The Single Girl: Chemistry lost, reward if found

My dear readers I owe you an apology for my absence last week. It was, I assure you, utterly unavoidable, as you are thence to discover.

When we last parted ways I had just agreed to a second date with Stephen, the tall, blond, lefty lawyer.
Well the second date took place last Sunday (the only day he was free – cricket training, cricket, a friend’s birthday and a ‘class’ taking up his Wednesday, Saturday, Friday and Thursday respectively).

Now dear reader, Sunday evenings are when I write my column. And as such I protect them fiercely. And so, of course, I initially told Stephen that I wasn’t free Sunday evening, however, it then struck me that my column would be, to say the least, a little light on action were I to forego this date.

None of my friends were even in the throes of any romantic strife that I might co-opt. Davo has been AWOL with a Colombian girl for the best part of October and Clementine is playing happy families with Gerard, doing such immensely coupley things as shopping for soft furnishings and going to the races.

I realised I was left with no alternative other than to go on the date: At a respectable hour I would make my apologies, blame an early start and disappear, maybe even *enigmatically,* into the night. This way I’d at least have a couple of hours to write when I got home.

Alas, best laid plans and all that. We met at a pub in Cremorne for dinner — however after a couple of drinks we attempted to order and were told that the chef had been taken ill and as such they weren’t taking food orders. By that point I was fairly famished; I’d have given my, albeit fairly meagre, kingdom for a parma and chips.

After relaying my desperation to Stephen he seemed deep in thought for a moment, then raised a finger to the sky, inspiration striking visibly: “How about this? I only live 15 minutes away, you could come over and we could order takeaway?”

“That is a good plan,” I agreed, but before I had chance to think I added: “But may I make one slight alteration, given I live just five minutes away, should we revise the setting to my apartment?”

He agreed nonchalantly, though I could tell he was trying to play it cool; I could tell because he was very, very bad it. Stephen’s average level of personal animation is about a seven (/10), and I’ve never seen it dip much beneath a five. However, when he agreed to my small alteration to his plan, he was at one.
“Yeah, cool, whatever,” he deadpanned.

I fixed his gaze, with what I hope was a faint knowing smile on my lips, and allowed a second of silence between us to become a moment, a moment during which Stephen I think experienced the throb of embarrassment I intended him to feel, as a gentle reminder not to count his chickens but more so not to succumb to any predictable insincerities.

Back at mine we ordered Indian, my choice. Our driver took his sweet time, and we chose to fill the 50 minute interval from order to delivery with some quite serious pashing, and indeed, other fun things.
The practical upshot of which was that by the time our food arrived we’d both worked up quite an appetite.

Our Indian devoured, we waited a respectable, though inadvisable, eight minutes (surely 20 should be a minimum) before we were again pashing like their was no tomorrow.

By this point I was, I don’t mind admitting, very, very much in the mood. And I could tell by the straining of his jeans, Stephen was too.

Mid-snog, I stopped, pushed my finger to his lips, and then, ever so slowly, stood up and wandered to my bedroom, only turning my head once I’d reached the door, to invite him in with a glance.

I should say at this point I still had every intention of completing my column. It was 11.20, sex till at most 11.50, cuddles till 12.15, boot him out by 12.30, writing from 12.30 to 1.30 — then I wouldn’t be too exhausted at work tomorrow.

That isn’t how it went.

By the time Stephen arrived in the bedroom the bulge in his pants has been replaced by a modest lump.
I did my best not to notice, but as he kissed me it seemed like all the passion, all the energy, that had been so present in the living room was gone.

And not just fizzled, but like, there was no discernible trace of it whatsoever. It was as if it’d never existed. As if up until that point it’d been nothing more than a chalkboard theory. We’d have needed ranks of Nobel prized scientists and the Hadron Collider to discover it.

It was like, I realised, after a minute or two, like kissing someone else. He was just nervous, I reassured myself — once we were both naked, he’d be fine.

He wasn’t.

The second he saw my body he went all stiff, well, all stiff apart from in the one place I’d have liked him to be stiff, and in that place, he was decidedly, erm, un-stiff.

From there it managed, somehow, to get worse. I still wasn’t nervous. I was pretty calm and I kept expecting his nerves to thaw as a result.

They didn’t.

I feel strongly that the least painful way to to describe the following events is as frankly as possible:
So, after a prolonged period of manual encouragement (that felt in its more hopeless moments perilously close to penile coercion) he was able to achieve something approaching an erection.

Looking back, this, in many ways, was the sexual highlight of the evening.

What followed thereafter was the worst sex I’ve ever had in my entire life. Worst by a long way. It made my second worst, with my high school boyfriend in the back seat of his cousin’s Renault 5, during which he dislocated his knee, look like it’d been dreamt up by bloody E.L James.

I felt like I’d lay an ironing board on my bed, attached a not insubstantial dildo to it, and was, for some reason, bouncing on it.

The lack of chemistry was compounded by the improbable duration of the whole thing. It was past 1am by the time we finally concluded — which was, by the way, most tragically of all, with neither of us actually *concluding*.

The look in his absolutely stunningly beautiful brown eyes as we lay there was one of simple relief.
I couldn’t find it in myself to send him out into the cold.

Why after hot sex is it so easy to send them packing, and after bad sex, it’s all but impossible? That needs some interrogation, that honestly, I haven’t the energy for right now.

Anyway, he stayed and I didn’t get the chance to write.

Offering my sincerest apologies to the kindly and might I add very beautiful editors of TMGR, I promised a return to normal service today.

In the week that followed Stephen and I met for dinner on Wednesday, and drinks on Friday, each time things went so well.

Our conversation sparkled, our chemistry was obvious, until we reached the bedroom.

I am at a loss. I’m meeting Clem tomorrow to discuss. I want to talk to Stephen about it. Is that wise?