The Liquor Lounge

A few weeks ago I made the trek to Adelaide to catch up with the married lass. Adelaide is the capital city of South Australia and is like any other city, except it has all the good parts removed. South Australians, or Crow Eaters as they are known here, are quite proud that their state did not receive any convicts. Instead it was colonised by free settlers, many of whom were of germanic descent. So imagine a city planned and populated by the likes of Steve and his ilk and you’ll have a fair idea of why most sane Australians avoid the joint like they avoid an honest days work!

I was booked on the Red Eye out of Sydney, I’d tethered the chariot in the long term car park and jumped aboard the bus to whatever terminal I was departing from. But in an instance of particularly bad timing, between the car park and the terminal, a car slammed into the side of the bus throwing me across the aisle and into the opposite window. Not a great start to a few days of romance. The bus obviously wasn’t going anywhere now and time was a wasting. It was only 1.5 km to the terminal, so I tossed my bag over my shoulder and began to jog. Unfortunately I couldn’t run as fast as the bus and I missed my flight. I then proceeded to the counter to buy another ticket. They refused to sell me one on the dubious grounds that my head was split open and I was in no state to fly. This fact had thus far escaped me. But, sure enough there was blood down the side of my face and all over my shirt.

So I rang Simon, a mate of mine who worked not that far from the airport and asked if he’d stitch me up. He said sure and then I went to the bathroom and chundered a couple of times. I cleaned myself up a little and jumped in a cab. Sadly Simon works in the maternity wing of the hospital so I was staggering around with no idea where he was, no child and no plausible reason for being there. All these happy little nativity scenes were going on as this oaf staggered around with blood everywhere. The nurses tried to get me to go to A&E but thankfully Simon found me and took me into a room and stitched me up while laughing at my predicament. He did say that perhaps it was a sign to not sleep with married women. I told him to “get fucked”, thanked him for the stitches and then comandeered his computer to book a flight. I then went back to the airport.

The delay had thrown a bit of a spanner in the works as K (married chick) had told her husband and her boss that she was going to be down in the Barossa for a few nights for work. But now she had to delay her departure so that she could pick me up in the arvo instead of the morning. Which she did and which resulted in us driving outbound in the arvo as her husband was driving inbound - he didn’t see us, but it was a close call.

Almost as close as being at a restaurant that night when one of her friends rocked in and did see us. I pretended to be a work colleague - not untrue - and quickly excused myself from the dinner table so that I didn’t put my foot any further in it. Just bad timing I suppose, but it wasn’t really an ideal way to roll. And it summed up the way the couple of days went.

In a similar vein, on the day I was leaving she wanted to show me her dog, so she’d rung her husband to make sure that he wasn’t anywhere near home and we went back to their place. Which was rather stupid considering that the place has security cameras. Which she didn’t remember until we were already in there. So then we had to go and delete all the footage. By this stage, I’d more or less had a gutful of having an affair. Too many complications!

And there is also the pride thing. It is difficult to be the third cog in a marriage, but thankfully I don’t have any! I jest, I really didn’t like the sneaking around thing. It felt off putting.

Finally she said that her husband had realised that something was wrong between them and had organised a European holiday so that they could fall back in love. She said that she’d declined as she wanted to do Europe together, in April. Gradually it was beginning to dawn on me that she was very close to leaving her husband because of our affair.

I didn’t really have a problem with her separating from her husband, as her marriage seems pretty fucked anyway, but she seemed to think that she’d move out of there and in with me. That was not going to happen! We had, after all, only met four times.

She seemed surprised by this. Anyway, I fucked off to the airport and flew home. I sent her a message when I got home saying basically that her marriage decisions should be independent of me as there was no certainty that her and I would work. And that it was probably a good idea if we didn’t have any further contact. About an hour later I got a message back saying “I got that message just after I told my husband that I don’t love him anymore”.

I replied that my timing had been a little out the last couple of days and that I had the stitches to prove it. What can you do?

I’m all about commitment these days. So last Friday night, after dinner with some cronies, I decided to put mine to the test. I was in a bit of a shitty mood and as like attracts like, I ended up at the Pickled Possum, alone. The Possum is as close as you can get to a licensed shithole. In fact, it is a licensed shithole. The only improvement that I noticed since I was last there (circa 1998) was that a fire seemed to have got rid of many of its more offensive odours. On the plus side, the punters hadn’t changed and they all had the familiar reek of desperation about them; if you could bottle that shit, I’d wear it as cologne.

I’d been a little pissed off with the married chick (K) starting to make plans for her dog at Chateau de Fuck, without really thinking through the consequences of her actions i.e. imagine the damage that little blighter could do to my highly polished shoes. So, before I felt that I could make any real commitment to her, I wanted to see if I could resist temptation. With that in mind I sidled through the crowd and took up pole position at the bar in a place conveniently near the dance floor. After being approached by a couple of pigs, I finally saw what I was looking for…… the 3 F’s. Fake nails, Fake tan and Fake tits, because you know that equals Daddy issues. And Daddy issues equals she’ll do just about anything for some male attention. So to all those fathers who left their daughters in the lurch, this Fathers’ Day, the drinks are on me!

She hit me up with some bullshit line that I couldn’t hear and started gabbling on about something or other. I quickly changed the subject to, “If she could make me laugh then I’d buy her a drink”. She tried a few lame jokes before I convinced her to stay silent and just jump up and down on the spot. Watching those saline bags stay in their advanced state of rigamortis certainly gave me a chuckle so I honourably upheld my end of the equation and bought her a glass of whatever they substitute for white wine at the Possum. Predictably, she winced as she swallowed her first sip and then complained about the quality of the liquor. Predictably, I told her that I had something better at my place and whisked her out the door. I’d say the whole process took about 45 minutes from when I first entered that foul, foul place.

She drove, so we back at mine in a matter of minutes. Just long enough to think about commitment. To cut a long story short (ok, not that long a story) I did let her blow me, twice, but I wouldn’t fuck her. I did let her masturbate in front of me though. And when she asked if I had any toys, I did offer her the half of the cucumber that I’ve been using as a garnish for my jugs of Pimms. She declined, which was probably fortunate when one considers the staggering increase in grocery prices these days. She did leave her card and attempted to convince me to take her to dinner on Sunday night, to which I agreed, but I had my fingers crossed under the sheets.

Before I drifted dreamlessly to sleep, a number of thoughts crossed my mind. Firstly, I was quite impressed with how I resisted temptation (Bill Clinton-style, hey if it is good enough for a Democrat, then it is good enough for us all!). Secondly, I thought about throwing out her card to make sure that I didn’t call her, but then I thought how funny the guys would find it at breakfast on Saturday when they would be able to check out her profile on her work website, Facebook etc (and I found out her name which had escaped me all evening). Thirdly, and probably most importantly, I realised that I had learned something about myself; namely, that sometimes I can be too generous a lover. With those thoughts on my mind, this humble, Christian, country boy, slept the sleep of the blessed.

At this time in the morning in precisely one week’s time, I too, will be crossing a Rubicon of sorts.

For the first time in about seven years, I think that I’m in love with someone other than myself or the masterful Shane Warne (Peace be Upon Him). It is a difficult diagnosis to make. But, the symptoms are all there. Half of the time I feel like I’m being fucked in the neck, the other half of the time I feel as euphoric as the coach who has just snorted half a gram of coke from the arse crack of a particularly nubile figure skater after she has won gold. If that isn’t love, then I don’t know what is.

A major problem is that she is married. And we have only met one another three times. Which, as I re-read what I have just typed, seems even more ridiculous than my normal decision making process. But, what can you do?

I’ve never been in the position where I’ve wanted someone to leave their partner so that they’d be free to give it a red hot go with me. And, I’m not too sure what steps to take next. Partly because once one’s carapace of cynicism is fractured, it can be extremely difficult to maintain any objectivity and partly because it is difficult to talk to anyone about. Everyone pretty much says the same thing “don’t get involved in someone else’s marriage, it never works” followed by “you’re a fucking idiot”. But, that is the sort of thing I’m used to hearing anyway! Although one friend did say “Michael, I’m so happy for you, I’ve always found that extra-marital affairs bring out my best.” Bless her!

In my infrequent moments of sanity, I of course realise, that the chances of anything positive coming from this affair are small. She still likes her husband and has no desire to hurt him. And the idea that someone is going to leave a marriage, their city and their job to give it a crack with a bloke who has a reputation like mine is so ludicrous that it doesn’t need further explanation. But, whatever the personal fallout, it has been a terrific experience. I haven’t experienced these depths of emotions, both positive and negative, since Warney bowled his last ball in Test Match cricket. So for the next week, I’m going to enjoy the nervousness, the false hopes and the anxiety because I rarely have felt things this acutely.

She is down in the Barossa Valley (a wine region in South Australia) for work next week. So I’m flying to Adelaide (shudder) and we’re going to have a couple of days together drinking ourselves silly (er) and working out what we are going to do. I really have no idea, but I do feel that by taking this step we are crossing a line that will prove impossible to recross.

But, as my father remarked many years ago, when he was casting his pearls of Relationship Wisdom before my brothers and I: “If you want the sweet meat, you’ve got to eat close to the bone.”

Have you ever met someone who was reasonably average looking, but as you became more familiar with them and appreciated their wit, personality and intelligence they became more attractive? No. Me neither. And with good reason I’d suggest. Because you know that if one of your tadpoles somehow punches through that latex layer you’re going to end up with a kid that has a face like a deep sea racing mullet. And who could ever love one of those? Like deep sea fishing, you’d end up tossing it back.

Because this is what happens to ugly kids –

Once a year, on a date near Valentine’s Day, all the unmarried subalterns in the Battalion would assemble in the mess for the annual Dogfight. There would generally be about twenty or so participants and all of them had to chip $50 into the kitty. So with about a G as the prize the boys would wait for the duty driver to transport them into the City’s fleshpots for some deep sea trawling – and I mean deep sea trawling, for some of these Things hadn’t seen sunlight for many a day.

The mission was to return to the Mess at a pre-specified time with the ugliest looking woman one could find and claim the prize. The catch was, if you won the G, you had to fuck the woman you brought with you. If possible, this was done with the applause of all on the mess billiard table. Otherwise it was permissible to take her back to your room, but there had to be a witness (generally in the bathroom).

I never won this much coveted trophy. The closest I came was a distant second. And it was one of those times that you thought that you had it in the bag – for my ‘partner’ would have given the Woman of the Hounds of the Baskervilles a run for her doggybites – and yet I was left high and dry when the other guy’s woman slapped her glass eyeball on the bar – and one is left with a butt ugly bird to get rid of. There was a story, possibly apocryphal, that one year the winner’s (I use that term loosely) partner, pulled off her prosthetic leg and waved it around her head. I wish I was there to see that.

I was walking into the Centennial Park Cafe to grab a coffee after having taken a stroll this morning, when I noticed an older woman giving me the head to toe look. By the time I had scampered up the last couple of stairs her two dining companions had turned around to see what she was looking at (it is the sort of place where the women of the inner-east go to perve on one anothers personal trainers).

They were probably just checking out my rather florid purple and white gingham check shirt, but I’d already convinced myself that they were digging me. And I don’t know what made me; perhaps the feeling of new love; maybe I’m becoming a nicer bloke in middle age; but as they were still gawking as I reached the landing near their table, I stared straight at the first one, and in homage to Steve, I pulled The Wink and The Gun.I even clicked my fingers on the draw so that they got the full experience.

They tittered nervously while no doubt thinking ‘who is that fucking tool?’ But, I felt good and floated on to my table where I had a decent piece of salmon and a couple of eggs for breakfast.

From the phone and on the street.

Sorry - posted to the wrong blog. I’m new at phone blogging

Two minutes from where I work and where I start every day with a swim. Chilly at 0715 in the morning. Couldn’t be much more than 25C. I’d prefer 26C!!!!

Pete is perhaps responsible for one of the greatest lines of the 1990’s. I was back stage at a club where he and his mates had just finished a strip show. He was the last act and when he finished, we went back into the change room together as he & I had a party that we needed to get to. We walked into the room and there was a mid-sized orgy taking place in front of us. This was not a particularly unusual occurrence, it must be said. The first words out of Pete’s mouth were “which of you birds has got a spare hole?” He has never lost that kind of charm!

But tonight at approximately 0200hrs (being both Valentine’s Day and his birthday, naturally) Pete will be declaring himself off the market. He is proposing to a girl that he has known for 9 weeks. She has wealthy parents – enough said!

He was telling me that he’d asked her how many guys she’d slept with; a question that I really couldn’t understand, given that he has always been one of the biggest sleazebags that I know. The all pervasive and hypocritical tentacles of middle class morality I suppose. He said he that he thought if the number was 30 or less he’d be happy. When she replied “8” he couldn’t believe it. So he is satisfied on that count, now he is simply scheming on a variety of ways to con her father out of some money!

So tonight I have to duck away from another friend’s engagement party and preposition a bottle of chilled champagne, some glasses and a rug down at Cremorne Point (beautiful views of the harbour, the bridge and the Opera House) before making myself scarce. My place is only a short stroll away and they’ll make their way back here where her twin sister (not identical Steve, I asked) and her brother in-law will be waiting. What a sickeningly sweet way to start Valentine’s Day.

Of all my friends, I thought he’d be the second last to go, but alas. I now have only 3 single friends left in the inner cadre. One is in London and of no use to me, one is a confirmed bachelor and has nothing to do with sex (he thinks it is a filthy waste of time) and the other thankfully lives in Sydney (although he is holidaying in the UK at the moment and he too tells me that he has met someone – ugh!). This is getting a little beyond a joke!

If you saw a starving kid, you’d throw it some food. Ok, you may chuckle to yourself first, but you’d still feed it. Even I would; I suppose I’m charitable by nature. Which is why, if you saw a sex-starved woman, you’d also toss her a bone. It’d be unnatural not to. Charity again you see. But, what does one do when the act of charity crosses the line of morality? Should you still toss a sex-starved, but married woman a length? To phrase it in cricketing terminology “would you get her down to the Member’s end to face a couple of balls?” It is this conundrum that has been bugging me for no little while now.

Because, I’ve developed some feelings (lust is a feeling right?) for a married woman. I haven’t slept with her of course. By which I mean, I’ve slept with her once but, it was an accident. You know the old story, a few too many Gins at a work function, a sauna together, then a shower together and the next thing you know she is astraddle and riding you like she’s a nose in front down the final furlong of the Grand National.

We put that incident behind us, and as we are from different states, it hasn’t really been an issue. Except that we talk every day. And she is coming to Sydney next week to help a friend prepare for a wedding. And she is bunking off early to spend Saturday night here before she flies home on Sunday. So the question that I’d like to put to you gentle reader, is “Is it worth potentially endangering her marriage and a couple of people’s happiness, for a short lived and tawdry affair that nonetheless provides me with a fair amount of physical gratification?” I’m inclined to say “of course”. But, perhaps that is my charitable nature stepping to the fore again. Is it possible that morality trumps charity in this situation? As always, I’d be fascinated to know your opinion on this weighty matter.

M

While I haven’t moved much stuff down here, I have managed to rent a new pad. It has been over a decade since I’ve rented a place; I forgot how much of a fuck around it is. It is a beautiful home on Sydney Harbour - however, only the bottom floor is mine. It is really spacious and has all that a reformed sleazebag needs. So if any of you guys make it to Sin City, drop in for a lazy 50 or 60 beers.

In the “I never would have believed it possible” department. I have survived nearly 3 weeks with one blazer, three suits and a dinner jacket. It hasn’t been easy, but now I know what it must be like to live in poverty. Thankfully, I can now organise for all my suits to join me here - I’ve missed them terribly.

Your favourite kind of fucking?

Abe postulated that hotel sex was the third best kind. And although my weekend wasn’t as busy as Naut’s - I did find some time to do a little research.

I’m partial to restaurant lavatories. In particular, the better dining establishments around town that have powder rooms. They’re generally not too busy - mainly because they have an elderly clientele where the women are either starving themselves to death in order to remain Mr Big-Bucks final, rather than first wife, or they have colostomy bags.

“Why restaurant toilets?” you may well ask. Well as I’ve aged, I’ve moved on from nightclub toilets- matured, is I suppose, the word for it - I prefer the slower pace of a dining emporium’s facilities.

So grab yourself a blonde, club hopping girl. They’re used to fucking in the dunnies of dance clubs - so they’ll feel right at home in a restaurant lav.

Head to the ladies

Prop a chair up behind the door, so that when it is pushed against, it catches the handle.

Sorry about the photos - they were action shots! I only had so much time dear reader.

Grab your better half (or someone else’s better half for that matter) and get to work!

Once you’ve done your dash, so to speak, the astute move is to walk her back to the dining room; then excuse yourself with the phrase “Excuse me for a moment, I left a surprise for you at reception I’ll be right back”. Then catch a taxi home. She certainly will be surprised when she asks for you at reception!

Or you can lame out like I did on Saturday and head back to hers for a binge drinking, drug fuelled session of mammoth proportions.

You can see from the photo below, that she has the right idea in mind!

Ain’t love grand!

By the time I finally dragged my bedraggled carcass home in the wee hours of Sunday morning, I had only one concern - that I didn’t wake up in a pool of my own piss. It is difficult being this classy!

NB - The original post had actual photo’s from the dunny - but it is too hard to transfer them all here.

Have a great weekend all!