Close Encounters of the Puzzling Kind

Jo rang and asked if she could come over at the weekend, and we went off shopping together. I got some gladiator sandals – odd, really as they don’t do much for my body (or my feet) but they are comfy (always good – and certainly a startlingly new feeling for MY shoes). But as they are fashionable, they make quite a lot of my clothes suddenly work in a way they didn’t before. Still, I’m not sure yet whether I’ll keep or return them.
Anyhoo, while we were rustling about with shopping bags, and having iced lattes, Jo told me another jaw-dropping thing about her sex-life. She has NEVER EVER COME. It really made me wonder about the mechanics of her encounters with Martyn. I mean, how do you decide to stop having sex if neither of you come? Do you just turn to each other and say: ‘It’s been half an hour now, shall we stop – and have some chocolate cake?’ Jo said, when I finally got the nerve up to ask her, that she just makes a sort of special noise, to imply that she’s very happy, and then Martyn slowly finishes. But it is really strange, don’t you think? I’ve been unable to stop thinking about it all morning.

Walnut cake and Blissful Solitude

Well, Jo left this flat yesterday. She made it up with Martyn and he came and collected her, and it was very weird meeting him, when I knew so much intimate stuff. Like how annoying it is being on the pill with him – when it is hardly necessary – and how he’s more excited by a white stocking and suspender set than a black one, and how he howls like a wolf at good moments etc. Topiary told me that his problem is caused by drugs, but he’s told Jo that it is because he has issues with trust… So prostitutes are famously trustworthy, are they? Most men don’t seem to have trouble having sex with THEM.
I was all set to dislike Martyn because I’d been so angry with him all week to cheer up Jo , but he was a shy inoffensive sort. Very red cheeks, smells terribly strongly of soap, shoulders hunched. He seemed about half Jo’s size, but maybe that was just his personality.
And it is so blissful being free of Jo. She is an adorable person, but I did get tired of wiping up sugar-spills on the kitchen surfaces, of the mess of all the pillows and sheets on the sofa bed in the flat, of the way she was always in the bathroom when I wanted to be…
Mirabelle misses her, though. She got in the habit of sleeping on Jo’s trolley-suitcase And she also got keen on cake. I didn’t know cats ate cake. But they seem to like freshy-baked, still-warmVictoria sponge. There’s one good thing: I got Jo to try cooking things WITHOUT chocolate. So today she’s brought in walnut cake. With white frosting. It’s the best cake I’ve ever tried. But maybe her reconciliation with Martyn didn’t go that well, else otherwise why would she be making walnut cake at 5 a.m.?

The Man Who Can't Do The Opposite of Go

Oops, sorry about that, but it’s like being a double –agent at the moment, with constant surveillance. What I was going to say is that Jo’s boyfriend has this difficult thing wrong with him: he cannot come. Or at leastvery often. So – as Jo says – every intimate encounter involves him saying he might or (after nearly an hour) he nearly did, and her trying incredibly hard (with the help of Rigby & Peller corsetry, sex-tricks from mags like Marie Claire and Scarlet). And, mostly, total failure. And the worst of it is, she says, that when he’s alone he says he manages to get there perfectly well. To start with, it didn’t really matter, especially as he did, more often, and also said she was the best etc, but now it is getting worse and really starting to irritate her’
And I think the really problem is that they are total opposites, because she shows no sign of leaving this comfy flat with ensuite kitten. So they’re the man who can’t come, and the woman who won’t go.

Cakes and Weird Sex

Well, I’m sorry I haven’t been blogging for a few days, but things have been so fraught here. Jo came into work on Friday in tears, saying that she’d had this terrible row with her boyfriend - and that she hadn’t had time to make the chocolate chip flapjacks she’d promised. It was very difficult, as people kept coming into the office from other departments, having heard about chocolate time, and having to be pushed back out again, because she was crying.
Anyhoo, I said why didn’t she come back and have dinner at my place? And one thing led to another and suddenly she turned up with a trolley-suitcase for the whole weekend.
It was nice in one way, but the weather was so hot! You don’t really feel like eating a home-made chocolate Victoria sponge when you’re sweating, even if it is stuffed with whipped cream and strawberries. I never, ever thought I’d ever get in the position where I wouldn’t actually WANT cake – but I came quite close on Sunday.
So the whole weekend we’ve been going out to Regents Park – loaded down with picnic hampers – and sat under the trees while Jo goes on about her boyfriend, Martyn. I shall have to go soon, as she’s the sort of person who likes to read the paper over your shoulder, and I don’t want her to know about this blog. Or anyone at work to know about it. And she hasn’t moved out yet, either. But he sounds a very peculiar man. Apparently he can’t have normal sex at all, and can only…

Swan - thong

The Michael thing was cancelled at the last minute as he had to go to America. Sigh.
We were talking at chocolate-time about how thongs are long out of date (I brought up the topic, because I’d discovered the Woo doesn’t wear them.) It’s the era of the hipster brief. I said I felt sad about this, because I’m so fond of thongs. Jo said she once had a Labradoodle that had a THING about her thongs, and used to search through the laundry basket for them and then eat them. (They came out the other end whole – but of course unusable.) Jo’s point of view was that they are dirty, stupid things. You can never keep them totally spotless, and they cut into you. They’re stressful to wear, too.
This is all true (and I suppose if my thongs were regularly recycled through a dog, I might feel the same), but I still adore the way there’s no panty-line, the way they look your legs so great, the way they look so pretty in the shop (and in a drawer), how small, and delicate and flimsy they are, as if you’re this beautiful little dolly that the female stereotype says you have to be.
‘Yes, but have you ever tried looking in a changing-room mirror, the ones with the gross back view, when you’re wearing one?’ Jo said, biting into a chocolate macaroon. She didn’t mean it nastily. Us ladies of the cakey build do have probs with back-view mirrors. But I always refuse to look at those views. In my mind I always look like that woman in Crocodile Dundee from behind, when wearing a thong. (In the scene where the crocodile tries to bite off her head.)

Chocolate-Time!

It is very difficult sticking to my diet at the moment, because a new person has arrived in the office - Jo. She's here to cover for P, who is on maternity leave. Jo is a very lovely, friendly woman, with a habit of saying 'It must be chocolate time!' at about 11 a.m. (and at 3.30 p.m.), pulling out a floral cake-tin, and handing round huge wedges of sticky, gooey chocolate fudge brownies that she has made herself.

Jo should be HUGE, but she isn't - just sort of comfortably upholstered, with a very fresh, pink skin, and that glossy hair that people who over-indulge tend to get. (The benefits of being a little overweight are great hair, fewer lines, and attractive tits. I'm not quite sure if this really makes up for a muffin-top stomach and being unable to fit into your jeans or skirts.)

Still, at least all her home-baking has stopped me feeling sick, the way I did after Glenn's breakfast. Jo says she'll bring in her special recipe macaroons tomorrow.

So that's two things to look forward to: I'm seeing Michael again tonight.

A Breakfast to Forget (As soon as Poss)

Had a bit of a fright on Sunday. I was lying in bed with Mirabelle, eating a bit of cheesecake that got unaccountably left over, and reading Heat, when the doorbell rang. So I got up. (In my best silk negligee. I think you ALWAYS have to wear gorgeous underwear etc, even if you are alone, otherwise what is the point of living? Also it has to colour-coordinate with the other stuff you wear.This is not extravagance, just common sense.)
Anyway, I was glad I have this rule as it was Glenn. He pushed his way in before I could slam the door. He looked quite clean - no earth on neck, hair tied back, T-shirt reading ‘I’m not a gynaecologist, but I’ll have a look’ – and he had a Tesco bag in his hand. He said he’d brough me some breakfast, and asked where the kitchen was.
I thought the best thing to do was humour him, so I said I had to change, and rushed into my room where I rang J and asked her to come over at once. Then I put on a frumpy long-sleeved top, trousers and no make-up, and went to see what Glenn was doing.
He’s transformed my kitchen: found the tablecloth and spread it out, and put some (slightly droopy )coloured tulips in a vase, and poured out a strawberry smoothie, and was just fiddling with my coffee machine. The place smelled of bacon and buttered pasrty: he’d grilled some bacon, made scrambled eggs and heated up four almond croissants (my favourite). I was really touched, especially as he didn’t appear to be mad, or drunk, or angry. He just made a huge fuss of Mirabelle (who was purring loudly, the slutty thing) and asked me if I minded being told I was the most beautiful, sexy woman he’d ever seen?
We’d almost finished when J turned up, looking cross and red-faced and out-if-breath, having sped across London. She shouted at Glenn, telling him not to bother me etc. I felt awful, and really sorry for Glenn. And then she looked at the breakfast and said; ‘Where did you get the money for all this? Did you steal it?’
Glenn looked pleased. ‘No.’ he said,
‘Well how did you get it, then?
And Glenn explained that he’d gone round the back of Tesco’s at 5 a.m. and PULLED IT ALL OUT OF THEIR RUBBISH SKIP.