One In A Billion (2 page)

Marth was still leering at me. He'd put on some generic commercial pop music that definitely wasn't radio 4, and the red wine had stained his lower lip, like a strongly dyed boiled sweet. I expect I looked equally stupid. Marth refilled my beaker and came and sat alongside me.

'I like your room', I said, just to say something.

Marth ignored me again. Whereas I could name the people he'd met through the service, who he sat next to at work, how much money he earned, where he was going to buy his flat, what his ex-girlfriends were all missing out on, how new his brand new car was, why the fuel economy was so good on it, where he last went on holiday and a thousand other things he'd told me over the course of the evening, I bet he couldn't even remember what I did for a living.

I watched Marth's hand creep towards me and I didn't stop it. A moment later we were lying back on the bed - half the bed actually - and were sort of tangled together all mouth and arms, trying as best as possible to indulge ourselves in each other. In Marth's eagerness, or inexperience perhaps, he managed to bang his teeth against mine, and then dribble a little bit onto my cheek. It wasn't glamorous.

I should have left when I had the chance, I know. Like Marth, you probably think I'm a little bit easy, and it's true, I probably am, but not because I don't put a high value on sex. It's because most of the time I'm desperate for the companionship.

Generally what happens is that despite all the signs warning me against sleeping with someone, either because they're a loser, a jerk or quite often both, I end up doing it anyway because I'm lonely, and then I end up feeling even more lonely the next morning for doing what I did. It's a horrible cycle, but I can't see a way out of it, and every time I find myself in the same position again, tangled up in a mess of skin and horniness, I hope that I've been too quick to judge, and the loser or the jerk will miraculously turn into the man of my dreams, immediately after we've slept together. Guess what, it hasn't happened yet, but that's the problem with me, I can't help hoping.

Marth struggled with my clothes so much that I had to stop him and pull them off by myself because the way he was yanking at my bra was hurting. It kind of killed the already low buzz a little bit more, but Marth didn't seem to mind. He'd got his full beams on and they were pointing right at me. I folded my clothes carefully and stacked them in an empty space on the floor, before turning off the light and returning quickly to the bed.

We fumbled, we kissed, we pressed our bodies together and arranged ourselves into traditional positions, and once again, despite my optimism, the earth did not move for me. The bed, however, certainly did. At one point squeaking so loudly I had to hold onto the sides to try and quieten it down, praying the comatose woman downstairs couldn't hear our gallant frolicking.

Actually, that's probably a bit too fair on Marth. What really happened was that I had to 'attend' to him for a good ten minutes until he was ready, after which we had probably three minutes at the very most of 'action', when the bed did leap and complain a little, while Marth screwed up his face like he was trying to fart, until he came loudly, like a truck squeezing on its brakes, and eventually fell into me, gasping heavily to pronounce the session successfully over. Less than five minutes later he was asleep and snoring loudly into my ear, and I cursed my luck once again, promising as soon as I worked out how to get home, that I'd take my profile off the dating site immediately, and forget all about trying to find a man.

I drank the rest of the wine while Marth slept off his dubious bout of love making, and fingered through the books he had on his shelf.

The only title I recognised was 'Mr Nice', Howard Marks's autobiography, which amused me to see had been inscribed inside with the following:

Thought you might like this.

Lots of love,

Gran.

The rest of the books were either troubleshooting guides for some technical aspect of computing, or had something to do with how to guarantee internet business success. Each one had the same kind of targeted business speak on the back, designed to engage the audience and sell what was essentially a lie. I read as much as I could of one, and then put it back on the shelf with the others, bored by what it was telling me. I couldn't help but think I'd been sold a lie myself, and he was right there, snoring away peacefully in the bed in front of me, another notch carved into his bed post.

There were thousands of people around the world all snuggled up with their loved ones, and here I was with yet another dud. I couldn't remember all of their names, but the list was long enough to give me a complex, and showed no signs of slowing down. It was another unsuccessful evening to add to the catalogue of others I'd been busy building up, and the bad sex had made me feel exactly how I knew it would (and hoped unsuccessfully it wouldn't). Empty. If their was one thing I wished for (apart from a tall, dark, handsome and rich stranger to come into my life and whisk me away on a wondrous adventure), It was to have the capacity to learn from my past mistakes and see things for what they really were. That, and the tall, dark, handsome and rich stranger, seemed like such a long way away from where I was right now, that it wasn't even worth my while considering it.

With that depressing thought in mind, and my head buzzing quite nicely from the booze, I climbed into bed alongside my slumbering prince, and waited eagerly for the morning to come.

Chapter 2

Marth tried to hump me in the morning like a horny dog. I had slept much more soundly than I expected to, only to wake up to something hard poking into my side. As soon as I realised what it was, I rolled towards the edge of the bed in disgust, and then promptly fell out of it, landing comically on the floor with a dull thud. Marth began to crawl after me.

'
I have to go', I said, attempting to gather myself together.

'
What?' Marth said. 'Why?'

'
I can't stay', I said. 'I've got to meet my parents.'

My head hurt. Light was pouring in through the window where we'd failed to pull the curtains across last night, and it gave everything a harsh edge I could have done without. Marth just watched me from the bed like a life sized teddy bear, as I buzzed about as quickly as I could, collecting my things and getting dressed.

When I was sure I had everything, or at least sure I had the things I really needed, I made half an attempt at saying goodbye, opened up the door to the closet, and then finally found the door to the hallway. Marth was angling for a goodbye kiss, but there was no way he was getting one. His lips were still stained red from the wine the night before, and he had a puffy morning face on that made him look like he was made of flaky pastry.

'
Call me', Marth shouted, as I hurried along the hallway.

I found the stairs, found myself in the kitchen and then finally made my way back out to the street through the front door. Marth's mum was no longer plastered across her chair, but there was evidence of her occupation all over the floor.

Out on the street, I had no idea where I was. I wasn't even sure if I was still in London. I hadn't lied to Marth, I did actually have to meet my parents today, and I knew without even knowing what the time was, that I'd be late again.

It took an hour and a half to get back home. I walked for fifteen minutes before I found anyone I could ask for directions, and then another fifteen minutes to the tube station. On the tube I accidentally sat next to a man who smelt of wee, and couldn't change places for three more stops because the carriage was full.

At home, Sophia was sat in the living room with her feet in a cold bucket of water, getting tattooed.

'
Here she comes, the dirty stop out', Sophia said when she saw me.

'
Sophia, what the hell are you doing?' I said, and got as close to her as I dared. 'Is that hygienic?'

I prodded her arm. It already looked a bit swollen.

'
Probably', Sophia said, with a grin on her face. 'We washed the needle with hot, soapy water.'

Sophia was my American flatmate, and she was balls to the wall crazy. I liked her a lot. This was exactly the kind of thing I expected her to be doing on a Sunday morning. She sipped her beer.

'
This is Tad', she said.

'
What up?' Tad said.

'
Hey', I said. Tad and I looked like we'd grown up on other sides of the socio-economic spectrum. I couldn't work out what it was he was tattooing on her, aside from a mess of black squiggly lines decorated by dots of leaking blood.

'
So, successful night?' Sophia said, smiling.

'
The guy was a douche', I said.

'
All guys are douches', Sophia said. 'You know that already.'

'
Yeah but this guy was-', I said. 'I don't know. I was expecting something else.'

'
What were his redeeming qualities?' Sophia said.

'
He didn't try and kill me', I said, clutching desperately at something worthwhile to report.

'
You look sad', Sophia said. 'Do you want a tattoo to cheer yourself up? Tad's got the machine until five if you want him to, you know, permanently mark your skin forever and ever.'

'
I think I'll pass', I said.

'
The right one will come along after a while', Sophia said. 'You've just got to wait and not worry about it too much.'

'
I don't know', I said. 'I guess.'

'
And stop sleeping with the bad ones just because you feel guilty about saying no to them. You'll feel a lot better about yourself if you do that.'

'
I know', I said. 'I'm trying.'

'
I've got some single friends if you want me to hook you up', Tad said. 'You're a good looking girl, I know people who'd kill to get alongside you, if you know what I mean.'

Tad wiped away some of the excess ink from Sophia's arm with one of our kitchen tea-towels.

'
Oh that's sweet Tad, thank you', I said, 'but I might take Sophia's advice and take myself out of the game for a while.'

'
Whatever you want', Tad said.

'
Can I ask', I said. 'What is it meant to be?'

'
It's abstract', Tad said. 'It's a representation of where Sophia is in her life right now. It sort of symbolises the love we have for each other.'

I'd never met Tad before. Last week Sophia was with a tightrope walker called Victor, and the week before that, Sergio was a permanent resident on our couch, while Sophia went through her Mediterranean phase. I'm not even joking. Sophia changes her men about as often as everyone else changes their socks.

'
Do you like it?' Tad said.

'
Yeah', I lied, badly. 'kind of. It's different I suppose. Unique. I mean, I've definitely never seen one like it before.'

'
The General called', Sophia said, changing the subject to save me. It was what she called my dad because he had a thick moustache like she imagined all British wartime officials were obliged to wear. My dad was born after the war ended, and he has never had anything to do with the army, but despite that, Sophia insists on the nickname. 'He said he couldn't get you on your mobile phone.'

'
It's turned off', I said. 'What did he want?'

'
Lunch', Sophia said, putting on her best British accent. 'Will be served at two. Don't be late.'

'
I better get ready', I said.

'
If you change your mind about the tattoo', Sophia said, as I walked to my room. 'Tad's a real artist.'

I left them to it, and went to my room. It was how I'd left it the night before, when I'd been so full of hope for my date with Marth, and seeing it like this again now, reminding me of what could have been, made me want to vomit. There were several different outfit options on the bed, half of which had been tried on and rejected, and I had make-up scattered all over the desk, amongst assorted story notes, half filled notebooks, pens, post-it notes, and my trusty six year old laptop. It had been far too long since I'd last written anything worthwhile, and the computer sat there half hidden, like a secret I'd tried to bury away.

I made a mental note to begin again on Monday, the same mental note I'd made to myself several times before, scooped up all of my clothes, piled them onto my writing chair in one big heap and then went to shower off the acrid smell Marth had left with me.

Sophia and I shared a small, two bedroom apartment in Blackheath. It was difficult to get into central London from there, but it was a beautiful part of the city, and I didn't want to live anywhere else. We were close to parks, markets, and good pubs, and the restaurant I worked in was a short bus ride away in Greenwich. It was an old flat, but because of that it was much cheaper than most of the other properties around. I didn't earn a lot in my job, and Sophia didn't work all that much either by choice, so it suited us perfectly. She found it, in the same way she seemed to have luck finding everything else, and then she found me through a mutual friend.