My Fake Wedding(2)

Which made him Mr Not On Your Fucking Life.

I felt such a tit. I was mainlining strawberry Pop-Tarts and tins of Devon Custard quicker than I could flip the switch on the toaster, and realised I had quite enough on my plate without fretting over whether I’d soon be tucking my stomach into my knicker elastic. I’d have plenty of time to whinge about my weight when I looked as though I had a packet of crumpets tacked to my thighs and my minky had vanished under Michelin Man rolls of lard.

Then I met Jake.

And suddenly, the world became a happier, shinier place.

Jake, Uberbloke, graphic designer and driver of gleaming red Surrogate Penis, smarmed his way into my life just over a year ago at a hair gel launch in Kensington. Obviously, I usually wouldn’t have been seen dead at such arse-kissing events, but this one had been organised by my oldest friend Sam. Sam was blessed at birth with a smile like a synchronised swimmer’s and had a natty, built-in bumlick function that ensured he was well on his way to becoming Top Banana at a PR consultancy in Noho (that’s the top end of Tottenham Court Road to me and you). The launch marked a pivotal point in his career and he begged me to go along to make up the numbers. And despite the fact that I’d rather have knocked back a litre of Toilet Duck in one sitting, I dutifully bigged up my hair, dusted myself in sparkles and poured myself into a spangly acid-green frock, all so I could stand, pigeon-toed with anxiety and feeling as out of place as a foreskin at Hanukkah, while Sam whizzed around proffering trays of angels on horseback to whinnies of marketing girls in Bacofoil dresses. As I expected, it was the very worst sort of party: the champagne and air-kissing kind, where everybody hates everybody else and pretends that they don’t, and people are so obsessed with their image that no one actually gets to have any fun.

Especially not me.

I was abandoned in my usual party spot, in pole position for the buffet and shovelling in salmon and cream cheese pinwheels with one hand, while desperately trying to balance a glass of fizz and a Marly light in the other. As usual, I cursed myself for being a jelly-spined wimp who could never refuse an invitation. It was always the way with me. When put on the spot, I fished around for a suitable excuse before giving in, gushing that I’d absolutely lurve to come to Jemima’s Virgin Vie party or Nux Vomica’s Mexican-themed evening, or whatever hellish event I was being invited to. Then, when it got nearer the time, I found myself praying for a contagious dose of ebola and wondering if it even might be worth enduring the humiliation of ringing the hostess and bandying the diarrhoea word about.

The night I met Jake, I was as sickeningly healthy as ever. I was freezing my tits off in my minuscule frock and spangling hopefully at no one in particular, when there was a tap on my shoulder and I wheeled round to find myself nose to double chin with a seven-bellied monster with big microphone hair. This prime specimen wasted no time in engaging my left breast in lengthy conversation on his favourite subject. Himself. He was a trader, he told me, puffing himself up so he looked bigger than ever. In the City. What he traded, precisely, I didn’t have a bloody clue, but as long as it wasn’t bodily fluids with me I wasn’t complaining.

In any case, I hoped my boob was listening in case there were questions later, ’cos I sure as hell wasn’t. I was working out how long it would take me to get to the exit. Should I just make a break for it, or should I take off my shoes first in case I fell arse over tit on my way out? When Microphone Hair finally stopped to draw breath, remembering his manners for long enough to inquire of my nipple what it did for a living, I was so shell-shocked that I grabbed the underwire of my Wonderbra, waggled it up and down and shouted, ‘Come on then. Answer the man.’

It was loud enough for a gaggle of designer girlies next to me to hear. Sucking their heads out of their arses with a collective Phwopp, they stopped bitching for long enough to turn and bog at the fishwife who’d actually had the audacity to pitch up in head-to-toe Topshop. I turned tomato. Fervently, I prayed for the floor to turn into a wobbling mass of pink blancmange so I could gracefully sink through it.

Miraculously, salvation appeared in the form of a twinklyeyed, curly-haired pixie who flashed me a conspiratorial smile before grabbing my arm and saying, ‘There you are, darling. I’ve been looking for you everywhere.’ Then, flashing me a smirk of pure mischief, he stage-whispered, ‘He takes photos of other people’s dangly bits for a living. You don’t want to get yourself mixed up with him. Name’s Jake by the way. How do you do?’

It was fate. Jake had rescued me from the pages of Readers’ Wives and I was smitten. He whisked me off to Soho for greasy Chinese, then came back to mine for ‘coffee’. From there, I went on to disprove the SOFA (Sex On First Acquaintance) curse, which states quite clearly that if you are one of those trollopy strumpets who shags on a first date, you are unlikely ever to see the other person involved again.