Page 51 of The App Trap
“Surely you discoveringthemhere is worse?”
I couldn’t decide whether or not he was right. However, I had a more pressing issue on my mind: a wheel clamp.
“What the actual fuck?” I cried.
“Oh. You didn't get a parking permit?” said Ben.
“I didn't know I’d need one. Why would you need one, anyway? It’s a fucking locked gate. Fuck!” I said, feeling all of the blood from my body fill up my face.
“Oh, it’s one of their rules. It’s a free car park, but you still have to display a permit.”
“Shitting hell. Why? How’s anyone gon…. fuck it. How are we gonna sort this out? I can’t go back in there, and if my car gets stuck here, I am fucked. WE are fucked.”
“What do you mean,I’mfucked?”
I thought about it for a second.
“Okay, this isn’t nearly as bad for you as it is for me. In fact, it isn’t at all bad for you, butpleasehelp me out here,” I begged.
“We could ask your mum for a lif…”
“Do not even … argh! How are we gonna get home? Plus, my mum might see my car. Shit. That’s if she hasn't already. Oh, for fuck’s sake. This is horrible. Horrible.”
Ben calmed me down and said he’d go and speak to some bloke called Tel to sort it out. Fortunately, Tel came out quite quickly but said that I’d still have to pay £100 to get the clamp released. Then he started banging on about how clearly the notice at reception was displayed.
Of course, I couldn’t risk going in there and verifying this, so had to send Ben in with my cash card and PIN number to mop up this horrific mess. I was waiting in the car park for about 20 minutes before he reappeared. I knew that he must have had some action while he was back in there, but I chose not to bring it up until we were back on the road and out of there.
“Here’s your parking permit anyway,” he said, smirking.
I screwed it up and chucked it down on the passenger seat floor in a rage.
There was an awkward silence for most ofthe journey and I had a feeling that this was going to be the last I saw of Ben––at least for a while anyway. I dropped him home and he said goodbye with a pursed smile.
“Speak soon,” he said, kissing his fingers and sliding them down my cheek without even a glimmer of eye-contact, before disappearing into the night, leaving me alone and painfully unfulfilled.
Chapter
Sixteen
Saturday was here at last. Harry had confirmed yesterday, so everything was on. I was in a bit of a weird mood, as I was still thinking about Mum and Neil at the club last night. I just presumed it was a bucket-list thing. In fact, it was no different to me. I’d finally ticked off the sex club. It was something I’d always wanted to try, but like all fantasies, it just wasn’t as good as the version I had locked away in the safety of my brain, mainly due to Neil and Mum turning up.
Just before I was about to leave and pick up Harry, I received a WhatsApp message.
‘Hey! Hope you’re still on for meeting up. I booked a hotel in South Kensington. Is that near you? Anyway, thought we could share the room. Hope we can hang out a lot!’
Oh, shit. I had some ‘online only’ things going on with a couple of guys––as you do. Even when you seem to have found someone that was relationship eligible, I still somehow felt the need to keep a couple of online back-ups––just in case it all went tits-up. I had been messaging someone on my ‘subs’ bench’ called Werner over the lastfew weeks, but since I thought that I could be heading for potential ‘in a relationship’ Facebook status, I had kind of forgotten about him.
He was a German guy from Berlin that I had been having a sext only relationship with. I had been distracted over the last few weeks with other stuff (dates) and had totally forgotten about him mentioning that he was coming to the UK. I also forgot that he had made it clear that he was mostly here to see me.
Judging from the location of the hotel that he’d booked, he had clearly spent quite a bit of cash as well. He was also expecting to hang out ‘a lot’ as he put it. Immediately, I put myself in his position. Imagine if you went over to meet someone in a foreign land and spaffed shedloads of money booking a plush hotel, only to find out that they had started seeing someone else and had completely blown you off. Horrible.
So, merely trying to be nice, I messaged back:
‘Cool! See you next week… looking forward to it!’
I figured that the least I could do was meet up with him. If things went well with Harry today, then I’d just find a way of sneaking off for an evening with Werner and avoid kissing or having sexy times with him for moral reasons. Easy.
But for now, I had to concentrate on tarting myself up for Harry.
