My Fake Wedding(57)

Well, it sure as hell ain’t going to be me. I’ve made a complete lummox of myself once. I don’t want to risk the possibility of rejection and the feeling of foolishness that would follow it.

‘Bye.’ I get up to go to the door, gripping the handles of my bag to avoid spillage.

‘Look.’ He pulls me back then, as the doors begin to close, thinks better of it and jumps out after me.

‘Careful.’ I grab my bag.

He looks a bit surprised but seems determined to carry on with what he’s got to say. He seems nervous, which almost makes me despise him, but I wait to see what’s on his mind.

‘I don’t suppose you fancy doing something, do you?’

‘Like what?’ I keep my cool, attempting to look vaguely bored, as if being asked out on a tube train by someone as gorgeous as Max is something that happens to me every day of my life.

‘We could go to the Bedford. Have a pie and a pint. Sunday lunch. Whatever you fancy.’

‘I’m not sure.’ I bite my lip. It seems a bit of a waste of time to go through the rigmarole of polite small talk over a plate of roast beef and a bagful of sick, just so we can finish what we started. What if it turns out to be not worth finishing?

On the other hand, I am blimming starving.

And I suppose there’s probably more than a morsel of truth in one of Janice’s favourite sayings that suddenly comes to me as I stand on the platform, making up my mind: When in doubt, Get in, Get on, Get a present, Get out.

Sod it. Might as well get it where I can.

‘Oh, OK then.’ I grin. ‘What the hell?’

As we come through the ticket barriers though, I check myself. What about my bagful of barf ? I can hardly go out to eat with that sloshing jauntily at my side, can I? And what if one shag with Max isn’t enough? After all, he is pretty delicious. Those eyes are edible.

But I do deserve sex, don’t I? And, as far as I remember, Max has one of those willies that’s actually pretty OK to look at. After Colin and his micro penis, a bunk up with Max will be a bit like treating myself to a nice chunky Mars bar after days of nibbling abstemiously on fruit.

On the downside, I haven’t showered today. And there are a couple of grey minky hairs I really ought to pull out before I let anyone see me in the buff. And then there’re my pits. I’ve been so busy with all the preparations for the wedding that they closely resemble the Epping Forest. Without the Essex accent, of course.

And with this hangover they probably smell like caramelised onions.

‘We could have lunch at mine instead,’ I say in a rush as we come out under Pigeonshit Bridge. ‘I don’t really feel like the pub and I’ve got some pumpkin soup in the freezer.’

‘OK.’ He smiles. I smile back. He really is rather saucy. How lucky that we ran into each other.

OK, so fortune might have waited until I didn’t have a monster hangover, hairy legs and a handbag full of sick before waving her magic shag wand over my head, but this sort of thing doesn’t really happen very often. It’s being offered on a plate. It’d be rude not to help myself.

It’s a bit tricky locating my key in front of Max. I don’t really want him to see the contents of my bag, which I fully intend to dispose of the moment I’ve located and disinfected important items. When we eventually get inside the flat, there’s no sign of Graham, but I sit Max in front of EastEnders while I busy myself with feeding Shish Kebab and making a big fuss of him in case he gets jealous. Then, on the pretext of unpacking my stuff, I dash upstairs and jump in the shower, hurriedly shaving my legs so I don’t slice Max to pieces and slathering myself in lemon-scented body oil. Delicious. I know it’s a bit obvious, smelling suspiciously fresh when I’ve just spent three hours travelling, but who cares. There’s no point pretending. We both know what he’s here for.

And it sure isn’t homemade soup.

Anyway, sticking to one-night stands means I don’t have to play stupid games any more. I can make it perfectly clear that I’m after a quick bunk up without fretting that it’ll make him lose interest. The curse of the SOFA just doesn’t apply any more.

I’m free.

Whoopee.

In the event, sex with Max is nice. Shadow play is completely unnecessary and I don’t even feel the need to ask him to move his legs so I can rummage for the remote, either. His underwear is clean and white, not grey, tatty and Y-fronted, which I take as a good sign, particularly as we weren’t expecting to see each other today, and so I couldn’t reasonably have expected him to have come prepared. Of course it might mean that he’s one of those superstitious types who always wears pristine grundies in case he gets mown down by a bus. Which probably means he’s a complete Mummy’s boy. But since I won’t be seeing him again after today, who cares?