The boy no one loved

I really don't feel like blogging right now, but suppose I have to for the sake of accuracy.

At the train station today, I saw Twish. I don't know why, guess I felt like it, but I went behind her seat and then sat down quickly next to her to surprise her. On the train, she basically had a whinge about how unfair it was that SLA hired someone instead of her, someone who didn't have the same amount of advocacy experience and passion as she did. When we were close to our station, her boss called her telling her to go back to the city. It reminded me of my time with Nom. In a way, I was glad it wasn't me, but in another way, I kinda miss that rush and busy work lifestyle.

We parted at the train station and I went to the office. I could hear a lot of talking from DY's room and figured DC must be back. I walked past and saw him and said hi. I joked "where's your tan?" and everyone laughed. He got up from his seat to shake my hand and then I went away to my desk.

I went to say hi to GS and he showed me the cycling jersey DC got for him. It looked really neat. DC came over moments later and gave me a Giorgio Armani tie he got from Italy. It was a dark grey tie with white diagonal stripes. I kinda knew he'd get me something but that didn't mean I wasn't surprised. I felt so flattered I could hardly speak. They encouraged me to put it on, and DC tried to rip away the tag. He couldn't find the scissors and was struggling, until Kate just ripped it off with her bare hands. South Africans.

It was good to have him back. Everyone and everything felt livelier.

I couldn't wait until court to see the jury's reaction. Unfortunately the tight shirt juror didn't show much reaction to seeing DC again, although later on I noticed him staring at DC. The Tex guy kinda made a facial expression like "oh, you're back".

It was day two of DD's closing. He is probably the most exciting to watch, probably because he is so loud. But his arguments are also very thought provoking, which I like. He finished in the afternoon today, and we will have tomorrow off so the judge can prepare.

At morning tea we went across the road for coffee. I saw Rod and as soon as I went up to him, he introduced me to his boss. GS started talking to some other guy at their table, and looked at me, probably wondering how I knew these people.

Rod's boss kinda surprised me, because he was like "I've been looking forward to meeting you, we must talk sometime, we must talk", and I'm thinking "wtf?". His boss said that at his place, "no one works for eachother, everyone is a partner". As informative as that was, I couldn't help but feel they were a little dodgy, maybe because of their eagerness to recruit me. They made me feel like a celebrity.

I was very relieved when I finally left them to join the others at our coffee table. Some lady collapsed on the footpath in front of us, but she was ok. As we were walking back to court, I returned Twish's missed call, and she said she just called me to whinge about her court matter.

At lunch, I had it with GS and DC. Luckily GS shouted me lunch today, because I'm kinda budgeting for these last few days of August. We talked about the DDP being in the news, which is of particular interest to me because it affects their finance which in turn affects my employment prospects.

At the end of the day, everyone was so happy that it was over. I went to the bathroom for a moment and when I came out everyone except Twish had gone. I left soon after and said bye to Twish.

Since yesterday I have been having serious considerations about whether to see Emily/Jenny tonight. I seriously changed my mind a million times. Last night when I went to bed I decided not to. This morning I decided to. During the day I decided not to. In the afternoon I decided to.

My considerations even included the scenario where I'd try to gamble and win some of the money to see her. But ultimately, my mind said "no, no gambling!". This was the power of love.

I went up to the Wick to get some chocolate strawberries. I found it at the small plaza, and they had two left.

Pefect.

I called to make a booking for 7:30 and then bought the strawberries. At the bus stop, I felt so excited. I realised that this was what I wanted - romance. The opportunity to look forward to romancing someone; not necessarily sex.

I was going to do it. I was going to ask her out tonight.

I went home to put the strawberries in the fridge. I got myself ready to see her. I used Listerine to make sure I didn't have bad breath. I wiped my face clear of oil. I changed from two pairs of socks to one.

I surfed the net a bit before leaving. I put the strawberries in my gym bag and went. I drove out there with about half an hour to spare. In that time, I went to the nearby shopping centre to use the bathroom. As I walked, I saw some couples, and noted how ugly the guys were, and wondered how they could find a girlfriend, and why I was still single. I then walked back to my car to get my gym bag.

I went into the massage place and was greeted by the ladies as usual. I waited in the waiting area for a bit before being taken to a room. I put my bag down, and placed my wallet, phone and watch on the table. I went to have a walk around the room. I felt nervous, and somewhat intimidated by the room. It scared me, I decided I wasn't going to go through with asking her out.

Moments later there was a knock on the door.

We hugged eachother and kissed. She said she was tired and I asked her from what. She seemed kinda surprised, maybe offended, that I asked, and then just said from cleaning in the afternoon. I told her I had a present for her and asked her to sit down next to me. I asked her to close her eyes. She said to put the present in her hands. She closed her eyes and put her palms out. I placed the plastic container into her hands.

She opened her eyes and was surprised. She said she had never seen them before. She struggled a bit to open the container but eventually opened it. She held one and examined it. She invited me to take a bite and I told her to go first. She took a bite. I asked her if she liked it and she said she did. She offered it to me and I took a bite from her hand. We alternated eating it, with me dropping some chocolate onto my shirt and her grabbing a tissue for me.

We finished one and she reached for the second, but then I told her to keep that for herself. We started kissing. I had expected this, but what I didn't expect was tongue. All this time we had really just done like lip to lip kissing. I thought maybe she wasn't the type to tongue. But now, there was tongue involved. And lots of it.

As we kissed and kissed, I thought to myself "you have to have a good chance of asking her out tonight, she definitely likes you".

We kissed some more, and it felt really really romantic, like a couple. We had a shower and then continued kissing, eventually moving to the couch. We later moved to the table. We had sex with a condom, but probably because of that, I couldn't orgasm. I asked her if we could do what we did last week, and she said she couldn't remember.

Not a good sign.

When I reminded her, we changed positions but I still couldn't finish. She tried very hard but I just told her I was tired. I don't know why, I know a lot of guys would've killed to be in my position. I guess the plan of asking her out was stressing me and making me nervous.

I told her I wanted to hold her, and we spent the next five or so minutes holding eachother. As I held her closely, I tried to treasure the moment because I knew it might be our last. The buzzer sounded and she went to take a shower. I showered after her.

As I was getting dressed, I decided to bite the bullet. Now or never. Know now, and stop the guessing forever. She was near the table cleaning up and I was at the couch. As I began to speak, I could feel and hear how my voice was different. It sounded foreign.

Me: Do you want to go see a movie sometime?

Her: Mmm, if I have time.

That was a no. It didn't hurt as much as, say, the NTM one. Maybe because I was kinda expecting it, and I had told myself to just act casual if she rejected me, although I still left open the possibility of seeing her again.

Me: You don't have to if you don't want to.

Then there was silence as I got dressed. She came over and helped me with the buttons on my shirt. She had a bit of difficulty with the button on my left sleeve, and I tried to do it myself but she insisted on doing it herself. She finally got it after a few tries.

There was more silence.

She put her shoes on, and then kissed me. I didn't feel like it. I didn't feel like kissing someone who didn't like me. It was so fake.

She told me to have a good night.

I guess the most obvious sign came as we walked down the stairs. She held the ice box in her left hand, and I was standing on her left. Usually she holds my hand, but this time she kept the ice box between us. Body language tells all.

I was slightly in front of her, and as we reached reception, I turned around to smile at her, maybe for the last time. She smiled back, almost weakly.

I drove to the street behind our house and sat there in silence for a while. I felt like crying but couldn't.

All I want to do now is curl up in my bed and go to sleep.