Raven (6 page)

A few days later, whilst perusing the dating site, I saw Édouard's profile and decided to dispatch a friendly note. ‘Hello, hope you're enjoying the summer. Been drinking any nice Chablis?' But a box popped up on my screen with an astonishing message: ‘Sorry, this member has blocked you from making further contact.' I stared at it. What the fuck? I said out loud.

I wracked my brains to think what could have caused him to take this draconian step. It had been an agreeable evening. Was it something I had said? I'm pretty sure I resisted the temptation to be rude about the French. Something I had done? Or did I have beet greens stuck between my teeth?

Then it occurred to me that he might have blocked me my mistake. Inadvertently clicked on some bit of the website. So I texted him: ‘Hi Édouard. Did you mean to block me on the dating site? If so, it's fine, I'm just curious as to why.'

The damned frog never even replied. So, no mistake then. Maybe there were just some weird aspects to this internet dating business that I had yet to figure out.

And I was about to learn exactly how weird it could get.

CHAPTER SIX

A wink pinged onto my laptop and when I entered the site to see who had sent it, I found MaxE8. He was English, aged 30 and six feet tall. A graphic designer living in the East End. I was enjoying this attention from young men, and MaxE8 was attractive, even-featured, his dark hair worn spiky on top, the way young men often do, to give them that slightly bad-boy look. And there was a mischievous glint in his eyes. In short, he was sexy. And after my past three encounters, all I could think was
vive la difference
.

His profile contained the standard stuff about enjoying going out with friends to restaurants and pubs and films, while also being happy to stay in with a DVD and a pizza and the ‘right girl', and how he liked to keep fit and was hard-working but also adventurous and open-minded. I'd read it all before. But at the end he had added: ‘There is more to me than meets the eye.' Intriguing!

I winked back at MaxE8 and soon afterwards he sent me a message to ask how I was finding the site and what I was looking for, signing it ‘Max'. I said I was just after a little fun following the end of a long, difficult relationship. ‘Fun sounds good,' he replied. ‘Maybe we could have that together…' Wha-hey!

I told him I was fond of younger men and he answered that, as he was fond of older women, we might be suited to each other. This was getting better and better. ‘You look great for your age,' he said.

‘What do you mean, for my age? Ha ha…' And so we carried on for a while and I was enjoying the flirtatiousness of our exchanges. When I mentioned that I liked swimming he said he did too but that maybe we should try the hot tub together instead.

We agreed to meet for a drink the following Saturday evening and he took my mobile number, saying he would text me later that night.

At about 11 p.m. I was lying in bed surrounded by my usual accoutrements: newspapers and magazines, books, Filofax (I can be so quaint), notebook and pen, radio remote control, mobile phone, mug of peppermint tea.

My mobile tinkled with the arrival of a text. It was Max. Gone was the more understated tone of our earlier online chat. Flirty had given way to dirty. His opening gambit was: ‘Looking forward to ripping your knickers off, sexy!'

A part of me – the 60-year-old grandmother part, I suppose – thought I ought to be offended. Did he think I was some floozy? But I couldn't get uptight about it. A hot-looking guy half my age fancied me. It was exciting and heady. So I took it as a compliment. And anyway, hadn't I set myself up for this?

‘Ooh, hold that thought.' I texted back.

Max had other thoughts, too. Including some very naughty ones involving threesomes. His favoured scenario involved us getting into bed with a ‘slutty 18-year-old'. Clearly, we weren't ‘on the same page'.

‘I think you'll have to do that with some other older woman!' I tapped out.

‘How about a horny 18-year-old guy then? You would enjoy the kinkiness of it.' Jesus. Compared to this, SuperA's ‘saucy quiz' was like something out of Dennis the Menace.

‘Maybe I'm not quite your type, Max. I'm a bit classier than that. Let's concentrate on us instead of involving third parties.'

‘That's fine. But you still like kinky naughty stuff, right?'

‘Up to a point. But there's got to be some affection too, otherwise it's soulless. Know what I mean?'

He didn't answer that.

‘I want to kiss you passionately,' he went on. ‘As an older woman you can instruct me on how to kiss you. I think we'll be attracted to each other. Don't you?'

‘Yes, but I need to like you, as well.'

‘Well I hope you like me then!'

‘Me too. Meanwhile, don't think mindless shagging. Think making love. That's so much better.'

And after a pause: ‘Do you want me to call you mummy when we're making love?'

‘Oh for chrisssakes! No I do not!'

‘Just an idea.'

‘A dopey one. Right, I'm off to sleep. Good-night!'

I liked his fervour but he was definitely an unorthodox one, that Max, definitely ‘adventurous and open-minded' as per his dating profile. Still, as the senior partner in this little liaison, the older woman who he said could ‘instruct him', I reckoned I could rein in his wilder appetites.

But first we would have to meet for that drink and take the measure of each other. So on Saturday evening I headed back to The Bells.

*

I was sitting on a bar stool, sipping a glass of iced Zinfandel, when he walked in. Tall and cool, wearing jeans and a tight-fitting hoody which showed off his fit young body, and sunglasses which he took off so that he could wink at me. He looked even hotter than I'd expected. He kissed my cheek, murmured ‘All right?', and ordered himself a beer. Oh yes. I was going to enjoy this date.

We sat down at a table and he started talking, easily enough, about his life. He liked his job but wanted to start his own design business one day so he could be his own boss. He said he enjoyed living in the East End – such a great area for creative types like him. And he explained that he grew up in Bristol and his parents were divorced. ‘Everyone's parents are divorced now, right?' he quipped. He said he never wanted to get married or even live with anyone. ‘I couldn't do that,' he said, rather too definitively, I thought.

Then he abruptly stopped talking, stood up and announced: ‘I'm going outside for a smoke.' And before I knew it he was gone, leaving me sitting alone, glass in hand, at the table. A bit odd. And he was away a long time. Had he changed his mind about me and gone home?

But at last he returned, sat back down and flashed me a smile, and we picked up where we had left off. A moment later he said: ‘I'm starving. Should we eat something?' So we ordered sausages and mash from the bar and as we ate our meal I stole glances at him, marvelling at the turn of events which had led to my date with a young hunk like Max, when only a few months earlier I had feared my dating days were over.

By this point I knew I'd be inviting him back to my place. I was dying for a snog. When we had finished our meal and came to a natural break in our chat, I gave him what I hoped was an alluring smile. ‘So…wanna come up and see my etchings?'

He looked confused. ‘Etchings.' He frowned as if trying to work out whether we had mentioned etchings earlier in the conversation.

Obviously he had never heard the expression. Wrong generation. Perhaps I'd better not refer to Private Eye's ‘Ugandan discussions', either.

‘What I mean is, fancy some coffee at my place?'

‘Yeah.' He gathered his things and stood up. We stopped at the bar to pay the bill, which was handed to me, as the tab was on my credit card. ‘I'll give you the cash,' he said, already making his way towards the door and taking another cigarette out of his pocket. I paid and followed him out.

We walked back to my house, less than ten minutes away, and when we got there I led the way into the kitchen, turned on the radio for some easy-listening music and reached for the percolator. But he wasn't bothered about any of that. He took me by the arms and gave me a long and zealous kiss. Afterwards he had a look around and observed approvingly that the place was clean and tidy.

We got touchy-feely again and it wasn't long before we headed upstairs. But once there, he did something unusual. While I entered my bedroom, expecting him to follow me in, he went off instead to peer into every other first-floor room, to ‘see what's in them'. Like an estate agent sizing up a property for sale…which was what my house was, of course.

‘They're just bedrooms,' I called out, baffled. Maybe he was interested in the housing market? Or was he worried about possible strangers lurking in this big silent house?

Turning lights on and off in various rooms, he satisfied himself that there was nothing untoward going on. But when he saw children's cots and toys in one of the bedrooms, he turned to me curiously and asked about them.

‘Grandchildren,' I said. Now I knew I had to divulge my real age. Otherwise the numbers just wouldn't add up. ‘Max, I'm a little older than it says on my profile.'

‘Oh? How much older?'

‘Um…59.'

He eyed me shrewdly. ‘You're sixty, aren't you?'

I sighed and gave up. ‘Yup.' I paused. ‘Is that a problem?'

I was expecting some show of disappointment, maybe even antipathy. But his mouth formed into a wicked grin and he said, ‘A 60-year-old granny. Even kinkier.' And he kissed me again, hard.

*

Lying in bed, I watched Max take off his clothes and lay them down neatly in a row on the floor. That's when he mentioned his OCD. And suddenly it all made sense. The examining of the rooms, the preoccupation with tidiness, the blunt statement about not being able to live with anyone. When he had mentioned during our meal that he never cooked because he didn't want to get his kitchen utensils dirty, I'd laughed because I thought he was joking.

So. OCD. That must have been what he meant about there being more to him ‘than meets the eye'. Must be tricky to live with, I thought. What a palaver. I had never before observed this condition at such close quarters. But after years on Fleet Street there wasn't much about the human race that could surprise or shock me. I could handle it. If this was as bad as it got.

But then it got worse.

Max was a forceful sex partner, strong and insistent. I didn't mind that – although a little tenderness would not have gone amiss – because, like most women, I'm partial to the occasional ‘bit of rough'. But he took it too far, going at it with as much obsession as he put into his orderliness with clothes and kitchen utensils.

Pinning me down on the bed, he looked into my eyes and said the one word I had hoped he wouldn't utter.
Mummy
.

‘Are you enjoying this,
mummy
?' His face was only an inch from mine.

I closed my eyes. ‘Don't say that.' I turned away and squirmed underneath him. ‘I'm
not
your mummy.'

‘But he wouldn't stop. ‘You like it, don't you, mummy?'

‘
No
,' I breathed up at him. I found this role-playing unnerving. Raunchy is good. A bit of manhandling is fine. But this mother-son fantasy was not at all fine. It was warped. Christ, we were
so
not on the same page.

‘I'm your
boy
, aren't I? Say I'm you're boy.' He put his hand around my throat and squeezed hard. When, after a few seconds, he didn't let go I tried to prise his fingers off my neck but it wasn't easy. I was finding it hard to breathe. It was as if he really meant business and that unnerved me.

When he finally loosened his grip I said, trying to be reasonable and calming, ‘Come on Max, you don't really want to choke me, do you?'

He said nothing after that but kept his hand on my throat a while longer, pressing a little too tightly for comfort, and I pulled at his fingers. At long last he reached his climax, let go of me and fell back on the bed in a sweat.

And as I lay there recovering from these exertions, all I could think was: what the FUCK would Freud make of that? Perhaps Max had already found some creepy women prepared to play the mummy game, women who even enjoyed it, and he thought I wouldn't mind. Wrong.

Later that night there was another, less edgy session, without the role-playing this time. Then we fell asleep.

Early in the morning I tiptoed downstairs to make myself coffee. I drank it out in the garden, breathing in the cleansing fresh air. I pondered on the dicey doings of the previous night. Wow, I'd really taken a risk this time. How stupid. In future I would have to be more cautious. I dreaded to think what Sara would have to say about this episode.

Max came down a little later, dressed and ready to leave. After gulping down a coffee he said he had better go, it was a long way back to Hackney.

I dropped him off at the tube station and before he got out of my car he gave me a peck on the lips and muttered, ‘I'll call you'. But he didn't sound as if he would and I hoped he wouldn't. As he strode off, wearing his shades, I reflected that although he was a sicko, he was still a hot-looking son of a bitch. I just didn't want to be the bitch in question.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Vanessa and I were prancing around in the pool, warming up for aqua class. She had asked me how my dating was going and I related my creepy encounter with Max. She studied me, eyes wide, shaking her head disapprovingly with accompanying loud tutting noises. I had expected this, of course. She had already set out for me, weeks earlier, her unbreakable rules for dating. And I'd been breaking them all.

‘Oh dear oh dear.
What
were you
thinking
?'

‘I know,' I said feebly and pursed my lips. ‘I know.'

Vanessa's iron-clad dating rules were:

1. Never have sex on the first date.

2. Never bring anyone home until you know them well.

3. Never pay for anything (‘or you'll ruin it for the rest of us!').

4. Dine only at top restaurants and drink only champagne (‘If they can't afford Champagne, they can't afford me').

5. Never take public transport, only taxis (‘Any man who so much as mentions the tube is out').

6. If possible, make them remove all their body hair (Vanessa disliked hairy men, particularly in her own bed, where their stray hairs sullied her Egyptian cotton sheets).

With Max, I didn't know whether she would be more censorious about my having sex on a first date with the Boston Strangler or my picking up the tab for our food and drinks. (Needless to say, Max never did give me the cash, happy for ‘mummy' to foot the bill. I was glad he didn't ask me to stump up for a school trip to France, as well.)

Vanessa was dead against the idea of being with much younger men, too, thinking it tasteless and inappropriate. (Well
duh
!) When I'd told her about Little Pup, age 23, she squealed ‘He's only a year older than my son!' and said she might be sick in the pool.

She was an intriguing combination of blousy blonde man-eater and Little Goody Two-Shoes. I liked her a lot and liked comparing notes with her on our internet dating adventures. For every man who ‘viewed' me online, she was viewed by twenty. Men flocked to her profile in their thousands. I got dozens of winks, she got hundreds. One must never ever underestimate the power of blondeness and bustiness in the sexual imaginings of men. It's not easy for a petite brunette to keep up.

However, we discovered a certain overlap in the men we had been encountering on the site. Jock, for example had been onto her a few times, trying to entice her into a tryst. She had resisted because she didn't like his beard. When I told her about my mindless shag-fest with him, she nodded knowingly and said, ‘I'm not at all surprised.'

And then there was BryanG, the 63-year-old engineer from Surrey. After exchanging a few messages, he asked whether we could chat on the phone. He was getting on a bit, but I didn't want to be ageist. He looked fairly presentable, was tall, had his own hair. Educated. Solvent. So I agreed.

I suspected he might be a tad dull but didn't realise quite how dull he was until we had our lengthy conversation one day as I was sitting in the shoe department of Marks and Spencer's at Marble Arch, killing time before an appointment. And when I say
killing
time, I don't use the word lightly. That 25 minutes was bludgeoned to death.

As BryanG droned on about his life and times – encompassing his divorce from his wife of thirty-odd years, the respective professions and family lives of his three married children, his demanding job (which took him to many ‘fascinating' parts of the world) and the sad demise of his mum through dementia – I surveyed the nearby pumps, slingbacks and court shoes, desperate for a little light relief.

Still too kindly for my own good, instead of casting him to the four winds without further ado, I said I was very busy for the next fortnight (the usual bullshit) but that maybe we could have a drink sometime after that. He was satisfied with this and said he'd ring again in due course. Great. Another riveting conversation to look forward to.

Vanessa howled with laughter when I told her about all this as we sweltered in the steam room one day after class. She had already been on two dates with BryanG. ‘Nothing much happened,' she told me, ‘except that we had a snog. It wasn't very nice.'

BryanG had wined and dined her at elegant West End restaurants. He had been boring, she said, but ‘the more I drank the easier he was to take'. Anyway, when she informed him after the second date that she didn't wish to take things further, he went a bit funny, claiming he had already ‘fallen in love' with her. As Vanessa recounted: ‘He said to me “I've invested two expensive dinners in you and paid for your cabs home and now you go and break my heart. I feel I've been used!” So I offered to make dinner for him one night to pay him back but he said no, that would only cause him more pain.'

After hearing this story I resolved that under no circumstances would I meet BryanG for a drink or anything else. What if he fell for me too, after ‘investing' in me, only to find that there would be no return on his investment? I didn't need a bleating 63-year-old granddad in my life.

Vanessa knew NiceMan personally, as well. Like me, she'd been on a tame afternoon date with him. Except that instead of going to some common-or-garden establishment as we did, he took her for tea at Fortnum's. Naturally.

‘I liked him,' she said. ‘But not in
that
way, obviously. He's been having a tough time and I gave him some moral support. We've texted each other a few times since then. Don't think I'll see him again though.'

‘I've agreed to go to his place for dinner one night,' I said. ‘He says he wants to cook me a meal. Isn't that sweet.'

‘A bad idea,' said Vanessa. ‘Why did you agree to that?'

‘Well, he's a decent guy,' I said. ‘I enjoyed his company. And I feel a bit sorry for him. So I told him that although there's no chance of any romantic thing between us, we could just be friends.'

She gave me one of her mildly critical looks. Apparently, I had broken yet another of her golden rules. ‘Never tell a man that you can just be friends. Because if they want to have a real relationship with you, they'll keep hoping for more.' She paused before adding meaningfully: ‘You must never give them hope.'

*

The weekend following my misadventure with Max, Little Pup journeyed up from Tooting for another visit. It lifted my heart to see him amble up the drive to my front door, boyish and smiling and straightforward. His hug was like a comfort blanket. Who needed an ‘exciting' dude with shades and spiky hair, someone at once ‘cool' and ‘hot', but whose excitements veered off into the alarming and repugnant?

As before, Pup was gentle and affectionate and attentive. We spent Sunday afternoon in bed, making love, dozing, chatting, laughing. I teased him because we had so few cultural references in common. When ‘Sweet Caroline' played on the radio I was amazed to find he had never heard of Neil Diamond. So I set him a little culture test.

‘Who was the drummer in the Beatles?'

‘Er…pass.'

I groaned. ‘Which mega pop star from Wales sang “It's Not Unusual”?' He looked at me blankly, so I sang the first few bars.

‘Dunno that one.'

‘Christ. Okay, let's get serious. Which American president was shot in 1963?'

He pondered this for a moment, struggling for a name. ‘Was it…Nixon?'

I giggled and gave his hair a tug. ‘You moppet!' One really couldn't underestimate the failings of the English state school system. But nothing would make me think the less of my Pup.

It occurred to me that, while we had grown close in so many ways, I didn't even know his surname. I hadn't thought to ask. This was one of the peculiarities of internet dating. You could form an almost instant intimacy with a person, but it had no traditional foundation to it, no ‘back story'. It just came out of nowhere. Out of the ether. Yet, at its best, it was no less gratifying for that.

Once again we had supper in front of the telly. This time, as we polished off most of a carton of Ben & Jerry's, we watched a DVD of The Graduate. He had actually heard of this sixties classic – wonder of wonders – but never seen it. I told him that the storyline would have a certain relevance to his own life.

When the film was over he remarked that although Mrs Robinson was ‘dead sexy', he was glad to say I was much nicer than her.
And
I wasn't married.

I turned to him. ‘Okay, here's another question for you. Which famous duo sang “Mrs Robinson”, the film's theme song?'

He frowned. ‘I'm not playing.'

Sometime in the middle of the night we woke up and I stroked his hair and we started kissing. As he grew roused, he moved on top of me but I told him to wait a moment and reached for the baby oil in my bedside table. Maybe it was time for something different.

Anal sex is one of those love-it-or-hate-it, Marmite-type things. One of my favourite episodes in Sex and the City was on exactly this emotive topic. Demure Charlotte is in a panic because her new boyfriend wants to do anal with her, but she's never done it before and is apprehensive. So the other three girls offer her guidance on anal sex as they all ride together in the back of a cab. Meanwhile the Sikh cab driver, agog at what he's hearing, can't concentrate on his driving.

The analytical Miranda expounds: ‘The question is: if he goes up your butt, will he respect you more or respect you less? That's the issue.'

Carrie lights a cigarette and when the driver says there's no smoking in his cab she retorts: ‘Sir, we're talking
up the butt
. A cigarette is in order.'

‘Front, back, who cares?' says racy Samantha. ‘A hole is a hole…and P.S. it's
fabulous
.'

God I loved that show.

That night Pup learned a new trick and as we lay beneath the duvet afterwards, tired and content, I asked him if he had found it exciting.

‘If things gets any more exciting,' he murmured, ‘I might faint.'

I smiled. He could always make me smile. And with that we drifted off to sleep again.

*

Sara's Aunt Dolly is down in London, visiting us briefly from her home in Northamptonshire. It is Sunday afternoon and she and I are sitting at my dining table, lingering over glasses of wine after a blow-out lunch. Dolly is a congenial, generous-hearted woman, a divorcee of long standing who hasn't had an easy time of it on the relationship front. Now I am fascinated to learn that she was an early adopter of internet dating, way back in the late-1990s when it was still widely regarded as a questionable fringe activity. ‘You had to be a bit madcap to do it then,' says Dolly. ‘And I guess I am.'

One of her first online dates was with ‘mothball man'. She recalls the episode. ‘I was living in Sussex at the time and we met for lunch at a restaurant in Crawley. This ageing guy walks in, reeking of mothballs. He wore jeans that were way too tight, with a pot belly hanging over the top, and an awful old-fashioned jacket that he'd obviously had hanging in his wardrobe for decades and taken out for the occasion. And he had these mashed-up teeth.' She shakes her head in dismay.

‘Ugh!' I laugh. ‘Could you bear to eat a meal with him?'

‘No, I couldn't. I stayed for one drink, trying not to gag on the mothball smell. Then I made a quick getaway.'

‘So, a case of creepy in Crawley.'

‘Yes! But I had much creepier date than that, a couple of years later.' And she tells me about the fellow she agreed to meet for drinks at a murky backstreet club in Northampton. ‘His behaviour was a bit odd from the start. He seemed effeminate. And the more we drank the more weirdly effeminate he became. Then it got very late and we'd both drunk too much, and somehow we ended up back at his place.'

I smile to myself. Dolly and I are more alike than I had realised…

‘As he was making us coffee I looked around his kitchen and noticed a shelf full of bottles of pills. Lots of unfamiliar, suspicious-looking stuff. Also anti-depressants. Anyway, a little later we got into bed and then, as we lay there in the dark, it all came out. How he used to be a woman and had already had the sex-change operation but the transformation wasn't yet complete. He was still a bit “she”. But he had this new penis and told me he wanted to put it to use with me. Drunk as I was, I knew I ought to get up and leave. But I wasn't in a state to make my way home. So I told him I was really tired and was it okay if we just went to sleep? He didn't answer. And thank god he didn't try anything on with me. I lay in bed nervously, hardly daring to move. And he lay next to me and cried himself to sleep. He was still sleeping when I crept away early in the morning.'

I shudder. How Myra Breckinridge-ish. And I'd thought my Max incident was on the edge.