French Guy

French Guy called me yesterday afternoon. It happens he had his phone stolen and just got it back yesterday.
(Needless to say it made me feel like shit about the whole OG night last week. It might be time to break up with him for good...)
Silly me.

French Guy asked me if I wanted to come to his place and share a few drinks with him and some of his friends.
It was a premiere, the meeting-the-friends bit made me feel even more like a piece of shit, and it took me over two hours of debating with my conscience before accepting the invitation.
Silly me.

Obviously, my resolution of non-drinking fell through and as usual, I poured myself a double-rum and tonic before leaving The House. Unfortunately, it failed to settle my nerves or hide the guilt, and I arrived at French Guy's place shaking as much from stress/expectation as I was from the Arctic cold outside.
Silly me.

It went all so smoothly that I somehow find it disturbing...
French Guy was as charming and sweet as usual, and his friends were a nice bunch of weed-smokers easy to talk to.
And, how can I describe it? As I started to suspect a few weeks ago, it really looks like our relashionship developed a life of its own, in spite of common fucked up past and our best plans to "keep it light".
Silly me.

There is no need to deny it. We really are at ease with eachother...
Even in the presence of his friends. To whom he said that, for once, he was serious about me, because he really, really liked me. I managed to gasp almost silently.
Silly me.



Eventually, the friends left one after the other.
And we started making love. At the risk of sounding tremendously cheesy, it felt somehow so right that I suprised myself by wishing it had been my first time. God, how weird is that???
It was so good. So good. For both of us. I was delirious, and (to his apparent delight) I drenched French Guy's sheets numerous times. Sex had never been so good for me before. My whole body felt electric. Which probably explains why I felt comfortable enough and could let myself go to the point of doing a number two.
My first one.
Now, I had always been curious about anal sex, but always told myself I would not take that step unless I was with someone I really liked, was very comfortable with, and had been seeing for quite a while.
I was only going with the flow, but I am now obliged to think that if it happened, French Guy might have been this someone, because it surely didn't feel wrong...


Now, in all honesty, I feel like crying and singing and screaming and laughing and banging my head against the wall.
I am a complete emotional wreck. I've been feeling like this since he fell asleep and I spent the whole night awake, watching him. SILLY ME!
I can't believe I was holding back my feelings for him for so long, but now I am realising those feelings might as well be there, I feel like a fucking piece of shit for not wanting to aknowledge them before, and at the same time I am fucking scared shitless of getting hurt.

Cleaning Express

Yesterday (apart from the procrastination/masturbation time) was dedicated to a House make-over. My housemate John and I cleaned The House from top to bottom, and that reminded me of that anecdote dating back from the time I was living on the Schmookin' Creek's sofa in China Town.

It was late afternoon, and their landlord had just called to say he would be popping by to check the flat the following day. As you can expect, the flat looked more like a squat where fifteen tramps had been living for three years than a three bedroom flat.
I remember they used to refer to its state of dirtiness and chaos as "a piece of art".

No doubt the landlord wouldn't have appreciated it that way though.
A massive cleaning session was in order. At best, it would take us a week to overcome.

That's when the guys amazed me. Instead of starting now and then, they made a quick phone call and headed all to Liverpool Street station. Left alone in the flat and not exactly knowing what they were up to, Liz and I exchanged a glance of pure despair, texted them to at least buy some Febreze and a mop, and started the washing up.

They returned an hour later, all grinning, and told us to sit down and relax, that they would do everything.

I only understood where they were coming from when they sat down on the sofa, took out tiny white plastic bags, a CD box, a credit card, and rolled up notes.
Coke to clean?

That was a new use of the class A drug I had never heard of or thought about.

It worked, though. I had never seen anyone being so dedicated and so fast at cleaning before. They even did the inside of the cupboards.

An hour and a half later, the flat was shining and would have had its place in a Mr Muscle ad.


I can't help but thinking about it and smile whenever I am faced with compulsory domestic chores, but, come on, I know I won't go there. Coke and I are ancient history now, I'll explain why in another post...

First

French Guy doesn't know what he's missing out...
Well, I didn't know either until earlier this afternoon.

I was comfortably settled into my futon with my old time "literary" favourite (called Menage, if that can give you an idea of the "literary" standard of the book), a good joint, and a very good vibrator to keep me company.

That's when it happened. It even didn't see it coming. The waves of pleasure built up even faster than usual, all the muscles in my body started to tense as when I'm close to orgasm.
And it happened. A sudden gush of "water" from between my legs covered my futon cover.

I couldn't believe it; I had just squirted.


I first thought the weed was making me hallucinate, so I did what anybody would have done in that case: I did it again. And again.

And it happened again. And again.

Wow!
I must be one of those women who can have female ejaculations, after all.
I can't wait to share my new discovery with someone...


PS: My futon cover is now in the washing machine...

What stalks around...

Great. OG is stalking me while I am stalking (in vain) French Guy.

I treated OG like shit and he's only wanting more, while (if I'm being really honest with myself), French Guy is more or less treating ME like shit, and as a result I am dying for him to turn around and would litteraly jump in his pants as soon as he bothers calling me. And now, seeing the intensity of my stalking, he knows it. Great.
Why are human beings so twisted?

At least, I am being a civilised stalker and only send my text messages at appropriate times, which is more than what OG could say.

Had I had him on hand, I swear I would have ripped his head off, when I received yet another text message from him at 7:58 on Sunday morning. What was he thinking?

As far as I am concerned, Sunday mornings are for one to sleep through one's hangover caused by three nights in a row of really heavy drinking and loads of partying.

So much heavy drinking indeed, that I swore I wouldn't approach anything known to contain any sort of alcohol, at least until Thursday. (It's wise to set sensitive goals)


Last Thrursday (the 14th of Febraury, just in case you live on Mars), Stella, Brooke and I went out around West London as a F*ck Valentine's girly night.
As a result, I am now tagged all over Facebook with one different cocktail in each hand, (two different cocktails on each picture) pulling most ungracious faces, as a tribute to what I thought was the most disgusting day of the year.
Oh yeah, this, and coming up to any stranger I could find, telling them how pathetic I was, since I had two "boyfriends" but was spending VD getting hammered with my girlfriends.
Nice and grown up.

I spent the rest of the week-end visiting friends up in Birmingham, and visiting Birmingham and its nightlife as well.
At the risk of sounding like a closed-minded Londonner, insensitive drinking was the only way forward if you wanted to cope with being in a club up there. Or maybe my friends just didn't bring me to the right ones...

Anyway, I am looking forward to my first week-end in London in quite a while.


And I really don't know what to do of Z, who called me and who with I agreed to "get together and go out". Shit.

London Transports would be ashamed if they knew that some people -ok at least me- only log on tfl.gov.uk when they're about to get laid.

But that's the thing, see, I don't need help with random buses when:
-I go to work. I am not retarded and by now, I've got them pretty much figured out.
-I visit friends. Same applies there, or, if it's at a new place, I can usually rely on their directions.
-I go clubbing. I've done it so often that I could name by heart all the night buses numbers needed to go back home from at least 20 different London clubs.
-Or even on shopping trips. Come on, from wherever you are, how difficult is it to find Oxford Street?

But when it comes to erm... "sexier businesses", I am way too eager to look and sound as independant as one can get that I always hang up the phone on a: "It's ok, I know London by now. Don't worry, I'll find it!"
It is most of the time pure bravado, especially when, last night (e.g.), I have to go to parts of town I have never heard of. Hence my being perpetually late because I still haven't included the 15 minutes spend on the tfl website as part of my "preparation routine".

Ok, the compulsory alcoholic-drink-and-fag-and-wash-your-teeth-again before leaving the house certainly participates in my lateness...

I am not including the amount of time spent singing "Should I stay or should I go?", or the "just one more episode of Peep Show" factor either.


At least that is what happened last night, and might explain why I was late (about an hour and a half late, to be exact) at OG's place.
NOT that is matters that much anyway, I don't mind anticipation...

OG and I hadn't seen eachother inover three months, and now that I can look at things with a little more distance that I used to then, this break definitely was for the best.
Of course the man's desire for me is a huge turn on and a great ego booster; he's VERY handsome and extremely successful.
But fuck he knows it and is oh-so full of himself.

After dinner, when I couldn't take anymore of watching him unrolling different giant versions of himself sporting the cheesiest smile (=all the different posters in different languages from his last tour...), I grabbed him by the balls -almost litteraly- and dragged him into bed.

All this time and I had almost forgotten how well endowed he was and what a size queen I can be -smiles...
I had also forgotten how fast he came -sight...


Tonight, Brooke, Stella and I are hitting the town. It's been said Valentine's Day (in spite of being a complete commercial load of bullshit) is the best night of the year to pull...

Just another week-end...here and there 2

I am now supposed to be making the most of my day off, spending the whole day in bed, instead of nursing murderous feelings. My "dear" neighbours decided to do some NOISY work in their garden from 7am. Now, they can count on me to organise a rave on the balcony. The sooner the better.


Saturday:

An hour and a half later, I dragged myself out of Liz's bed with great difficulty,
because I had to run back home, pack, (shower), and run to Gatwick, (all in less than 3 hours), as I was supposed to fly abroad to attend that international conference for people in my work field.

Let's be honest, I couldn't care less about the conference, especially at that particular time, but most of the expenses were being paid, and I was eager to meet up again with some of my best friends who I knew would be attending, especially A, and L, my flatmate from our time working in Germany last year, and a whole bunch of others.

Even with two Red Bulls down my system, I landed in an appalling state, and don't remember much of the day. Every thing said in situ entered my brain through the left ear to immediately escape it through the right one.

Fortunately, the first night, I was sharing a room with A and friend in a five star hotel, and two hours spent in between the sauna, hammam and other steam rooms, jacuzzi and swimming pools certainly helped me to get back to a more human self...
And feeling myself again could only mean one thing: "Guys! Let's go out!"

We found that amazing (and unfortunately amazingly cheap) cocktail bar in an otherwise quite dead city center, and ended up following those Spanish guys to a great alternative club.
Well, that's at least what I was told the next morning. My memories of that night stopped in the bar after the second mai tai...
Apparently, A and I literally crawled back to the hotel room at 4:30am.


Sunday:

It would be absolutely pointless to recount the day until 6pm, seeing it was spent exactly the same way as Saturday: Hungover. The absence of flights made life slightly easier though.
As A was flying back to Cannes that same night, we went for farewell drinks, and I then joined L and friends for dinner in a nearby restaurant.

There, I had the very pleasant surprise to bump into Z.

Now, Z. Please bear with me as I have to recount everything about her for the rest to make sense.
Z is internationally reknown as "Crazy Z". Or "Bisexual Z". We attended the same school in London for one year. We had quite a lot in common since we discovered we shared the same friends from our respective times studying in Spain. And at that time, the same interests as well, which probably included a somewhat boyish way of thinking, a love for crazy nights out and everything which goes with it...
Still, even if we lived in the same hostel, we didn't spend that much time together since she was definitely part of the "cool kids", and me with my hard work and dedication and all the time I used to spend with A, couldn't care less about being seen as cool or not.

We first "bonded" on that particularly interesting night. It was a schoolmate's birthday in that awful pub in Fulham. We spent two hours exchanging exasperated glances over the crowd of hammered girls all in pink dresses who couldn't stand anymore on heels too high for them.
It really got too much to bear when they started playing Britney Spears and all of them started the slutty dance from the video clip.

I mimed a yawn and she crossed the room: "Ok, let's go!"
We stopped by a 24hours Food and Wine where we convinced the guy at the till to sell us booze, even if it was well past 11pm, and went to sit on the stairs outside our hostel, waiting for her coke-addict then boyfriend to come and pick us up to another "more happening" party...

When he and his friends eventually showed up, they were obviously way too fucked-up for me to agree to get into their car. So I proposed what I thought was a safer and as appealing option: let's all go and spend the night in Hyde Park (it was summer) with booze and a couple of joints. (Let me remind you we were still teenagers...)

So we did. Well, it didn't exactly went all that smoothly, seeing that after half an hour in there, two police cars with sirens turned up, from which a bunch of cops came out, screaming: "Don't move!"
Of course, we did the only thing we could do: RUN and scattered in every directions.

Personnally, I climbed over the park railings and ran all the way until I was safely back in my hostel room.
Then I started worrying about Z, and spent the whole night waiting in front of her room and leaving panicky voicemails on her phone.

She called me the next day at 3pm: "Haha Lilith! I spent the whole night at the police station! Thank God I didn't have any drugs left on me!!!"

I called her crazy, but we kind of stuck together ever since. Went out partying and she played an important role and helped a lot when I got into trouble with my lesbian ex-flatmate P.

Nowadays, even if we still both live in London, we don't see as much of eachother, probably because our timetables are completely clashing, and because I "calmed down" a little bit.
Or so I thought...


So when I met her again on Sunday, we thought we should do something worth it to celebrate the good old days.

We left the others at the restaurant before dessert and sat in that quite random bar open 24hours where they played transe. We ordered more cocktails than required to send a whole football team to the intensive care unit, and couldn't say enough how cool it was to get together again.

Soon, I was so drunk I almost made her a scene when she started hitting on the lesbian waitress. Don't ask me what I was doing, I really don't know...
So we left the bar, bought a bottle of wine on the way, and somehow ended up drinking it in her hotel room before both passing out on her bed...

That is, until I was woken up a few minutes/hours(?) later by a hand slowly caressing my neck, my back, my stomach, my breasts...

Saying it came as a surprise would be a lie, but still, I was terrified. I stayed there still for what seemed years, pretending I was fast asleep.
When I couldn't hide my arrousal any longer as my breath grew heavier and faster, I turned around, kissed her, and let her take complete control.

That's right, we slept together. And that was the first time I went "all the way" with a girl.
It was one of the nicest experiences in my life, but definitely the most terrifying.
She left the next morning at 6 as I was still asleep to catch her flight back to London.

Saying exactly how I feel about it would be impossible. I know I still prefer the male equipment, and, to me, it doesn't really matter anyway, it was just about sleeping with someone I always cared about.
And I am left both wanting to see her in London and hoping I will never. Something is either open or broken and I don't know.
It feels like a bad and a good dream at the same time...

I haven't told anything to anyone yet, and I can't wait for A to call me back. This whole thing is way too destabilising.


Monday:

I went for breakfast with L, lunch with yet another group of friends, coffee with others, flew back to London, dropped my bags home, and met up with Stella at that really nice wine bar in Shepherd's Bush.

I was supposed to go on a date with OG tonight, but I called him saying it was my time of the month. It's a complete lie, of course, but I really feel like I need some "me time"...

Just another week-end...here and there

I can't believe i just survived this week-end. Friday-Saturday-Sunday all put together are to this day the most surreal experience I've ever had. Surreal, and rather intense, hence the lack of updating here...

I don't even know where to start.
In chronological order I guess...


So, on Friday:

I was invited to the birthday bash of one member of the Schmookin' Creek. Bday Boy was actually my best friend Liz's boyfriend, himself one of my best (slightly twisted) friends.
It started all as a pretty much normal birthday bash. Thirty or so persons at a pub in Leicester Square and way too many pints.

Pretty "normal", as far as I am concerned, if you don't include the presence of two of my exes, J and M. (If you ask, I used to spend way too much time with the Creek back in the day...)
Still, it all went well, the three of us now perfectly able not to cross the - slowly rebuilt - friendship line. (Phew!)

We were supposed to finish the night in Shunt, but as it tends to happen when a group of too many persons gets together for too many drinks, we never made it, and about eight of us opted for catching the last tube back to the Schmookin' Creek's flat in South London.
As you do, we sat down with a few joints and some good music, and started talking about the deep meaning of life.
At one point, Bday Boy and Liz excused themselves to their bedroom, which we thought was only normal (and healthy).

But, blame the weed if you like, we decided to keep a "peaceful attitude" when we started hearing serious screams of anger and noises of objects getting smashed against the wall.
J, M and I couldn't be bothered to move from the couch anyway, and we chose not to intervene.

That is, only until we heard the entrance door getting slammed, and realised Liz had left the flat.
It appeared, after a two-minute long investigation, that our favourite drama queen had left on a whim, all without shoes, keys, or even a phone.

I managed to drag J out of the couch and we both went out after her. Except that she was nowhere to be seen; not in the lobby, not in the basement, not in the 24hours local Food and Wine, and in none of the dodgy streets around.

Two hours later (it was 3:30am), completely sobered up, the two of us had been through the whole neighbourhood, had woken up half of South London by shouting her name at every corner, every drunken/homeless/random man on the streets had been asked if they had seen a shoe-less girl on her own, and I was continuously arguing on the phone with Bday Boy who hadn't got out of his bedroom all this time...

But Liz still hadn't reappeared. Running short of options, we opted for going back to the flat, where we would call the police (that is, needless to say, after a well-needed session of flat-cleaning and "evidence"-hiding)

I called her name out just before we got back in, and as we heard a shy "Yeah?", J and I almost fell into eachother's arms out of relief. (Well, we fortunately didn't.)
"Liz!!! Where are you? Thank God we found you! You're here!!! Where exactly? We can't see you in the dark!
-Up there! Erm... Lilith? I'm stuck..."
I glanced "up there" and heard J gasp while my heart missed a beat.

Liz was standing at the edge of the rooftop, five floors above our heads!

"Don't move!! Sit down!! Err... Wait! We're coming up!"
I swear I never saw anyone climbing five floor as fast as we did, and swore off smoking for life (or at least for the next five minutes).

The poor girl was in a complete state of shock and for some random reason my nerves decided to let me down and, in spite of my best efforts to keep my head on my shoulders, I started to cry uncontrollably when I realised how worried and scared we all had been.

Back in the flat, not knowing what else I could do, I poured a cup of hot chocolate down her throat, stuck a lit joint in her mouth, and went to sleep in her bed next to her after Bday Boy decided to sleep on the couch...

I had to wake up less than two hours later.
But that's Saturday's story, and for the time being I'm going to bed, I hardly slept since...

I really should stop pouring myself a double Rum and Tonic before my "dates".
But, call me an alcoholic if you want, the prospect of yet another night with French Guy somehow made me nervous to the point a drink was in order.

The presence of Australian Fiona in The House yesterday evening certainly didn't help. (By the way, she's moving back to Australia in a month, and I know I am going to miss her more and in more ways than I'd like to admit.
Shit. I really wonder how exactly our farewells are supposed to happen...)

As a result, I was pissed on the tube to French Guy's place, staggering around and bumping into people and wondering why on earth I was defying the Hammersmith and Shitty line in that state.

Worth the drunken journey though...
What a great night. French Guy and I got to the point we're actually comfortable enough to hang around eachother completely naked, joke, and laugh while at it.
Very much like if we had been in an actual relashionship for a while already...
How bizarre!

But it was so nice that I actually called in sick this morning, and didn't leave his flat until noon, feeling I was worth a billion dollars.
This is quite weird, especially since we both established that "this" is NOT supposed to go anywhere.
Hmmm...

At the risk of sounding completely and utterly full of myself, I am very pleased to discover I am becoming somewhat addictive.

I am being requested over at French Guy's place for the second time this week. It's a first in our short sexual history, but it is true that Monday night was erm, (I am looking for the right word there) fucking mind-blowing. I can't think of anything more accurate to describe it.
It probably was the best sex I ever had, and seeing French Guy's face at those particular moments (the mirror on the ceiling certainly helped), I'm quite convinced he had his fare share of fun too...

It looks like I got him hooked. And I am still pondering whether this is a good thing or not.
And I still wonder how can sex with someone when there is no actual feelings from both parts involved (let's be honest there), can still work after that many times, and even get better each time...? How is this possible?

Of course, it's a great ego booster and it's giving me an incredible sense of power, but, knowing the man is probably as machiavelian as I am, I can't help but wonder what he would be capable of to reverse the roles...
Scary, and I am probably the worst paranoiac in London.

Who cares if we both know that we're purely using eachother for sex? There's no law against that, is there?
So I guess I should stop worrying and just show up there in a few hours...
And that really shouldn't prevent me from attending that fabulous Anti-Valentines party next week with my girlfriends, should it?

Another London week-end

If I haven't been blogging for a few days, it is just because I had a quite busy week-end. And a very fun one too that deserves its place here.



Saturday morning, I woke up to find a wooden stick on the kitchen table.
Wondered what the heck that was for five seconds, but I smiled when the previous night came back to mind.

My lovely-crazy-alcoholic housemates and I went to Shunt on Friday, (Shunt is that wonderfully random club under London Bridge Station) and I don't know if there was a special vibe in that place which "inspired" us, or if our group is simply mad enough not to need that much to be inspiration to misbehave, and a couple of pints plus a few shots of sambuca simply suffice.

We first spent an hour and a half sharing cigarettes while critising British culture with two very drunk Estonian guys, in a completely dark room randomly enough filled with plane seats. As much as I hate planes, it was still a lot of fun to pull the fold-down tray in front of us to put our glasses there...
Quite surreal.
At the same time, I couln't help but think how much fun it would be to bring a lover in there. Surely, if that corner was remote enough to brave the law and smoke, there must be loads of other stuff you could do in there. And the illusion of doing it on a plane would be almost perfect...
I am planning to come back there very soon.

Apparently, the theme of the night in Shunt was "Pirates and Mermaids", so, after the plane seats moment, we went to that other room where a real-life sized pirate ship had been built for the occasion. There was a notice saying that if you "boarded", you be served "Punch, Sodomy and Tache". Of course we climbed on the ship, but were fortunately only served the punch.
Two glasses later, as you do, we were standing on the prow, replaying that famous scene from Titanic, me at the front, Mike behing me, and John on top of that, singing Celine Dion at the top of our lungs.
People stopped five meters below my feet to contemplate our very good act.
I don't think of myself as a "heavy person" but I think the boat hadn't been built to bear that much weight.
Near, far, wherever you aaAAAAAAHGH!!!!!!

The wooden pieces I was standing on colapsed and I ended up my legs hanging in the void, five meters above the floor, screaming like a mad woman, and wondering if time had come for me to start to believe in God.

Fortunately, Mike managed to pull me up, and we went back dancing, me nervously laughing so much I was on the verge to pee myself...
I still had the presence of mind to pick up the piece of wood which had broken off as souvenir.
We left the club shortly after that, mainly because I kept stabbing people on the dance floor with it...
On our way home, we still stopped by a kebab shop and entertained the other customers by dancing the Macarena in the middle of the tables, as a tribute to life...
All in all, a very surreal night.




On Saturday, after spending whole afternoon nursing a tremendous hangover in that lovely pub next the Thames in Hammersmith, Mike dragged me along to crash that hat-house-party in South London. He also invited that Pushy-Scottish-girl-friend of his, with whom I almost had fight over Hihes that night I first slepped with him.

It actually was a great houseparty, with all the right ingredients:
-LOADS of booze,
-loads of people,
-a fair percentage of cute guys.

Especially with the presence of a straight to-die-for Colin Farrel look-alike...
Of course, Pushy-Scott girl (let's call her PuSc, ok?) and I were on him like flies on a discarded piece of meat in a minute.
(I know I know, quite pathetic, but PuSc and I decided to laugh about it and promised that at the next house party we were to attend together, we'd draw an imaginary line in the middle of the room so we each would have our own "hunting space"...)

As Colin Farrel was apparently more interested in me than her, PuSc went for Cute-Guy-Of-The-Night-Number-2, who, once he let himself getting french-kissed and copiously grabbed by her, confessed he had a girlfriend. (Men...Are they REALLY all the same?)

As for myself, I can't complain, since I got amazingly well kissed by Colin Farrel for a few hours.
Didn't take things any further though, since I still had my periods and played the role of "shy-and-restrained-Lilith" very well. Damn.
At the end of the night, I wrote down his facebook, and we agreed to go for drinks together this week.

Except that once home and logged-in, it appeared that Colin Farrel had 121 namesakes in the London network, most of them without a profile picture. I am still browsing, but all hope seems to be lost.
I can't even start to explain how much life sucks.



But I am not letting myself getting all depressed because I won't get to sleep with Colin Farrel after all. I know it's a shame, but there are plently of other fishes in the sea.
Speaking of fishes, I am invited over for dinner at French Guy's place tonight, and I've also arranged a date with OG next week.
It's been way too long and I swear I can hear my hormones screaming.

I still haven't "met up" with French Guy. The reason being, as my best friend would put it: Another baptism has been avoided. Translation: I have my periods.

Frustrating. I now have to wait until next week.
Not fun. And I think I upset him by telling him I was too tired and too ill from my European tour to go all the way across London to his place. Which is partly true, seeing I am still coughing my lungs off since a certain snow ball battle in PJ's in Oslo...

I think I got OG upset for the same reason. Which is probably a good thing seeing how stalkerish he's become recently, and how reluctant I feel about starting seeing him, again.




So, instead of hot sex, I spent yesterday afternoon shopping with the only person who I think has ever truly loved me.
The person who used to be my housemate and a great friend, until SHE fell in love with me.

About a year and a half ago, I found myself homeless again. I guess it's a London trend. Eventually, through a friend of a friend of a friend [...], I moved into that house in Hammersmith, where lived P and a couple.
There were all typical geeks from Imperial College, and made me feel somewhat stupid, but a very nice and friendly group nevertheless.
Of course it should have occured to me that P wasn't the typical girly type. But since the girl in the couple was even more masculine, I assumed it was just a trend amoung their group.

P and I got on very well from the start, enjoying going out together, going to the cinema, spending long hours talking about our respective troubled childhood and our dreams. I really thought she was a great girl and enjoyed her company a lot.

So, instead of staying only for a month while looking for my own place, I decided to permanently move in with them. And all was well.

That is, until that particular night, when P and I came back from a cocktails-fuelled night at Favela Chic, in Old Street. It was summer, so we sat in their little garden and shared a smoke before going to bed.
That's when she made her coming out.
I reacted by saying exactly what was on my drunken mind at the time: That she should try not to care about what her catholic family would think, and just embrace her sexuality. That I had loads of gay friends (she had already met a few of them) and that I would really be the last to judge her or treat her differently because of that. And very lamely concluded by saying that there was abslutely nothing to worry about because no one could know in advance what would happen to them, yes, who knew? I could, in ten years, five years, two years, find that I was myself attracted to girls too, and it really wasn't worth worrying about.
Drunken ramblings, I know, but I was trying to be understanding and supportive since she was in tears.

I noticed quite a change in her the following week. She looked much happier, more lively, outgoing. So I thought I did my friend job well, and accompanied her the next week-end to an Imperial student union party.

When after a few pints, she became a bit touchy-feeling, I though I was only being paranoiac. But when a common friend came to me to say P was in corner in tears and was asking to speak to me, my first thought was SHIT.

We both cried a lot that night. Her, because she was in love and being rejected. Me, partly because I had no choice but hurt a friend, partly because she told me things that no one had ever told me and it f*cking hurt to see that someone could have such feelings for me and there was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

We tried to play the happy friends part for the following weeks, but it just felt plainly wrong and I could sense she was getting more hurt by the minute.
So I moved out, and went back to my sofa surfing.

We still meet up for the occasional coffee or pint, but, even if more than a year on awkwardness has disappeared, we can both sense that the friendship hasn't -and won't- go back to what it was. And I always leave her feeling incredibly sad.
I still can't help but thinking about what a bliss it could have been, being in a relashionship with someone who cares so much about you...