The Drought (The hilarious laugh-out loud comedy about dating disasters!) (4 page)

Back at university, Stacey was
quite happy to sit and read while I watched a game of football on
the television, but with Sophie throwing in her two pennies worth
that all changed.

“
Sophie
doesn’t understand the point of watching football matches when you
don’t even support either of the teams playing,” Stacey now whined
at me.

“
You love
football more than you love me,” Stacey screamed at me during one
particular heated debate on the subject.

“
Correct,” I
stupidly responded. “Now go and collect your prize in Scotland and
leave me in peace.”

Stacey was furious. She grabbed
the remote control from my grasp, and informed me: “This is my flat
so we’ll watch what I want to watch.” I tried to grab the control
back from her but she wouldn’t release it from her grip. Eventually
I grabbed my coat and declared I was leaving, only for Stacey to
launch the remote control at my head, causing it to break on
impact.

The football
argument surely has to be one of the most common and annoying
debates girlfriends insist on having with their boyfriends. Let me
try and clear this one up right now, and I speak for men up and
down the country when I say this – we like football. End of. There
is no mystery. No need to send Scooby and gang in to solve this
one. Girls like mind-numbing rubbish like the
E! Entertainment
channel, while men
watch things that matter, like sport.

Although in
saying that, I didn’t tend to put up too much of an argument when
Stacey used to insist on watching
Girls of
the Playboy Mansion
. You don’t have to be
a rocket scientist to work out why.

In recent months Stacey’s
personality under Sophie’s watchful eye had transformed her
completely. The girl I had fallen in love with at university was
slowly becoming a stranger to me, and that was the most difficult
thing to take.

*

It had been about 20 minutes
since I’d left the boys at the Greasy Spoon to make my way to
Stacey’s flat. I turned on to her road and my mind started to race.
Was this really the end? Three years was a long time to be with
someone, and I wanted to make sure in my mind this was the right
thing to do. I wanted to reassure myself that I had done everything
to make this work.

I tried to think about the good
times, but then my mind would be clouded with recent events. Her
behaviour last night was just another in a long line of recent
performances that had drawn me to the conclusion our relationship
was a bit like watching England at the World Cup: it starts with a
lot of promise but inevitably it ends in tears and
disappointment.

I hit the buzzer and waited.
The door opened and her flatmate Sophie stood in the doorway in her
white dressing gown and green socks, a scowl on her face. Her big
wild hair looked even more untamed than normal, and her eyes told
me in no uncertain terms that she was not going to make this easy
for me.

“
She doesn’t
want to see you,” Sophie greeted me in her own charming way, arms
folded across her chest. She had always insisted on sticking her
nose into our relationship. At least she was being consistent I
thought to myself.

“
A pleasure as
always Sophie, you are looking radiant this morning,” I
sarcastically responded. “Can you tell Stacey I’m here
please?”

“
You have got
some nerve turning up here after what you put that poor girl
through last night.”

“
And you look
like you haven’t bleached that moustache in quite some time,” I
couldn’t help myself. I leaned over her and started to shout.
“Stacey! We need to talk.”

“
If you think
I am going to let you in here...”

“
It’s okay,”
Stacey’s voice interrupted and cut Sophie off mid-sentence. Stacey
appeared from behind her flatmate, opening the door wider. There
they both stood – my nemesis and my significant other, whatever the
hell that meant. “I’ll take it from here,” Stacey said. Sophie cut
me one final look, and I met her gaze full on. She then squeezed
Stacey’s hand as a way of telling her to be strong. Sophie moved
away from the door but couldn’t help herself as she mouthed the
words, “I’m watching you”, pointing at her eyes with her two
fingers and then pointing them back towards me, before returning
back to the darkness from whence she came.

It was at this
point I was able to really look at Stacey for the first time. She
had her brown hair clipped back away from her face. She was wearing
the
Little Miss Naughty
T-shirt I’d bought her. Her eyes were red and
puffy, and she looked like she had been crying all night. My heart
sank. Despite everything, I still had feelings for her and didn’t
want to see her like this, especially when I knew that I was the
cause of the hurt.

“
You’d better
come in,” she said avoiding eye contact. She led me upstairs to her
bedroom. She sat down on the bed as I closed the door. I turned
back to her. The TV was on in the background, but the sound had
been muted. The clothes she had been wearing from the previous
night were strewn across the floor.

“
Are you
okay?” I hesitated to sit down on the bed next to her.

“
What do you
think?” She sniffed, wiping her nose with a tissue. “You left me
alone on New Year’s Eve.”

I was willing to let that one
go, deciding it would be best not to drag up the who was right and
who was wrong argument.

“
And you
obviously never gave me a second thought by the smell of you,”
Stacey said wrinkling up her nose at me. “You smell like a brewery.
I hate it when you get drunk and turn into
that
person.”

I bit my tongue to stop myself
responding with what I really wanted to say. I didn’t want this to
descend into a slanging match at such an early stage. I sat down
beside her on the bed and took her hands in mine.

“
I’m sorry for
what happened last night. The last thing I wanted was for us to end
up having a row.” I stroked her hands.

“
It’s a bit
too late for that now,” she pulled her hands away from me and
stared me straight in the eye for the first time as her tone
reverted to one of bitterness. “You made the choice to go and hang
out with your friends without me.”

She really knew how to push my
buttons. She had this annoying habit of being able to lull me into
a false sense of security and just when she had me where she
wanted, she would unload. I felt the rage slowly start to build up
inside me, but again I took a deep breath.

“
That’s not
really fair,” I tried to reason with her. “I tried talking you into
coming to the party. You were the one who told me to go. You said
some pretty harsh things. What did you want me to do?”

“
Not leave me
on New Year’s Eve,” she snapped back. “It doesn’t matter now
anyway. What’s happened has happened. You had a good time – at
least one of us did.”

“
But you were
screaming at me to leave you alone,” I could feel my voice starting
to rise. “What else was I supposed to do?”

“
Don’t shout
at me. This isn’t my fault,” she paused. “You did this,” she said
jabbing her finger into my chest, her eyes narrowing at me
accusingly.

At that moment I could have
exploded. I think the only thing that stopped me was that I was
still nursing the hangover from hell, and didn’t physically have
the energy to rise to the bait. However, Stacey obviously had no
problem forcing the issue.

“
You don’t
give me the same level of attention like you used to,” she
continued with her verbal attack. “But you have no problem spending
time with your mates.”

“
That is
ridiculous,” I protested. Stacey had unrealistic expectations that
our relationship should continue in the same vein as it had done
during the first 12 months; an expectation Sophie had no doubt
drilled into her to create this wedge. But I managed to restrain
myself again; somehow I knew pointing that out would not help the
situation.

“
Is it?”
Stacey fired back at me. “I suppose you think it's
ridiculous
that Sophie
and I smashed up your PlayStation last night as well
then?”

“
Come on
Stace, we can sort this...” I paused, suddenly taking in what she
had just said. “You smashed up my PlayStation?” And it was at that
moment I noticed the broken pieces of my beloved games console
sitting in Stacey's bin.

“
This is worse
than that time you ruined my birthday,” Stacey suddenly blurted
out, moving my attention away from the bin and back to
her.

“
What?” I
couldn’t believe what I was hearing. This was the same story she
had been throwing in my face for nine months. The power of
restraint was obviously not a strong point for Stacey.

The story of the night in
question wasn’t my finest hour. I had drunk myself into oblivion to
block out the boring inane chit-chat I was being forced to endure
at the hands of her dry work colleagues. I have very little memory
of the night. All I remember is waking up the next morning to
discover a wall of pillows separating Stacey and I.

Dazed and confused, and after
much begging and pleading, I finally managed to coax Stacey into
telling me why she was giving me the cold shoulder.

She explained
how we had arrived back at her flat and proceeded to have what she
described as “incredible sex.” She told, in great detail, how she
moved on top of me and proceeded to deliver her best impersonation
of Sharon Stone in
Basic
Instinct
. And just as she was about to
explode in pure unadulterated pleasure, it happened.

I was snoring – so loudly that
I snorted like a pig.

Stacey tapped my face a couple
of times to rouse me, but it didn't work so she hit me instead.
Apparently I responded with 11 words that would haunt me for the
rest of our relationship: “Get off me. You're too heavy and I’m
trying to sleep.” I topped it all off by pushing her off me and
rolling over. And farting.

I knew I was in trouble, and
for weeks I did everything I could to make this up to Stacey. I
bought her flowers, took her out for dinner, and even took her away
for the weekend, but nothing was ever good enough.

Nine months on and she was
still using this against me. I was starting to think she had made
the whole thing up just so she could bring it up whenever we had a
disagreement or row. I even tried using man logic but that didn't
help things; it just made it worse. I would tell her that anything
that happened over six months ago is inadmissible in an argument.
And when I was feeling particularly brave I would inform her that
all comments and actions become null and void after seven days.

“
That was nine
months ago,” I pointed out the obvious as I had done on numerous
occasions.

“
You ruined my
birthday, and now you have ruined New Year.”

Suddenly any guilt I had felt
slowly started to evaporate. The Stacey I had met at university was
no longer the same person. She was never going to change, and in a
strange way I felt relieved.

“
We can’t
carry on like this,” I said after taking a deep breath.

She opened her mouth but the
words wouldn't come out. After all this time even Stacey was
exhausted from the constant fighting. She looked at me and I could
see tears starting to well in her eyes. “I know,” she said letting
her guard down.

Something hit me in my chest.
It was an ache I had never experienced before. I could feel a lump
in my throat. This was really it. We hugged each other, and held on
tight. We both knew this was goodbye. I pulled my head back and
wiped the tears from her cheeks. She stroked my face and a small
smile appeared through her tears. I looked into her eyes and saw
the Stacey I had fallen in love with three years ago. We
kissed.

Things moved
on to the next stage pretty quickly. So quickly that we were in
danger of losing some teeth as our lips clashed together. She
reached straight for my belt buckle and started to unzip my fly.
She pulled my jeans down to my knees and arched back on to her bed.
She didn’t seem to notice my complete lack of underwear and I
decided it wasn't the best time to explain why I had gone commando.
I pulled her thong down and she let out a moan. Her moans became
louder and louder as she demanded I thrust
harder
.
I would
have loved to have obliged, but I was really feeling the effects
from the previous night’s drinking and began to lose steam quickly.
I made one final thrust and lay on top of her, breathing heavier
than I really should have been after just one minute and 57
seconds. I lifted myself up and slumped beside Stacey on the
bed.

I slowly began
to catch my breath. Staring up at the ceiling I started to think
how that was the last time we’d ever make love to each other. Not
that I would have called that making love. In fact, does any man
actually call it making love? Please can we never mention that I
referred to sex as making love? It was a goodbye shag. The type of
thing couples need to do one last time before they finally go their
separate ways. Almost like a
well
done
for giving the relationship a go. You
get to leave things on a positive note. Not that I would normally
consider one minute and 57 seconds a positive, but I think we both
appreciated what had just happened. After three years it was time
for us to walk off into the sunset in different directions. A
two-minute memory in our back pockets.