blp
04-09-2006, 04:37 PM
Chapter 2 Gwen
I don’t want to say much about myself. It’s dull. My name I’m comfortable with: Luke May for those of you who don’t yet know what a spoonerism is (see previous chapter, dimbos). Other than that, I don’t think there’s much to say. I’m fairly bored most of the time. Well, that’s me.
Up until recently, I had a girlfriend whose name was/is Gwen – also quite uninteresting. We were happy in some sense I think, boredom notwithstanding. One day, someone told me Gwen was shagging someone else.
At the time I thought I was going through some sort of ordeal. I spent some seemingly unbearable amount of days with little stars exploding around my face, feeling a toxic sting all through my shoulders and ears as if they were being washed internally with bleach. Now I have this one little thing, this ordeal, clutched in my hand hotly like a little blue sapphire. Not bored. Something to think about.
Gwen. Gwenny. Gwenivere. Gwendolynne. Gwendoline. Gwendolyn. After four years with the girl, I’m still not sure of the full version of her name. The last is the only version my computer doesn’t underline in jagged red, so I’ll suppose that must be correct. It’s all immaterial anyway as she will henceforward, in this document anyway, be known simply as Gwen.
What can I tell you about Gwendolyn then? Shall I start with the physical characteristics or the – whatever you call the others? I suppose if I start with the way she looked you’ll be getting to know her roughly the same way I did. She is a lightish brunette. She wears her hair not long and not short. Sort of just longer than a bob. When I met her, she had a dominatrix style ruler fringe at the front, which I found sexy. Cute, slightly chubby cheeks, a wide mouth, a straight nose and rather large eyes with thick eyebrows. Average height to short – about 5 foot 5, basically slim with a tendency to bulge out a bit round the middle. Is this helping? Do you think she sounds sexy? Do you fancy her? I feel much the same (I’m not sure).
I met her in a basement bar called Home in Shoreditch. My friend Colin chatted her up first, though he was already seeing Lize. Maybe she sensed his insincerity, because she started trying to avoid him and talk to me instead. I was fairly out of it. I remember Colin putting his arm around me and saying, ‘You can **** her. I’m sure you can **** her. Maybe, in fact, in the alley round the back right now.’ When she said she was leaving with her friends and I took her number and, as she was going, even though were standing in a crowd of her friends and mine, I leaned in and tried for a quickie grope/snog, but she pulled away and hurried off to the exit. It left me feeling slightly desolate, but then, just before she passed through the door she turned and laughed and blew me a kiss.
We settled into being boyfriend and girlfriend pretty quickly. I suppose from my end this was because I’d been in London for six months after Uni and, so far, hadn’t had much luck meeting women (i.e. I hadn’t met any at all). I can’t claim to know what she saw in me. She’s not the most chatty of people, Gwen, not the kind of girl to analyse things much, but she was very affectionate and physical. It seemed to work. We were both basically quite crap people. She had a glamorous seeming job as an assistant stylist, doing ads and fashion shoots, which mostly actually weren’t that glamorous – things like Nivea Cream or Hennes clothes.
By the time I started at UHEC we’d been together for nearly three years and Gwen had begun discussing moving in together. I wasn’t dogmatically opposed to the plan. If you’ve never lived in London you might not know about this, but renting here is a ****ing dog shag of a mother****. Prices are way out of control. It’s not like you can lower your sites and get somewhere cheap by deciding to, say, not live in Knightsbridge. Basically everywhere, from Brockley to Balham to Kennington to Kilburn to Finsbury Park to [I can’t think of anywhere else beginning with F], is primo expensivo and for what you pay out, what you get, in terms of space, hygiene, light, quiet, decor and breathable air may be very very little indeed. In the three years I’d been with Gwen, I’d already moved twice and it was utterly rat turd both times. At least if you’re a couple you can afford a proper one bedroom flat rather than a bedsit or a room in a shared house, so there’s a lot to be said for the idea. And then, when I’d been at UHEC for five months odd, one of Gwen’s friends said she was going off to Paris to live with her boyfriend and did we want to rent her flat in Kensal Rise and we basically jumped on it. You know how it is. It’s not like the extra intimacy or proximity was uppermost in my mind, but it was a ****ing alright flat with a garden and not horrific furniture and the rent was on the bearable side of exorbitant.
I’m not one of these people who ever expected to be massively fulfilled in any way or not bored and that applies to my relationships. For that reason, the thing that bores me least at the moment is to think about why I chucked Gwen. That’s what I’m basically going to be doing most of the way through this, although I doubt most of it will look like that. I mean, like I say, there isn’t actually much to say about Gwen herself.
I don’t want to say much about myself. It’s dull. My name I’m comfortable with: Luke May for those of you who don’t yet know what a spoonerism is (see previous chapter, dimbos). Other than that, I don’t think there’s much to say. I’m fairly bored most of the time. Well, that’s me.
Up until recently, I had a girlfriend whose name was/is Gwen – also quite uninteresting. We were happy in some sense I think, boredom notwithstanding. One day, someone told me Gwen was shagging someone else.
At the time I thought I was going through some sort of ordeal. I spent some seemingly unbearable amount of days with little stars exploding around my face, feeling a toxic sting all through my shoulders and ears as if they were being washed internally with bleach. Now I have this one little thing, this ordeal, clutched in my hand hotly like a little blue sapphire. Not bored. Something to think about.
Gwen. Gwenny. Gwenivere. Gwendolynne. Gwendoline. Gwendolyn. After four years with the girl, I’m still not sure of the full version of her name. The last is the only version my computer doesn’t underline in jagged red, so I’ll suppose that must be correct. It’s all immaterial anyway as she will henceforward, in this document anyway, be known simply as Gwen.
What can I tell you about Gwendolyn then? Shall I start with the physical characteristics or the – whatever you call the others? I suppose if I start with the way she looked you’ll be getting to know her roughly the same way I did. She is a lightish brunette. She wears her hair not long and not short. Sort of just longer than a bob. When I met her, she had a dominatrix style ruler fringe at the front, which I found sexy. Cute, slightly chubby cheeks, a wide mouth, a straight nose and rather large eyes with thick eyebrows. Average height to short – about 5 foot 5, basically slim with a tendency to bulge out a bit round the middle. Is this helping? Do you think she sounds sexy? Do you fancy her? I feel much the same (I’m not sure).
I met her in a basement bar called Home in Shoreditch. My friend Colin chatted her up first, though he was already seeing Lize. Maybe she sensed his insincerity, because she started trying to avoid him and talk to me instead. I was fairly out of it. I remember Colin putting his arm around me and saying, ‘You can **** her. I’m sure you can **** her. Maybe, in fact, in the alley round the back right now.’ When she said she was leaving with her friends and I took her number and, as she was going, even though were standing in a crowd of her friends and mine, I leaned in and tried for a quickie grope/snog, but she pulled away and hurried off to the exit. It left me feeling slightly desolate, but then, just before she passed through the door she turned and laughed and blew me a kiss.
We settled into being boyfriend and girlfriend pretty quickly. I suppose from my end this was because I’d been in London for six months after Uni and, so far, hadn’t had much luck meeting women (i.e. I hadn’t met any at all). I can’t claim to know what she saw in me. She’s not the most chatty of people, Gwen, not the kind of girl to analyse things much, but she was very affectionate and physical. It seemed to work. We were both basically quite crap people. She had a glamorous seeming job as an assistant stylist, doing ads and fashion shoots, which mostly actually weren’t that glamorous – things like Nivea Cream or Hennes clothes.
By the time I started at UHEC we’d been together for nearly three years and Gwen had begun discussing moving in together. I wasn’t dogmatically opposed to the plan. If you’ve never lived in London you might not know about this, but renting here is a ****ing dog shag of a mother****. Prices are way out of control. It’s not like you can lower your sites and get somewhere cheap by deciding to, say, not live in Knightsbridge. Basically everywhere, from Brockley to Balham to Kennington to Kilburn to Finsbury Park to [I can’t think of anywhere else beginning with F], is primo expensivo and for what you pay out, what you get, in terms of space, hygiene, light, quiet, decor and breathable air may be very very little indeed. In the three years I’d been with Gwen, I’d already moved twice and it was utterly rat turd both times. At least if you’re a couple you can afford a proper one bedroom flat rather than a bedsit or a room in a shared house, so there’s a lot to be said for the idea. And then, when I’d been at UHEC for five months odd, one of Gwen’s friends said she was going off to Paris to live with her boyfriend and did we want to rent her flat in Kensal Rise and we basically jumped on it. You know how it is. It’s not like the extra intimacy or proximity was uppermost in my mind, but it was a ****ing alright flat with a garden and not horrific furniture and the rent was on the bearable side of exorbitant.
I’m not one of these people who ever expected to be massively fulfilled in any way or not bored and that applies to my relationships. For that reason, the thing that bores me least at the moment is to think about why I chucked Gwen. That’s what I’m basically going to be doing most of the way through this, although I doubt most of it will look like that. I mean, like I say, there isn’t actually much to say about Gwen herself.