#63: (And Die With Your Mask On If You’ve Got To)

It was a humid, overcast and sticky summer evening and I was out solo (T). So far I’d reeled off three sets and got one number: an American girl who was only in town for the weekend. She never came out (T).

I turned onto Oxford Street and started making my way towards Tottenham Court Road: the final leg of my usual route. As I got about halfway there I noticed Alice coming towards me with a definitely sexual walk (T). It wasn’t elegant or anything but I just got the feeling that she was trying to advertise something. Alice had long blondish hair which came down to her waist and led to her arse (definitely her best feature because her tits looked small). As I came closer I noticed that, behind a large pair of light tinted sunglasses, her face had lost some of its vibrancy. I would later find out that she was 28 (T). I’d say she was a six (and had this verified by Mr. Rasputin).

I let Alice go past and did my little count to three then ran back up the street to open her. She stopped immediately and I gradually worked my way around her so that we were face to face. I teased her for looking like a 1920s gangster from Chicago for the sunglasses and striped shirt she was wearing and we went on to banter a little. The conversation itself never went very deep and she seemed quite standoffish: we would always approach a topic and skirt around the edges, making little quips before moving onto the next one (T).

I asked her what she’d been up to and she told me she had just been drinking with her friends; in fact, she was four pints to the good! (T) I guess that explained part of how she was losing her vibrancy. Ding! The SDL bells went off in my head so I offered a quick drink and she said yes straight away. It was on.

We walked off of Oxford Street and onto Dean Street and both ordered a beer and stood outside one of the pubs drinking it. I began to escalate with the typical stuff: asking what kind of guys she liked and looking at her rings and then her hair (T). I used a bit of innuendo to find out that she’d had sex two weeks previously.

Now I started to wonder about the next bounce: would I go for broke (the SDL) or take her back to the station and try again another night. Standard practice would involve pushing through any resistance and getting her to a bar near my place before bouncing to mine, but I actually went for the latter. I decided that way for a number of reasons:

• When I floated the idea of a bar near mine she’d told me she lived a long way away (she wasn’t lying either) and it would take her a long time to get home; I didn’t want her to have this in the back of her mind
• I’ve been trying to take things slower recently (see my posts on Narcissism)
• Going for the SDL seemed like a lot of effort
• I figured that losing this girl wasn’t going to be a big loss at all

So I chose to act like a gentleman for the first time in my life and walked her to the train station (so no other Daygamer could get her) (T), making tentative plans to go to the place I had suggested another time. I decided to take a little risk though, and as we came down the escalators at the station I turned her around, drew her towards me and kissed her.

The texting was straightforward and after I made sure that her first response wasn’t just a fluke (T) I asked her out again and she agreed to meet a few days later near to my place. At this point she couldn’t have known it was near to mine for certain (I had just told her I lived in “north London”) but she could have quite easily had her suspicions. Still, whenever a girl comes out to meet you once you’ve already kissed her knows where it’s going.

We met at the tube station on another overcast, humid day and the first thing I noticed was that she had this large cotton plaster on her arm. I wonder what that is, I thought to myself, before greeting her and leading her to a local pub where we had a couple of pints of beer. Alice gave more to the conversation this time, talking a bit more about her life, but she never seemed to show any kind of emotional involvement in what she did.

I did as before, escalating a little and trying to throw in some sexual quips whenever I could (T). I did kiss her, but oddly she kept her mouth closed.

“So what’s this then,” I asked her, pointing at the plaster.

“Oh, it’s the [contraceptive] implant,” she readily answered.

Savage.

We finished our second drink and then headed over to a darker bar where we grabbed more beer and sat in a completely secluded area to play the Questions Game. She wouldn’t tell me much but I did find out that she feels the urge to have sex roughly every two weeks. Oh, and this:

“How many girls have you slept with?” she asked me; in effect seeing whether I was pre-selected.

“Hmmm, about 60,” I replied, “you?”

“I don’t remember how many.” You don’t remember?!

“What about a ballpark figure?” I asked, staying cool.

“Maybe 25.”

Savage.

We finished our drinks and it was my turn to ask a question so I used it to offer the bounce home and she refused. What a whore! I brushed it off and we had another drink. As she came back with them I told her:

“You know, Alice, I’m going to tell you what I think about you. You seem… standoffish. Like you’re not really giving your full self.” (T)

“Well there’s a reason for that,” she replied.

“Uhumm,” I encouraged.

“Two weeks ago I had an abortion.”

Savage.

After that drink we walked outside and I offered the bounce again and reassured her that it would be a quick drink and that she could leave whenever she wanted to (T). She ummed for about a nanosecond before following me down the road. There was no LMR. I double wrapped. +1. After that she got dressed and I walked her to the station.

Yours unfaithfully,

Thomas Crown