 1, “and this is a very indecent bar. If you don’t want him, I’ll have him.”

Reason 1 dragged me onto the dance floor to impress me with his ass-shakin’ moves and I giggled along beside him as I did my best “woman-pushing-wheelchair-up-hill” impression. After a song finished, Reason 1 insisted that we re-attend the bar, pulling seats up for us to sit down onto to continue our previous deep and very meaningful discussion. We watched Emma successfully ward off leery contenders and chatted intimately about where we had come from, and where we hoped to go. I was into this guy in a big way. Tall, dark, handsome, foreign – surely I could forgive a small infallibility like being in this place on a Sunday night – after all (and the thought struck me like lightening) I was in this place on a Sunday night… Surely, Reason 1 and I were destined to meet! And fall in love! And live happily ever after!)

At about 4am, Emma decided that it was time for us to make an exit (before our night really turned low-brow!!). Reason 1 joined us at a burger shop – a continuation of our university tradition – and asked if we would both like to join him for a drink back at his hotel room. Alarm bells went off in my head and I wondered whether he was assuming that Emma and I were “special” friends, when Reason 1 added, “it’s a suite, so after a few drinks, if Emma wants to stay, we can pull out a lounge to make a bed.”

            We staggered the thirty metres or so to Reason 1’s hotel (offered some explanation as to why he was in the house of disrepute, no such excuse for us, I’m afraid), and when we got upstairs, both Emma and myself decided it was better to sleep rather than punish our bodies with alcohol further. Reason 1 agreed that he too was tired, and got to pulling out the makeshift bed for Emma. As we sat watching him work, he also presented us with a T-shirt and some shorts each to wear to bed. Emma and I both looked at each other knowingly – secretly congratulating ourselves that we had found a nice, considerate guy – who would have thought?

            I changed demurely in the bathroom (I’m really not that kind of girl), and upon opening the door, clambered into bed beside Reason 1, explaining that I was really not that kind of girl. Reason 1 smiled his lovely smile and told me to relax – after all, he assured me, he really wasn’t that kind of guy.

            I melted into my pillow at Reason 1’s sweetness and said a small word of thanks to the powers that be for my luck. “Thanks for letting me find…” I smiled to myself, before stumbling across one small detail. I didn’t know Reason 1’s name.

            Um…

            I sat up quickly on my pillow and leaned over to push a stray hair from Reason 1’s forehead, before leaning down to plant a wet one on his lips. “You know,” I laughed (more from nerves rather than actually humour), “you’re probably going to think this is quite funny, but um… you told me your name about five hours ago and um, I can’t actually remember what it was. What is it?”

            I was slightly embarrassed but my fears were quickly allayed when he said, “Oh, babe. No problems. It’s Jonathan. Don’t worry about it.”

            I dropped back down onto my pillow and lay still for a while in silence, glad to have gotten that out of the way. Then a thought struck me. I closed my eyes tightly and could still hear a ringing in my ears from the club’s sound system. I tried in vain to sleep but the doubt niggled away at me until I just had to ask, “And.… just out of curiosity, Jonathan, do you remember my name?”

            Jonathan touched my arm, stroked my cheek, and looked deep into my eyes,                                                                                            

            Ok. I wasn’t offended. After all, I was the one who had admitted to not knowing his name in the first place. But was he going to ask me my name? “Do you want to know what my name is?” I asked.

            Jonathan withdrew his hand and rolled over onto his back, sighing audibly and rolling his eyes to the heavens. “Not really,” he said loudly – all of the previous loveliness and emotion lacking from his voice.

            I lay still, my eyes agape in disbelief. Surely I had had too much to drink and wasn’t hearing this right!

            “So,” I continued, “You’re not going to ask me my name?”

            And lo and behold, Reason 1 answered, in his once lovely, now hoighty-toighty English accent, “No. Quite frankly, I don’t care for these games.”

            Right. I let out a small whistle as I collected my thoughts. Right.

            Being a girl with a small iota of self-respect, I got out of the bed I was lying in and redressed in my clothes smelling of Eau de Tabac. Jonathan watched me dress, and then watched me struggle to rouse a comatose Emma and did not utter another word. The promise of breakfast, lunch, dinner and romance were well and truly forgotten, along with my name, which he didn’t even want to know.