I did wonder if I could write some more Tracey stories and might give that a go. Anyway here's Blind Date - John's story
Blind Date
John
The truth is that I had managed to double book myself for that night. I’d got a call asking me to pop in after work. Well I thought I could manage a quicky before I went to meet Tracey, so I agreed.
I had originally planned to just pop in for a cup of coffee, but she insisted on me staying in spite of my protestations that I had to leave. She said she had already prepared a meal for the two of us. I was in a complete dilemma. I was enjoying myself, but wanted to meet this Tracey; her photo had looked really nice and we had chatted well on line. I decided to stay for the meal and made an excuse to sneak out and make a quick call to Tracey to tell her I was running late.
The meal was wonderful, and the invitation was definitely there to stay a bit longer, but I still reckoned I could make it to see Tracey if I hurried – that is if I really wanted to.
In the end I considered that it wouldn’t be right to just leave Tracey in the lurch like that, so I made up my mind to make an excuse to leave and get to Tracey as soon as possible. In any case, if it turned out that Tracey wasn’t my cup of tea after all, I knew that if I handled things right here, I would still get a warm welcome if I chose to come back later.
By the time I managed to get away, bidding fond and loving farewells, I was even later for my meeting with Tracey. I wasn’t going to tell her that I’d already had dinner with someone else, so I told her that I had been held up in traffic and would be about half an hour. I suggested that she went round to the pub around the corner from the restaurant we were to meet at and get herself a drink. Better that than hanging around on a street corner waiting for me to turn up.
It was then I realised that I had left my wallet behind. I had no choice but to turn round and head back the way I had come. I dashed in saying that I had forgotten something, retrieved my wallet and, avoiding all entreaties to stay, leapt back into my car. Back on the phone as I tried to make up time, I told Tracey that I had been caught up in a diversion set up by the police to avoid an accident on the M4 and was now sat at temporary traffic lights near Hungerford. I could hear the sounds of the pub in the background, so I guessed she had taken my advice and was having a drink while waiting.
I was beginning to make up a bit of time now, but still very late when, would you believe it, I was caught up in a diversion set up by the police to avoid an accident on the M4. I couldn’t tell her that I was held up in another diversion, particularly as I was supposed to be somewhere near Hungerford at some temporary lights, so I told her that I was about 15 minutes away and would join her in the restaurant. 15 minutes later I said that I was still looking for a parking place and would be with her soon. I could hear noises in the background that sounded like a restaurant, but she sounded a bit weird, almost like she was drunk. I remember hoping that I hadn’t taken all this trouble to meet a lush.
I finally managed to make it into the restaurant and was being shown to Tracey’s table when the most amazing fracas erupted. I have no idea how it all started. All I remember is that someone (who turned out to be Tracey) seems to have slipped as she got up from the table and reached for a waiter for support. The waiter then poured soup over a lady seated at a nearby table and she in turn stood up in a hurry and upset the table she was sat at, thus showering her partner with the contents of the table, which included a full pint of beer. Understandably, he shifted backwards to avoid the mess and bumped into the chap behind. I couldn’t see exactly what happened next except that this chap rose from his chair roaring like King Kong and started laying about him with rather large fists. I remember noting that he must have been part of some kind of fancy dress party because his face was made up with some kind of brown make up plastered all over it and he was wearing what looked like a cherry on his nose. Anyway one of his fists must have made contact with the chap in front of me who collapsed like a felled tree. I tripped over him, and in an attempt to steady myself reached out with both hands and found myself clutching the top half of a lady’s dress, much of which followed me down as I fell. I stumbled and started to get back to my feet to apologise to the lady, when she aimed a very painful kick at my groin which doubled me up again.
So there I am crouched on the ground clutching my nether regions and the chap who had tripped me lying spark out on the floor in front of me and all about us bedlam is raging. The girl whose dress I had inadvertently ripped and who had revenged herself so painfully on me was clutching her dress with one hand and laying about her with a half full bottle of wine in the other. Wine was slopping about and people were slipping and sliding on the floor in an attempt to reach her and disarm her. The big man with the face mask was still thrashing about him and I could see people trying to get out of the door onto the street. I felt that the safest place at this moment was away from the main action, so, still in a near foetal position, I crawled under a nearby table. From my position of relative safety I could see the kitchen staff coming into the restaurant led by a large and corpulent man in dirty chef’s whites bearing a kitchen knife of huge proportions. In his wake came the rest of the kitchen and waiting staff bearing whatever weapons they could lay their hands on.
The chef (as I took him to be) had obviously set himself the task of subduing the man in the mask and was striding determinedly towards him head and knife held high. Unfortunately the downed man was directly in his path. Inevitably the chef tripped over him, crashing to the floor still clutching the knife which embedded itself in the floor together with the hem of the dress that I had already torn. So close were the kitchen and waiting staff to the chef, that they followed his tumble with much clattering of saucepans and rolling pins and created a pile of bodies and kitchen utensils.
The aching from between my legs having abated, I crawled out from beneath my table and began somewhat tentatively to get to my feet. As I emerged from my place of safety, I came face to face with the girl who had assaulted me. She and I recognised each other immediately, and I moved towards her to greet her in a formal manner, she, on the other hand screamed “YOU” in a very loud and strident tone, swung her wine bottle in a wide arc and stepped towards me. In so doing, her dress, trapped as it was by the chef’s knife, was ripped from her grasp and fell to the floor leaving her naked apart from a pair of skimpy panties. Unencumbered now and obviously undeterred, she launched herself at me with renewed vigour. I responded in the way that any sane man would who had already suffered potentially permanent damage to his reproductive equipment. I ran.
I guess the sight of this young lady in naught but her panties waving a bottle of wine and chasing me out of the restaurant must have had a calming effect on the rest of the battle scene, as it seemed to me as I fled that everyone had stopped what they were doing and were concentrating on the pair of us. I made it through the restaurant door just as a police van pulled up to the kerb and a number of helmeted policemen leapt out of the back. They apprehended Tracey and took her away in the van and kept the rest of us back for questioning.
It was late by the time I was released without charge and I was pleased that I had taken my mum up on her offer of dinner before meeting up with Tracey. Isn’t it strange how mums are always right? She had said earlier in the evening that even though she had never met the girl, she felt there was something not quite right with Tracey and that she hoped that she was wrong, but that she was sure the girl was trouble.
Perhaps I should pay more attention to her in future.
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