“What you think of him, do you think he’s hot?” (him
being the Chilean).
I glance over my shoulder, somewhat
distracted by the process of attempting to pour a Mango Lassi cocktail. It’s my
friend’s India themed house party. “He looks like a mountain goat”. It’s not
the best review to subconsciously fall off the tongue. I attempt to clarify,
“in a good way. I’ll talk to him.”
Picture a massive goat, like the daddy in Three Billy Goats Gruff, and then
imagine that goat lives up a really cold mountain and has adapted to the
environment with a winter fleece. It’s the fur of genetic wisdom. This guy is
even wearing a jumper despite the house being baking. The Chilean is well over 6-foot
tall, with long legs in beige academic chinos, and a head and face so fluffy,
you have to touch him to find out what he looks like. From the gaps between the
facial hairs, there appears to be brown eyes, a nose with a slight turn up, a
large red lower lip and a presumed strong jaw line with a slight smutty
under-bite. It’s hard to tell where the face stops and the beard begins. He is
most definitely very sexy with his powerful South American accent, rolling Rs,
and his intensive gaze. He’s also smart. The Chilean government, for whom he
was previously employed as an employment lawyer, is sponsoring his PhD in the
international legal frameworks for discrimination.
We are introduced and he fairly quickly
resumes a position on the bench next to me. It’s a small bench and after round
three of ‘Ring of Fire’, I’m quite drunk, but he is unmistakably very much in
my personal space, which I presume is flirting. He is sober so has no excuses
for accidental familiarity. My gay mate, sitting the other side of me, is doing
an excellent job of cock blocking. It’s a strategy called ‘Doing a Draper’,
after a girl we both knew who played ridiculously hard to get with a super hot
guy and has subsequently married him. An action we can only aspire to and needs
team work to achieve. He is doing a fine job of chatting up the Chilean whilst
pointing fingers to heaven and putting thumbs on table. Ring of fire continues.
The Chilean is inching closer though it could be the allure of my mate’s
stories about his Gran. I’m going to test this out, so I touch Chilean’s hand.
He didn’t move. Bit longer. Still not moving. Oh, Hello. There’s some primary
school style/ Beatles hand holding flirting going on here.
The troops are mobilising. We’re going to a club. Eventually, standing in the queue under the arches, I’m
alone with the Chilean. I must have given him the look, the look of desire that
I only give to sexy men and chocolate cake. “You do want me to kiss you?” and
our lips meets. He is perfect. Mr Furry Face has learnt serious skills at the
kissing workshop. My heartbeat skips a beat and I’d like to being Rizzle
Kicking this one all the way home with me indefinitely. The Draper resolve is
weakening.
It’s OK though. My gay mate is at hand and
he’s back in the Draper support team, “He’ll never marry you if you go home
with him!” Kissing time is being limited big time, and dance floor time
maximised. I proudly leave the club to return to the sofa bed …. Yes .. ON MY
OWN! Draper mission has been a success.
A couple of weeks later, Mr Furry Face is in
London. We’ve texted and spoken on the phone, and agree to meet up. I’m waiting
for a hire car I need for work on Monday morning, so agree to meet him near
work, which is handy as he is in the library nearby. Of course he is; he is the
academic Specsavers poster boy flavour of sexy.
There is definitely something about the
Chilean. Women seem to stare at him as he walks down the road. The waitresses
hover for longer. He seems to have a way of demanding attention. How was he
doing it? He was getting lingering reactions worthy of superstars. It was like
walking into Pret with celebrity that people take a while to recognise, and
then can’t stop looking at. It’s the sort of sensation that might arise if you
went for a drink with Alexander Skarsgård aka Eric
Northman from True Blood. The confused expression of familiarity or feeling
like someone should be familiar, and wanting to take all your clothes off. It wasn’t just me feeling the effect. I felt alive in his company
as did clearly pretty much every other woman!
Out of the plethora of restaurants, he chose
Wahaca. I was conscious of the time when housemates had previously ribbed me for
holidaying with a Pilipino boyfriend in the Philippines. Creating a South
American themed date seemed on par, but he was sure about Wahaca. We talked incredibly
openly about everything from mental health, past relationships, and past
conquests. We talked about prostitution. About the international legal
frameworks you could use to defend a prostitute against discrimination in a
court case. We talked about whether he had had sex with a prostitute. On a side
note, I’ve decided to make this a standard dating question. Just slip it in.
“How many brothers and sisters do you have, and have you ever had sex with a
prostitute?” I was getting to know him really quite well.
Time was getting on and he had a train to
catch. We were close to my work building, which is a generally interesting
building of the sort that people come on tours around. Checking him in with a
visitors pass I gave him a mini tour of the best bits, and then I needed to collect
some boxes from the storeroom and load up the hire car. If anything is going to
make a guy feel macho and needed, it’s a manageable lifting carrying task. Date
activities involving the ‘man job’ must always be achievable, so this task was
perfect even for a literary scholar.
Once away from the building CCTV, the heat in
the storeroom was at boiling point. There was a problem with the air
conditioning unit. The Chilean even removed his jumper. Picking up where we had
left off in the club a couple of weeks earlier we start kissing. There’s
pulling apart of clothes and hands moving closer to flesh in a passionate
embrace any Cosmo reader has imagined only too well. The temperature is rising.
The air conditioning really needs fixing. Though it is now legitimising fast
removal of clothes. This is the ultimate forbidden fruit. I feel like a
catholic girl at a Chippendale concert. I want him so much, but having sex at
work is ultimately the only thing I can get sacked for, an irony lost on this
previous employment lawyer. “We have to stop, I defend people because of this.”
Clothes on, clothes off, clothes on, quick get the boxes, we have to get out
here before the temptation is overwhelming.
I see the Chilean for dinner, and a few
lunches in the weeks after. We talked better than ever but something had
changed. He wants attention, but doesn’t want to give any. There's no passion. Eventually, I
cornered him. It turned out he had been semi in a relationship with an Italian
for the last 3 months, and he wanted something more serious with her. Given my
dating questions hadn’t fallen short of probing so he had ample opportunity to
explain his situation, he felt my wrath. I understand from our mutual friend he now has some sensitivity about the phrase, “You’re full of bulls*it!” Since he
seems to be committed to his Italian, and as I’ve found out through the grape
vine, is completely incapable of building flat pack furniture, maybe he’s not
the one for me. On a separate point, it turns out that in Chile, that it’s
really offensive to call someone a goat. Oops.
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