Chapter 10
Chapter
Ten
A few weeks later, we were settled into our new gaff, and it was plush as you like.
Everything about it was exactly how I imagined my first place to be like.
Everything worked. It was clean, the rooms were big, and more importantly, the bedrooms were at either end of the place, which was great if either of us wanted to do the sex with anyone at any point.
Mum had come around to drop some of my stuff off.
“I brought a load of your old board games if you want ‘em. If you don't, then tough, they’re clogging up my house.”
“I’ll take ‘em. Nothing better than a game of Buckaroo with the horse missing. How’s everything with the um…?”
“It's all right, you can say it, you know. Now don't flip out, but I’ve got to go for some radiotherapy in a week or so. The tumour’s not responding that well to the chemo, so I guess they need to try something else. We’ll get there, though, so don't worry. Do you like my headscarf? People at the hospital have been asking me about them, you know.”
“Yeah, I bet. It looks great, Mum,” I said, processing what she had just told me and trying to scrunch my brow to make a dam behind my eyes to block the tears I was holding back.
Despite being told not to worry, I was worried. More so, because I knew Mum better than anyone and sensed I wasn't getting the whole story. She did her weird NLP elbow-touching thing again, which always made me suspicious.
“What’s the matter?” asked Mum.
“Nothing. Do you want a green tea?” I offered.
“No chance. I’m avoiding that crap as much as possible.
It's like drinking stinging nettles. I don't care how good they say it is for you, it's disgusting. Anyway, I'd better get a wiggle on. That new lad I’ve hired has opened up the shop and I still don't trust him to put all of the good stuff out the front. He’s a bit ditzy.”
“Yeah, and you don't want to miss the Dutchman, do you? Doesn't he come today?” I asked knowingly.
She leaned in to kiss me on the cheek. “Piss off, sweetheart. Ciao for now.”
She flicked a bonus kiss at me from her fingertips on the way out.
As she left, I dealt with an early morning message alert that I felt go off in my pocket. Anything before 9am was more than likely something to do with a dating app. I fumbled for my phone erratically and almost dropped it on the kitchen floor.
I was interrupted by Finn bumbling through the hall like Mr. Bean on magic mushrooms, focused on acquiring himself a handful of dry honey-nut Cheerios.
“Hey man,” I said.
“I’m late, I’m late. Shit!” snarled Finn. He pulled his coat on, and after the fourth attempt, managed to put it on the right way round. He made a bolt for the door, leaving a trail of tiny wheat rings behind him, that formed a kind of mini army assault course. Cute.
“Wait,” I barked at him.
He froze, then turned around slowly.
“What?” he snapped, tapping his watch.
“I just had a chat with Mum.”
He put his fistful of Cheerios down on the table by the door. I decided to skirt over that strange choice of placement for now.
“What is it? They haven’t given her a time limit, have they? Please don’t… fuck.”
“No, no. But she did say that the tumours weren’t responding to the treatment at the moment.”
“So, what does that mean?”
“She didn’t really say, just that they’re gonna have to try something else. Then she started banging on about headscarves.”
“Fuck man. What are we gonna do?”
Finn’s shoulders flopped forward.
“There’s nothing we can do, we’re not doctors, are we? That’s the worst thing about all of this,” I said.
Finn huffed his cheeks out.
“I’ll give her a call on the way to work, get her to have another word with that nutritionist mate of Dad’s.”
“Good shout. Okay, let me know what she says.”
“Will do… look, I’ve gotta run.”
Finn turned and went to open the front door and leave. I cleared my throat to bring his attention back to me.
“What now?” he said, agitatedly.
“You forgot your Cheerios.”
He scooped them off the table and bizarrely put them into his coat pocket, before slamming the door way too loudly upon leaving.
I had a bit of time to kill, so decided to have a little fumble around on NSA Dating ––a new app that Ben had recommended.
NSA was what the cool cats call ‘No strings attached’, by the way.
Needless to say, it was a sex dating site.
What harm could it do? I still had some fairly wholesome dating apps in tow, but I was also beginning to embark on a flourishing sex life.
Like Ben said, as long as I was honest with people, I could do no harm. I could continue my search for the love of my life on the fairly wholesome apps, whilst enjoying myself with other players in the um… players lounges. What could possibly go wrong? Don’t answer that.
Despite NSA Dating being an adult dating app, I opted to keep things nice and clean. I wasn’t going to post a photo of my old chap on there like all of the other guys seemed to be doing.
For a start, being spotted on a sex dating site by somebody I knew would be mortifying. Mind you, if they’re on the site…
I wouldn’t even know how to pose elegantly in a tacky photo, anyway. Would I do a full length ‘Prince-Lovesexy era’ style pose? Would I smile? Would I include anything in the photo for scale?
I didn't know the answers to any of these questions, so I thought I’d take a look at some of the other profiles on the site for some tips. It would seem that it was a mixture of all of the above.
On one profile, there was a picture of one cock and balls bolt upright, which looked like an old-school Orangina bottle, and another flush against a half-litre can of Stella Artois and a measuring tape, which looked like a weird version of the cover of The Usual Suspects .
The site was crammed with naked picture after naked picture after semi-naked picture.
I figured that a guy like myself with no 'dick pics' would be a welcome relief for the good people of NSA Dating . Surely that’s what they were all crying out for on a sex site?
They must have been sick of looking at all those cocks and balls. Where was the mystery, eh?
I got to work straight away and sent out a load of purpose-built blanket messages to members that looked genuine.
The only trouble was that the guys on this naughty app didn’t actually have any personal information in their profile, so I’d just have to include a comment that was specific to their profile photo, which was tough, when sometimes it was just a pair of balls.
I was beginning to think that conversation didn’t count for too much on apps like these.
Amongst the rabble, I clocked that a feisty-looking metal-head had peered at my profile. He had a semi-naked picture of himself on his profile that revealed just enough of his chiselled lower jaw to make me think that I’d quite like to meet him.
Time was getting on, but Jon_BonPony had messaged me, and it would have been downright rude not to reply instantly.
‘Welcome to my inbox. I do hope you like what I’ve done with the place. If I’d have known you were coming, I'd have tidied up a bit,’ I quipped.
The chat rapidly became sexual. ‘Screw it, I’ll just go in late,’ I thought as I hooked my Marks & Spencer’s ‘Monday’ briefs under my balls.
The filthy pics were landing in my inbox thick and fast, and sure enough, it was time for me to pull my weight (not a euphemism).
‘Show us your dick then,’ commanded BonPony.
Oh, shit. I felt obligated to, not least because I’d forfeit receiving more visual stimuli from him. This was to be my first attempt at a dick pic. I had no idea what I was doing.
I tried lying flat at first, and took the shot from my chest, pushing my cock up into a kind of Leaning Tower of Pisa, but that was no good.
Next, I tried a full-length one in the mirror, but weirdly, I couldn’t seem to take the shot without reflexively doing a ‘thumbs up’.
I used all 360 degrees available to man and I still looked like a dog chasing its tail.
In the end, I went for a side-on approach, although I still couldn’t help thinking that I looked like an arcade machine. I didn't receive a reply for about five minutes until:
‘Nice one geezer.’
Geezer? What?
BonPony then ordered me to play with myself and tell him what I was doing, so I documented some fake scenarios that included gently massaging my new raspberry and watermelon lube into my tip slowly, to sliding my brand-new lubed-up oily porpoise inside myself.
It was only after I ‘came like a piston engine’ that we decided to formally introduce ourselves. I suppose it wasn't the first time that I’d wanked about someone without knowing their name. Anyway, Art––meet Danny.
Apparently, Art was at home today and asked whether he could tempt me into an afternoon of debauchery. He invited me to come around to his place at midday.
Despite coming less than five minutes ago, I really wanted to meet up with him. I did actually have another date lined up later, though. I’d never doubled up before and was quite excited about ticking this milestone off.
I put on my ‘sick’ voice and phoned work.
My acting skills were impeccable in this area.
No questions were asked, and even after I put the phone down, I was still method acting, walking around hunched over and pretending to heave.
It was always a natural instinct to stay in character for at least a minute or so after the phone call, just in case they called back.
I truly considered myself the De Niro of the sickie.
I had never turned up at someone’s house for sex before actually meeting them.
As you can imagine, I was very excited about this prospect, but I was more concerned about having to travel to Finsbury Park.
It was a place in North London where I had a mildly terrifying experience once involving a knife-wielding kebab thief.
Still, Art had agreed to meet me at the station. Safety in numbers and all that.