Chapter One – Tequila Sunrise

I will never drink tequila again. I know I have said it before, but this time I
mean it.
I used to know this girl who would say her head was in pieces after a
heavy night out. It was nights like the one I have just had that the term was
invented for.
My mate Nick came over last night with a bottle of Jose Cuervo, a
salt cellar and a lemon. It was Saturday night after all and there was drinking
to be done and clubs to be hit afterwards.
He parked his TF black sapphire BMW 325 Ci Auto Sport Convertible
behind my Le Mans green MG on the drive outside my place.
Most of the tequila was gone by the time we went out at 10pm. My
head was giddy and my stomach only loosely associated with the rest of my
body. My body only loosely associated with the rest of the world.
We started in a bar for a quick pint before the club opened. I ordered
two lagers, Stella Artois of course, from the barmaid. She was pretty, but
looked young, probably just 18. I was not in the mood for teaching. I wanted
experience, so we would both come away satisfied.
Nick and I drank the pints and scanned the bar for girls. It was a
trendy kind of a bar, all leather sofas and sturdy wooden tables. The place
attracted aspirational types. Up and coming smart business sorts, who wanted
to be seen drinking in the right places. For them, this was the right place.
Half the conversations were work related, despite it being the weekend. People
talking about their firm’s new product they are helping to develop, others
discussing strategy for their blue chip employer.
The bar was occupied by 20 and 30-somethings, all of whom were
out to network and generally give off the impression they were hardcore
business types.
Nick and I both work in marketing. We live with this kind of bull on a
daily basis. I would like to stay away from it at the weekend, but it is kind of
hard without going drinking in a hovel full of student types, or worse, watering
holes where people who are not young professionals go. We would look
© 2004-2008 Edward Keating, published by Oktober Books Ltd
© 2004-2008 Edward Keating, published by Oktober Books Ltd
out of place, which could get us into trouble with the locals. So this kind of
bar was safe as we fitted in.
The fact that we are in marketing and used to wading through bull
just kind of helps in this environment.
Also, if we did manage to pull, it is always best to be in this kind of
setting so at least we might have something in common to talk about to
whichever lucky ladies we lure to our beds.
There were a few nice looking women about the place, most were
with partners. We saw one of my least favourite sights in polite society.
The reasonably attractive 20-something girl with a 50-plus guy,
clearly someone high up in the finance firm she works in. He is obviously
besotted and she is with him for a number of reasons – all of which involve
furthering her career.
I pity the guy, as once she is established in the firm, somewhere in
lower middle management, or when he takes early retirement in a year or
two, the relationship is history.
He gets a few years riding a young woman and is then left with nothing.
She gets 30 plus years of valuable insight into company politics and is
left entrenched in the firm’s way of life.
There were one or two groups of women about the place, but they
all seem kind of average. Secretaries maybe, looking for career guys to get
in with, with a view to the three ‘M’s. Mortgage, marriage, maternity. Not
necessarily in that order.
Dangerous beasts. Once they have their hooks into you, they are
hard to get rid of. Within three months, they are talking about the rest of your
lives together, planning holidays with you and their parents and coming up
with names for your future offspring.
This usually echos national trends. After Courtney Love got famous,
there was an explosion of little girls named after her. Basketball star Jordan
became a popular boy’s name in the early 1990s and then girls started getting
it as a name after the British glamour model.
Nick and I headed for the club when we had established there was
nothing in the bar we liked.
Jabba’s, the club is also quite up market. A few years back, it was
an indie club with a student population, but it got sold on and, after some
investment, became the trendiest place in town. We pay £10 each to get in.
The drinks start at £5 for a bottle of weak lager.
The club looks good, dark, with mirrors and the decor that says young
professional meeting place. The bar staff are dressed in trousers, with shirt
and black tie. None of that polo shirt look in here. The clientele are straight
out of the last place we were in, as well as the half dozen others like it across
the city centre.
We come here a lot. The tequila theme continued in Jabba’s. Nick
and I had Tequila Sunrises. I chatted to some bird I know from somewhere. I think she either works in my building or in one of the shops or cafes nearby.
I was not that into her. She is not bad looking, but she bored me senseless.
I have a rule that I only let stunningly attractive women bore my pants off as
a route to the bedroom. I wandered off and talked to some other people I
vaguely knew.
Nick was pretty drunk and he said to me: “Blake, I am bored out of
my brain. There is no one worth talking to out tonight. Let’s go play some
cards and do some proper drinking.”
Now Nick loves a bet, many nights of drunken skateboarding challenges
lay behind us, and maybe in front of us too. He is also a cracking card
player. I try never to play him for money or when I am drunk. But the tequila
was clouding my judgement and the club was full of unattractive women and
drunken men trying to pull them.
We headed off to the taxi rank and, as we went to jump in the only
car, this pair of fit looking girls did the same.
“Hey,” said the blonde, “this is our cab.”
Nick, drunk but cool as ever, said: “Where are you going?”
The blonde told him.
“Fine. We are going the same way, we can share,” he said.
“Sure thing,” she said.
The four of us jumped in the back of the black cab. I was drunk, but
knew where this was all likely to end up.
The blonde’s name was Katy Potter. She had green eyes and a tan.
Her friend with shoulder length wine coloured hair, brown eyes and pale skin was Sara Vasey.
They had been out drinking in the city centre and had had a boring
night out as well.
Nick was giving them the chat and explained we were going to drink
© 2004-2008 Edward Keating, published by Oktober Books Ltd
© 2004-2008 Edward Keating, published by Oktober Books Ltd
more tequila and play cards and they were more than welcome to join us if
they liked.
So, there we were playing cards on my kitchen table at 1am with
these two girls we had just met. The tequila was already finished so we
drank White Russian cocktails made from vodka and Kahlúa I had around
my flat.
Strip poker was the name of the game, with Nick playing a blinder
and the girls already down to their G strings. They seemed quite happy sat
in their underwear at my kitchen table. It suited me fine too. We talked and
played poker.
It turned out they are local to this dump of a town. Nick and I came
here around four years ago as part of the relocation package with the graduate programme at our marketing firm.
“I couldn’t have gone back to my home town after I finished university,”
I told the pair of them. “I don’t like bumping into people I used to know
who still live there. Meeting up again was always so embarrassing for both
of us. I would find out they have been working in the same shop or bar for
the last eight years and hate the job. They would ask what I was up to and
I’d get to tell them about my kick-ass career in marketing and the look on
their faces would make me feel bad – like I was wrong to have left the town
where I grew up and move on and upwards. Then there is the possibility of
bumping into someone I slept with at sixth form. That would be awful.”
“Most of the people I slept with when I was doing my A-levels have
moved away,” Sara said. Her hand under the table on my leg. “I got a good
job with the local authority, I don’t make mega bucks, but I’m not poor and I get to live near my folks and I was never madly motivated to move away.”
“Too many exes back home, “ I said.
“The problem with exes, “Nick said, “is that there is always something
there afterwards.”
“No,” I said.
“Liar,” he said, “anyone who you have ever slept with would sleep
with you again if you tried hard enough.”
“They wouldn’t and I wouldn’t try,” I said.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Blake said, “I can think of a dozen
girls I’ve gone out with or shagged, who deep down, if they came over tomorrow,
I wouldn’t hesitate in getting right back into bed with them. Whether I
dumped them or they dumped me, it doesn’t matter. The spark never goes
away.”
“I agree,” Sara said. “Last year I slept with this guy I had briefly seen
when I was doing my A-levels. He is still with the girl he dumped me for. I
never really had the strongest feelings for him, but when I bumped into him,
his name is Will, we got chatting and it seemed the most natural thing in
the world for the two of us to go back to his hotel room and sleep together. I
hadn’t seen him for years. I hadn’t thought of him for just as long. He lives in
London with Harriet Cleft, this girl who Katy and I both went to school with.
It was a moment outside both our real lives. He went back to Harriet and I
carried on and what we did was irrelevant outside that room.”
“Would you do it again?” Nick asked.
“Sure I would. It was fun, but at the same time I’m not going to chase
after him telling him I love him and make him choose between her and me.
Mostly I won’t do this because I don’t love him and it is just sex anyway. I
don’t want him 24/7. The odd shag would be fine, but I don’t kid myself it is
ever going to happen, as we have slept together twice in a decade.”
“You see, I would sleep with just about any girl I have been to bed
with in my life. No question. I don’t hold huge candles for them, but to have
liked them enough to have sex once, the magic can still be there again,”
Nick said.
“Well I can think of a couple of ex girlfriends I would like to sleep with
again, but not all of them,” I said.
“What you mean is, you think they would let you get away with it as
you think they still hold torches for you,” Sara said.
I was extremely attracted to her. Intellect, insight and a great body.
She and Katy were naked thanks to the poker game.
I gave up on the conversation and kissed Sara. She pulled my boxer
shorts down, I whipped on a condom and we started having sex on the kitchen
table. I was vaguely aware of Nick and Katy moving into the lounge for the
same thing.
After we were done, Sara and I talked about exes. She told me she
is a firm believer in the concept that the attraction to a former lover never
fades away. She told me she had slept with more than 50 guys and would
shag almost any of them again, if the truth be told.
“Even the ones who two-timed me if I tell the honest truth. Why would
I be so mad with them for screwing someone else if I didn’t still want to shag
their brains out?”
© 2004-2008 Edward Keating, published by Oktober Books Ltd
© 2004-2008 Edward Keating, published by Oktober Books Ltd
She had a good point.
“Men are consumer goods. There are lots of them about and I select
which I want. I can have as many as I like or as few as I like. I take the pill,
I use condoms. No big deal. Men have seen women as objects for eternity,
so the logical extension of feminism is that women see men as objects. I’m
happy to be seen as an object by potential sexual partners because I see
them the exact same way. If I want to re-use one of them then that’s fine.
Having been there before means you don’t have to worry about the whole
‘do they fancy me or not’ stuff. They have been to bed with me before, so
they will probably do it again.”
I drank some water from a pint glass and Sara had some too.
“I’m probably going to sleep with your friend later,” Sara said, “I know
Katy wanted to sleep with you, so she will probably still be up for that.”
“Whatever,” I said. Katy is kind of pretty too, so I wasn’t much bothered.
I was half planning to try it on with her anyway, so it seemed better we
were all up front about our intentions.
Nick came back into the kitchen and poured more White Russians
for everyone. Sara and I joined him and Katy in front of the television. He had put some old film on the DVD.
“I bet you couldn’t sleep with more than three of your exes if you
tried,” Nick said to me.
“I am sure if I wanted, I could sleep with all of the girls I have ever
slept with,” I replied, the alcohol making me cocky.
“How many is that?” Katy asked.
“Tonight makes 36.”
“Don’t you ever wonder what if things had been slightly different
with one person,” Katy said, “that you and they could still be together, happily
somewhere. Isn’t it possible there is someone out there who you would
jump at a second chance with? Could there not be a girl out there you wish
hadn’t finished with you, who is maybe wishing the same thing too? Or a girl
you finished with you wish you hadn’t? Or even some girl you only slept with
once who you quite liked, but circumstances stopped anything else happening.
What if she is the one for you and you didn’t realise at the time?”
“I bet you couldn’t worm your way back into the knickers of any girl
you have been with,” Nick said.
“You can have me any time,” Sara said, stroking my leg.
“For 20 quid a girl, I bet you can’t sleep with six of your exes in say,
nine weeks from today – present company excluded as she knows about the
bet. That would have to be a rule of course, you couldn’t tell them it was a
bet.”
“If we are going to have a bet, let’s make it interesting. £50 a girl at
least.”
“Fine £50 a girl for the first five, but I only pay you when you hit five
and then we get to play a bonus round for the last girl. For £100.”
“The final one shouldn’t be for money. It should be something more
important than that,” I said.
“How about my BMW against your MG?”
“Fine,” I said.
“But there have to be a few more rules. One of them has to be from
university or back home, tell you what, let’s make it someone you slept with
before you turned 20. And as I’ve known you a long time, another rule must
be the girl in the bonus round has to be my choice from the pantheon of your
exes.”
Without really thinking who Nick would select, or how tricky it might
be to find someone I slept with at university, or how nauseating someone
from home would be, I said, “Yes”.
“Also,” Nick said, “you have to give me a list of girls you have slept
with so I can verify whoever you pull is not fresh.”
“I’ll write it down for you,” I said.
“I will also need some sort of evidence, say a picture. Taken with
your mobile phone’s digital camera and emailed to me.
“Great, evidence is not a problem.”
“Fantastic,” he said. He whipped out his diary and proudly told me
the date when the bet comes to an end. We shook hands on the bet, making
it unbreakable. He circled it in his diary before downing his cocktail
He started kissing Katy, but she pushed him away. He looked puzzled
for a moment, but Sara was on top of him almost instantly. I got the
feeling this was not the first time these girls had done this, but I didn’t have
a lot of thinking time before Katy set to work on me.
***
The morning light eases its way between the gaps in the curtain, beaming
across my lounge. The sunrise pleasing me less than the tequila numbness
in my body. My head really is in pieces. It takes a herculean effort to get off
© 2004-2008 Edward Keating, published by Oktober Books Ltd
© 2004-2008 Edward Keating, published by Oktober Books Ltd
the floor and pull the curtains properly together.
Sunday lunchtime rolls around and my head is still all over the place.
My brain aches, deep and hard. I know I am dehydrated, I know I need water,
salt and glucose to make me feel better, but the thought of attempting to
ingest anything that would provide these things simply makes me feel sick.
Nick got up and drove home an hour or so ago. He had to go to
lunch with someone. I forget who he said. He never ever gets hangovers and
merely got up and went. Katy is asleep on the sofa and I am thinking about
getting up and putting the television on. Sara is on the floor nearby, she
looks awake, but I cannot think of anything to say to her.
She smiles and moves towards me. “Morning,” I say. She ignores my
words and wraps her lips around my penis, blood rushes down from my brain
into it and I am quickly ready for sex.
Afterwards she chuckles to herself, post orgasm she beams at me:
“It is a shame you cannot include me and Katy in your bet. We could have
counted for a third of it.”
“The bet,” I say, “a stupid idea, how am I ever going to get six ex-girlfriends
into bed?”
“You say it like trying to get six women into bed is a bad thing to do.
Or even a tough thing to do these days. You’ve bedded two in 12 hours and
here you are thinking six in nine weeks is going to be hard.”
“But they are exes. People who I have been with before and one or
other or both of us has chosen to move on. It could be messy.”
“Why?”
“Life should be about moving on and moving forward. Thinking about
what might have been is unhealthy most of the time. You can’t change the
past, even if you want to. Once you decide that is the end of a relationship,
you begin letting the wounds close and going back reopens the scars.”
“Have all the women in your life given you scars?”
“Not all of them,” I say.
“And have you given them all scars?”
“No.”
“Then what is the problem? Like I said yesterday, sexual partners
are commodities. I see men like that and men see me the same way. You do,
don’t you?”
“No,” I say.
She reaches her hand towards my genitals and grips them. Her
touch is gentle for now. “Tell me the truth Blake.”
“Truthfully, yes, women are just divided up into three categories.
Those I want to sleep with, those I don’t want to sleep with and those I have
already slept with.”
“Good enough.” She releases her grip.
I turn the television on. Some banal Sunday programme is on. No
intellectual challenge, which is exactly what I want while my head is in pieces.
“Have you got any strategy for getting into bed with any of your exes?”
Sara asks.
“I hadn’t really thought about it. How about I just ring one up and see
what she is doing one night.”
“Good plan,” she says, “simple is the best way. I had this horrible
feeling you would try some stupidly elaborate ‘bumping into them’ set-up,
when a phone call would do the job.”
A major issue in this challenge is the blanket ban on social website
membership our company has. About a year ago, some staff slated a product
of a client on their Facebook page, forgetting they had added executives
from that client to their friendship list. Needless to say, they all got fired
and the contract of all staff got amended to say we couldn’t be members of
certain sites. We each got £500 as a sweetener for the contract change. To
tell you the truth, I had been quite pleased. Social networking sites take up
a lot of time. Today is the first time one of them would have been any kind of
practical use to me.
Later in the day Sara and Katy get their stuff together and say goodbye.
I don’t ask for their phone numbers and they do not volunteer them.
Katy kisses me tentatively on the cheek. Sara puts her lips on mine
and I say: “See you around.”
“Maybe,” she whispers before following her friend out of the door.
I eat some plain bread, my stomach coming back towards the real world.
Tomorrow will bring me back to the marketing bull of the office. I
decide when I feel better in the morning is when I should start my quest for
reclaiming past conquests.
My mobile receives a text message. It is from Nick. It reads: “6 birds,
9 weeks and counting”.