Love by the Book (32 page)

I knew I was beaten. “Fine, fine. But I reserve the right to keep my coat on all night if I want to.”

“Deal,” she said, scrambling to cover me as I wriggled out of my dress and (eventually, with much huffing and swearing and one brief panic attack when I thought I was trapped) managed to put on the playsuit. Thankfully, there was no full-length mirror in the car, so I couldn't really see what I looked like, but I was definitely surprised to look down and see so very much of myself on display.

“You look fabulous!” Lucy said, gazing at my huddled, crumpled, mesh-strewn form.

“After tonight, we can never speak of this again,” I said as I wedged my feet into the ankle boots and hastily wrapped myself up in my coat like an unloved Christmas present.

The cab pulled up outside an old railway arch and Lucy let out a little squeal of glee as she pulled me out the door. “We're here! Come on, let's get you in there and show you off! The boys are going to eat you up!”

“That's what I'm afraid of,” I muttered, clutching my coat closed and struggling to remain upright on the cobblestones.

The bouncers greeted Lucy by name and assured her that “Mr. T” was already inside.

“Mr. T?” I said, collapsing in a fit of giggles. “Was the
A-Team
not aired over here?”

Lucy rolled her eyes and dragged me through the heavy red velvet curtains. We walked into a huge, cavernous space lit by bare red light bulbs. Hard house thumped out of the speakers. It was incredibly dark, but through the gloom I could make out forms in various strange and often complicated positions. A man was chained to a plinth in the center of the room and a trio of near-naked women were hitting him with what appeared to be brooms. A man walking another man on a lead strolled by us, stopping to give Lucy a kiss on the cheek.

Tristan was waiting for us in a side room. He was wearing a dog collar and something that looked like a black leather diaper. “Ladies, welcome. I live to serve,” he said, gesturing toward a bottle of Dom chilling in an ice bucket and two champagne flutes. And, with that, he got down on his hands and knees. Lucy poured us each a glass, returned the bottle to the ice bucket, placed the ice bucket atop Tristan's bare back and placed her stilettoed foot on the top of his head, pushing it down to the ground.

I heard him mumble, “Thank you,” and watched her give him a little prod with her heel.

“No talking,” she said to his slumped form. She turned to me. “It's showtime!” she sang as she tried to wrestle my coat off.

I struggled against her. “Leave me alone! I don't want to end up getting whacked with a broom!” But Lucy was stronger than she looked and soon I was standing in the middle of the room in a mesh playsuit, wishing for death.

“Babe, you look hot! Doesn't she look hot, Mr. T?”

A tiny voice rose up from the floor. “Permission to speak?”

“Granted.”

Tristan twisted his head around and looked up at me. “You look wonderful! Just like Diana Rigg!”

“That's enough, Tristan,” Lucy barked. She turned to me, thigh-high boots glinting dangerously under the lights. “Come on then!” She grabbed my hand and tugged me into the main room. She was definitely in her element here and seemed to dominate the entire room as soon as she walked in. I was impressed, but also a little sad: she'd really moved on from our old life.

At first, I was mortified. I didn't think of myself as a prude (I had a threesome and everything, remember?) but the idea of parading in front of a bunch of sexual deviants wearing only a brief suggestion of clothing was a little beyond my limits. My days of following a prostitute's advice were behind me—I was meant to be a Harvard woman now!

After a few minutes, I started to chill out. “I wear less than this on the beach,” I told myself, “and the sun is way less forgiving than a few red lightbulbs.” Besides, it rapidly became clear that everyone there had far better things to do than scrutinize me, i.e., get their mother-loving freak on. It was like some crazy sex carnival, with people whacking each other with things and pouring hot things on sensitive parts and getting themselves tied to various objects. I'd never seen so much polyvinyl in my life.

When the first person approached me, I was scared. She was a leggy Amazonian type and was wearing a red pointed bra and cape. She looked like Elizabeth Hurley in
Bedazzled
. I made a mental note to add that movie to my Netflix list while trying to slip away from her grasp unharmed.

But instead of poking me with one of her stilettos, she just pointed to my shoes and said, “Nice boots, doll face.”

“Thanks,” I said, “they're hers,” pointing my thumb at Lucy.

“I should have known,” she said, giving Lucy a friendly little goose. “Spill it: where did you get them? Because I need them in my life.”

Turns out, everyone in there was just normal, apart from the sex stuff. Sure, a couple of guys tried to tie me to things and one woman accidentally poured hot wax in my hair, but on the whole it was very much like a normal party. I met a pair of accountants who told me all about their trip to the Maldives while one of them spanked the other one with the
UK
tax manual; an overworked solicitor who professed his love of Chelsea
FC
through a gimp mask; a stripper-turned-make-up artist wearing a snakeskin catsuit who told me how to contour my cheekbones; and two very sweet gay men who took turns attaching clamps to each other's nipples while telling me about the renovation work on their house in France.

By the end of the night, I'd given out almost all of my cards. They were all so nice and so open: I figured if anyone was going to know a suitable partner, it would be them, though I wrote “No Weird Shit” on the card every time I gave one out, just as a precaution.

I left the party just at the moment the future bride and groom were climbing into the sex swing suspended above the room as the crowd cheered them on.

There are certain things you just don't want to share with a roommate.

Something has occurred. I am suddenly very popular.

My phone hasn't stopped ringing for the past two days, with various unknown numbers lighting up my screen. Eighteen have left messages, six of which consisted of more than heavy breathing. I've had eight
RSVP
cards so far, each stating that they know someone perfect for me, and I've had three notes scrawled in dubious handwriting shoved under my door. Every time I go to the shop, the clerk tries to tell me about his brother-in-law in Malawi who's apparently my soul mate. The plumber came around to fix the toilet and hung about for an hour and a half, eking out his surely cold tea sip by sip until I finally made up a fake appointment to get him out of the flat. After he left, I went to the shop for more cigarettes, only to be accosted by the shopkeeper
again
, this time brandishing a photo of a thin, melancholy man sitting atop a pile of gourds.

Apparently everyone knows someone who would like to have sex with me.

In a way, I guess that's heartening. It would be way more mortifying if all of my direct mail marketing had been met with a stony silence. But it was also a little daunting: how the hell was I supposed to choose? I didn't know any of these guys, and it wasn't like online dating, where at least you could see a photo and check if they were literate. With this, I was relying solely on some vague acquaintance's opinion of my attractiveness level and sexual preferences. Yikes.

I sat down and consulted my Program Expansion Grid, which I'd completed earlier in the week. Rachel Greenwald,
MBA
, thinks I'm being too picky. She thinks I should forget I ever had a type, and just settle for someone who ticks only a couple of boxes. And those boxes should be pretty general, as in, “Is he breathing?
TICK
! Marry the man, you desperate spinster!” In order to open yourself up to the greatest potential, you have to identify what you consider to be attractive in a man and then broaden that opinion to extend to more men. Ideally all single, living men on the face of the earth.

Anyway, I drew up my Program Expansion Grid (or, as I like to call it, where dreams go to die) on Sunday while still recovering from Lucy's engagement party. Sure, every woman has an image in her head of Prince Charming, but maybe we should be looking for Prince Acceptable instead. For example, my perfect man would be slim and muscular, my slightly less perfect man would have let himself go to seed a little, and Prince Acceptable would be able to find pants that fit him without going to a specialist shop. See? Just like every little girl dreams about.

Taking all this into account, theoretically all of my potential suitors could fit into the net, being male vertebrates. I decided that, in order to really commit myself to the Program, the best course of action would be to date all of them and, in the spirit of Harvard-level industriousness and because I was running out of time this month, I would date all of them on the same day.

I screened out the guys who had left me creepy heavy-breathing messages (they hadn't left their numbers, anyway) and threw out a couple of the
RSVP
cards because I knew that, despite my clear instructions, the applicants were married and looking to swing.

In the end, I was left with fourteen possibilities. I got out my notebook and set about calling each of them back: the guys who answered the phone would get a date (a very short date, but a date nonetheless). After an hour and a half of at times excruciatingly awkward phone conversations, I had ten dates lined up over ten hours for next Saturday.

Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.

Uh, I just got a little
too
popular.

“It's for you,” Cathryn said, pointing to the telephone. “I'll transfer the call.”

I picked up, expecting it to be one of the caterers for the upcoming corporate sponsors gala. “Lauren Cunningham speaking.”

“Hello, Lauren,” said a deep male voice. “I'm so glad we've finally connected.”

“Me too,” I said. It wasn't uncommon for people who I'd never actually spoken to before to phone the office—such is the beauty of the email age. I figured it was one of the geneticists I'd been writing to about the “Forever Young” exhibition we were putting together. I put on my cheeriest phone voice. “How are you?”

“I'm a damn sight better now that I'm talking to you,” he said with a laugh. “Now, when can I take you for a drink? Or shall we skip the formalities and go straight to a hotel?”

Uh, this definitely didn't sound like any geneticist I'd ever met. “Excuse me?” I said. “Who is this?”

“Don't play coy with me, you little minx. I know you want me.”

Minx? I only allowed a handful of people to call me that, and certainly not in the workplace. “Who is this?” I asked, trying to keep my voice steady.

“You know very well who this is. I must say, I was a bit surprised as you hadn't seemed the type, but I was very glad indeed. Now, how will we sneak around without the boss finding out? Wouldn't want to get the sack for getting
in
the sack, if you know what I mean.”

Boss? Oh God. The white heat of panic had fully enveloped me. I channeled my inner Cathryn. “I have to insist that you tell me your name,” I said in my most officious voice. “And I don't know what you're talking about, but I can promise you that no one is getting in the sack.” Across the desk, Cathryn raised a concerned eyebrow at me and I waved her away.

There was a pause on the end of the line. “This is Charles. Charles Eastwood,” he said in a slightly faltering voice. “The accounts director at Grange Petroleum? We met at the museum's summer party?”

I had a vague recollection of a tall, balding man with a paunch. I still had no idea why he was calling me a minx, but I did know that he was in charge of one of our most important corporate sponsors. “Oh,” I said. “Yes, of course. But I don't . . .” I let the words drift into the dead air between us.

“You did send me that card, didn't you? I mean, it had your name on it and it came with the conference invitation, so I assumed . . .”

Oh no. I pulled open my desk drawer and saw a slightly diminished pile of Thanksgiving Day cards. I must have accidentally mailed one (God, please let it be only one) to this poor man when I was stuffing the invitation envelopes last week.

“I'm so sorry,” I said, whispering into the phone in the hope that Cathryn wouldn't overhear. “I think there's been a terrible mix-up. That card . . . it wasn't meant for you.”

“Oh God,” he said, now sounding very shaken. “Oh dear. I'm going to be fired, aren't I? Please, whatever you do, don't sue.”

“I'm the one who should be apologizing! I'm following this stupid dating guide and—oh, forget it. I can assure you that I won't be suing anyone. I just hope we can be . . . discreet about all this?”

“Consider it forgotten,” he said.

Relief washed over me. “Thank you so much!” I said.

“Of course, if you ever change your mind . . . you know, we could still be very discreet. And I do love an American accent.”

I let out a high, nervous laugh and Cathryn looked up at me, alarmed. “No!” I babbled. “That's okay! I think we're all set!”

He let out a small sigh. “It was worth a try.”

I hung up and put my head in my hands.

“Everything all right?” Cathryn asked, her face a picture of worry. “Not bad news, I hope.”

I shook my head. “Just a little misunderstanding. Nothing to worry about.”

But I was starting to worry. Sure, Rachel Greenwald,
MBA
, suggested I give up my job for the project, but I wasn't so keen on getting fired.

Adrian's back.

I left work this evening to find him standing on the pavement, holding a One Direction pinwheel. I saw him before he saw me, so I had time to compose myself. I lit a cigarette and affected my most nonchalant air.