Blind Date - Tracey's story

I wrote this story fairly recently and thought that it lacked something, so I wrote the sequel to it (coming soon).  I suspect that, like so many movies, this original is better than the sequel, though I think that both together they make a nice little tale.  I hope you like it.

Here's Tracey's Story

Blind Date

 Tracey

Let me explain.  He had called me on my mobile a few times to tell me that he has been delayed and would be with me as soon as he could, and more recently that he’s caught up in traffic but, if all goes well, should be with me in about half an hour.  In the meantime, he says, just wait in the pub around the corner, get yourself a drink and I’ll be with you as soon as possible.  Has he no idea how acutely embarrassing that is; walking up to the bar in a pub where everyone is in a crowd or in couples, and ordering yourself a gin and tonic.  I was a little aggressive with the barman when he asked me if there was anything else.  I was sure he was just highlighting the fact that I was on my own, drinking on my own, and wouldn’t be buying for anyone else.  He probably wasn’t but I bought a pint of bitter anyway.  I don’t even like beer much, but I bought it anyway.  Of course now I’m stuck with two drinks so I can’t just stand around, I need somewhere to put the drinks down.  I found the end of a bench seat with a couple taking up most of it.  I asked if the seat was taken, but they weren’t really interested so I took his grunt for assent and sat down, putting my gin and tonic and pint on the table. 

Now I am stuck with the awkward situation of appearing to be a girl who has been stood up, abandoned or simply one whose “date” has been delayed.  In spite of this being the truth, it doesn’t make it any better.  In an attempt to belie that impression, I start in on the beer.  It really isn’t my kind of drink but I put on a brave face and gulp it down as if it is my normal tipple.  I even exhale after the first gulp and wipe my mouth on my sleeve.

I feel that everyone is pretending not to look at me; everyone that is except the couple whose bench I am occupying.  I now understand why the seat was available.  They appear to be exploring each other’s dental cavities with each other’s tongues, and I refuse to look at their hands in case they catch me looking and think that I am some kind of perverted voyeur.

The mobile rings.  It’s John again.  Apparently there has been a major accident on the M4 and the police are directing the traffic around Newbury, and now he and the rest of the divertees are held up at some temporary traffic lights at some road works on a minor road near Hungerford.  He now has no idea when he is likely to get to me.  Am I OK?  I don’t tell him.  I say I am and tell him to get here when he can.

I’ve finished the beer and have gulped the G & T to take the taste away.  I think I may be feeling a little light headed.  I haven’t eaten anything tonight and I’ve just downed two drinks in a record time.  I fight my way to the bar and order a bag of peanuts and another G & T; well bugger it I might as well.  Drink and peanuts in hand I weave through the lively crowd to my seat.  Well it was my seat; it now seems to be occupied by a chap in a rather scruffy shirt and jeans.  He is perched on the end and is chatting to a bunch of other men who are standing around him.  I hover.  He looks up at me.  Then he ignores me.  I contemplate pushing past him so that I can sit on the small area between him and the snoggers.  Why not.

The snoggers are not very impressed.  I think I may have sat on her hair.  Anyway they are now less horizontal and more vertical on the bench, which leaves me a bit more room to manoeuvre.  I open my packet of peanuts and start to pick at them and sip my G & T.  I am starving and focus my attention on not emptying the whole packet of peanuts into my mouth, but nibble each one slowly and delicately.  Thus preoccupied, I do not notice the chap on the end of the bench turn around and address me.  “Hello”.  I think, don’t you hello me you dickhead, you just took my seat and then ignored me when I wished you to move, but I say, Hello.

He asks me if I am waiting for someone.  I tell him I am.  He turns his face up to his audience who grin down at him.  He suggests that, since I have obviously been stood up, I run away with him.  Once again he looks up to his audience for approval, they grin and leer back down at him.  I suggest a sexual act for him to perform on himself that is, quite frankly, impossible.  His audience think this is highly amusing and clap him on the back saying that I had told him.  I realise I am on a hiding to nothing here, so ask to be allowed to leave.  Not before I buy you a drink says my would-be Don Juan and sits squarely and unmoving at the end of the bench, blocking my exit.  OK, I say thinking that he will have to get up to get the drink and then I can make my escape.  What’ll it be?  “A double Jack Daniels.  Straight up.”

He calls to one of his mates to get the drink.  The mate turns away obediently.  Bugger.  There goes that plan.  He introduces himself as Brando, but he says his real name is Nigel.  His mates call him Brando because he looks like Marlon Brando.  Perhaps Brando in his later years, I think to myself, but much more Nigel now.  He says he is a city broker and he is expecting a six figure bonus this year and will buy a new Porsche when he gets it.  He has made no attempt to engage me in conversation, simply talked at me.  My drink arrives.  OK, I say, you bought me a drink now I have to go.  But you haven’t drunk it, he says.  I pour it into my mouth and swallow it in one gulp.  Now I have, I say, and stand up.  He is a little put out.  Good.  He swings his legs to one side and I make my escape through the channel made by his mates; it is like the parting of the Red Sea.

Outside the pub, the cool air hits me.  I stand amongst the smokers swaying like a willow in a gentle breeze.  My mobile rings.  John has got clear of the diversion and the road works and is on track to be at the restaurant in about 15 minutes.  He will go straight to the restaurant to save time, so why don’t I get a table and order a bottle of wine, pour one glass for him and one for myself and take a look at the menu.  He will be with me almost before I have sat down.  At last, I think, food.

I enter the restaurant and ask for a table booked in John’s name.  I may be slurring a bit because the waiter had to ask me to repeat myself twice.  He showed me to a table and I explained that John would be with me in few minutes; that he was just parking his car.  I order a bottle of chardonnay, and pour two glasses.  I sip at mine.  The mobile rings.  He is trying to find parking but the place he usually parks is closed, so he may be a bit later than he thought.  Just relax he will be with me soon.  He is very very sorry.  He has no idea how relaxed I am.  I seem to have drunk my glass of wine.  I pour another. 

The waiter asks if I would like to see the menu while I am waiting.  I say I would and he opens one in front of me with a flourish.  I find I cannot read it, so I close it up and put it to one side while I take another drink.  John’s glass of wine is getting warm so I feel duty bound to drink it before that happens.  The bottle is still in the ice bucket.  He can have a glass from the bottle when he arrives.

I need the toilet.  I get up from my chair and for some reason my legs will not hold my weight.  I stagger a little and reach out for a waiter who is passing.  Unfortunately he too has trouble keeping his feet and staggers into a nearby table spilling soup all over the lady sitting there.  She screams as the scalding liquid falls in her lap and leaps to her feet upsetting the table and tipping its contents all over her dinner partner’s nice herringbone jacket.  He pushes his chair backwards to avoid the flying cutlery and crockery and his newly replenished pint of lager and crashes into the chair behind, forcing the rather large male occupant face forward into his black forest gateau.  He is not amused and stands up to his full height, face mottled with chocolate and cherries and takes a swing at the nearest person.  This turns out to be the manager who had hurried to the scene of the fracas.  The haymaker hits the manager squarely on the chin and he falls like a felled tree, tripping another person who was following the manager.

I realised later that this person was John, my datesareus.com date for the night.  It seems that it was totally accidental that he grabbed at my breasts as he fell, and that I now owe him an apology for the kick in the groin that I gave him.  I face a hefty fine for being drunk and disorderly and I understand that the restaurant may wish to take a civil action for damages.  I would also like to point out that contrary to reports in the press, I did not remove my clothes in an attempt to gain publicity or indeed to further my career as a topless model, although the money from the subsequent photo shoots has been welcome.