Searching for perfection

Walking aimlessly around became my daily ritual. Sex had been an obscenely important part of everything. During my marriage, a traditional position and a very rare occurrence was all I knew of sex. But I had strayed, I’d taken lovers who had shown me a cornucopia of pleasure, through positions, to relaxation, to the height of orgasm and beyond. It hadn't always been that way. In fact, I was the ugly duckling for the early years of being a grown up. In fact, I was the victim of the family from hell. Criticised constantly, I had been the fat brat, the ugly one and the drain on all the resources which were due only to the three piece family who had entrapped my father when he was at his lowest.

I don't really want to start with that tale though. Suffice it to say, I was only ever designed to marry a rich man, one who would take care of my mother just as she had done for her own matriarch. I tried to do that but the man I chose was an enormous mistake, I thought I loved him but soon realised the size of the mistake I had made. I had an affair and a child and finally found the courage to leave, which was an acrimonious ordeal which lasted longer than the marriage ever could have done. I felt destroyed, ripped apart and tired, and I knew how my failure had been viewed in that dysfunctional family I mentioned earlier. Surprisingly, my dear mother seemed to revel in the unhappiness I felt and used the time to drag my son into her sticky web of control.

When I met him, I was breathless and speechless too! I had become friends with a girl working at a charity I volunteered with, she introduced me to her ‘friend and we spent the odd evening chatting and hanging out in various drinking establishments around the town. Entirely for their own amusement they wanted me to meet yet another friend who had just come out of a serious relationship and who regarded all women as ‘goats’? I had to admit that I had an extremely low opinion of men at that point and I was prepared to meet their pal and I was sure I could tell him all the reasons that men were as pointless and useless as a part of any woman’s life. I'll try and take you back there to the very second where it all began.

Nicola and I had been shopping that morning and my new size twelve figure had a plethora of outfits to choose from that afternoon after a speedy bath to prepare myself to meet this ’gentleman’ who had an opinion of women that was, quite frankly, ridiculous and it was an opinion I simply couldn't ’t wait to challenge. I chose a short denim skirt and a pretty blouse, applied my makeup and left the flat, my young son was staying with my ex husband for the week and I didn't intend to waste a minute of the time I had. I usually walked into town, it wasn't that far and it was good exercise, I didn't want to put a pound of weight back on it hadn't been easy to lose and I think I already knew that I would have to watch every little thing I ate for the rest of my life. I met Nicola in the square and we both wandered into the Royal Oak together bought our drinks and sat down to pass the afternoon and wait for events to unfold. Dave walked in to join us and he was swiftly followed by the man I had yet to meet.

When they sat with us at the table I nodded a polite welcome to the new addition to our group. I remember looking across the table to see a face that was at first new and yet so familiar at the same time. I had been so sure that I would cut this new man down to size that I found myself confused by my inability to jump in and tell him exactly what I thought of the goat business. My mouth was unaccountably dry and I thought I should wait for him to speak first, after all tearing him down would be so much more satisfying if I let him hang himself with his own words first. He was tall and slim, with blonde hair which was perfectly synchronised with a handsome and strong face he dropped car keys on the table between us all and sat back with a large gin and tonic. We were introduced and I briefly returned his greeting with, what I hoped to appear as, studied calmness. I found my thoughts spinning and couldn't understand my internal monologue. I had met many new male friends since I had met Nicola, indeed the night before I had met a young man who was handsome in an classy way, an estate agent, unattached and most definitely eligible in my Mother’s way. In fact I was hoping he would call me at some point so we could meet again, especially since Nicola was sure he was interested. However this new addition to our group wasn't here for my attention, he was here for our friends enjoyment of our fiery argument, somehow I couldn't see that happening any time soon.

Everything in my mind had been so ready to tear this friend apart that I found it impossible to account for the gagging of my tongue. Somehow I found the courage to begin a conversation for all four of us and as the time passed it became easier and easier. I still avoided his gaze and I wasn't courageous enough to talk to him directly. I was opening up to absorb all the information I could about him and I learnt quickly. He was an archaeologist. Other than time team and Indiana Jones I had little knowledge of that area. He worked in a local town, I knew it well as I had gone to school there. He'd grown up in the countryside near the city, as had I and his parents still lived in the old family home as mine did. There our similarities ended though. He had attended university in London and had a number of long term relationships and this knowledge lead to a discussion of the girl he had recently been dropped by which accounted for the ’goat’ delusion. Our afternoon rapidly descended into evening and I knew I, most certainly, did not want it to end. We all decided to move to a couple of other pubs leading to closing time and I was very glad to accompany the others, especially him!

As the evening wore on whether through luck or contrivance I was able to talk to him without the other two and conversation flowed freely. Unusual for me, I often found immense difficulties chatting aimlessly, already having a child and a broken marriage those of my own years didn't seem to have experiences anything akin to my own and conversations were stilted and awkward. For once I had found someone who seemed to be able to chat to me without any difficulties and yet he had no experiences that matched mine so I was unable to work out in what ways his conversation felt so easy for me. Rather sooner than I had hoped last orders were called and I began to move towards ending the evening, then it came to me that I had wine at my flat and nobody else to worry about so I suggested that we all should return to my home after closing time. I crossed my fingers and waited for their decision keeping my fingers firmly crossed.

When we arrived at the flat we fell out of the car and plunged inside for glasses and wine and congregated in the lounge. I found it impossible to avoid watching him anymore. All I prayed was that he wouldn't notice, or at least if he did notice, he’d know it as a look of appreciation rather than a mindless stare. The early hours arrived far too soon and they rose to leave. I saw them out the front door and once I had closed it behind them I lent there imagining him coming back, imagined his hands on my body, his lips on my skin and I nearly jumped out of my skin as there was a knock on the door! It opened on him and he calmly pointed out that he had left his jacket on the rack by the door. I hoped he wouldn't be able to see the thoughts written too clearly on my face, passed him the coat and bade him farewell again when he surprised me by asking if he could call me the following day while he was at work. There was no hesitation in my mind and he left with my number tucked into the jacket he had forgotten.

I awoke the next morning and mused on the meeting of the day before replaying it in my mind as carefully as I was able. We had been introduced to fight and for that fight to be entertainment for the other two. How spectacularly that had failed! The ‘goat’ delusion had come up, after all he had a silver goat on his keychain and I had pointed it out which led to a couple of comments but they passed to soon without a cross word between us both. I supposed that had been regrettable for our friends amusement. I now had something new to worry about, he was to call me and I was never happy on the telephone. I've always found phone calls a difficult proposition. If you can't see the expressions on people's faces it was extremely difficult to gauge their reaction to what you had said. His phone call was an overwhelming new worry for me. It took time for me to realise that I liked him far too much to risk screwing it up at the first hurdle.

I sat in the dining room as close to the telephone as I could be and I sat there an hour before I thought he might call at lunchtime. For the first ten minutes of wait I managed to justify to myself why it was best to be sat by the line waiting. Twenty minutes later I had tried to tell myself that there was no point in waiting, after all he might not even be able to call that day. Thirty minutes later I was sat in the kitchen trying to persuade myself that was close enough to the telephone and I definitely didn't need to check to be sure that the line was working and the phone couldn't spontaneously stop working when I hadn't checked it for five minutes. As the call was a quarter of an hour away I wanted to take the handset off the cradle and pretend that I was far too busy to be waiting for his call and ten minutes before he rang I was, once again, waiting right next to the phone and had to count under my breath when it finally rang to ensure he wouldn't think I'd been waiting for his call.

When I heard his voice at the other end of the line I tried to make sure I sounded as normal as I could, and definitely not as if I had been waiting for his call all day so far, which was absolutely what I had been doing since I woke up that morning. Generalities abounded, I made some utterly fatuous comment about the weather, he spoke about the ’watching brief’ he was carrying out, I pretended that I had known exactly what that was! He wanted to know what I was up to and I pretended that I had done something totally un-aimless with my day. Really all I wanted him to ask was whether I wanted to meet up again, and, preferably, the sooner the better. Waiting for exactly that question seemed to last for an eternity. When he finally did ask I had to fight to sound as if it wasn't an especially important question but it was a good idea and I would be happy to see him again. I had butterflies after that but in a really good way!

I waltzed around the flat trying to work out what to wear and say when I saw him the following evening. He had said he had to go to Peterborough to see his sister and her husband as they needed help removing a tree in their garden but he was going to try and meet me in the evening once he was home. As I didn't want to be in the pub alone I asked Nicola if she would accompany me again and she readily agreed. It was somewhat strange to me that her friend appeared really put out that Paul and I had got along, almost as if he felt cheated that we had not fought properly and we'd ruined his plan.