May 4th (chapter 1 part 1)

David vaguely heard a car horn in the distance. It got louder and louder until he could recognise his neighbour, Veronica, threaten, ‘if you don’t hurry up, you can walk to school!’ It was then he felt the jackhammer drilling through his brain and a random arm draped across his chest. He covered his eyes with his right hand, his left being held captive by the complete stranger beside him, and tried to remember the night before. He brushed some dark brown, curly hair off of his face, and could recall his friends insisting on going out to celebrate the sale of his IT company. Then he could recollect them telling the barman to keep the drinks rolling, and that he was going to fork out for the bill, their logic being ‘spread the wealth bro!’. Because they knew he was a millionaire, they had no problem in asking him for him to pay for downpayments on houses, and for cars, but David was a smart man. He would give his friends, the real ones who have known him for years, whatever they asked for, but never on a whim. He did know however that he was sick of all the parties, and the disposable women. He wanted to settle down and the money was his nest egg for his future family!  

He knew he downed some shots of tequila, but the rest of the night was a blur! He hated getting so drunk that his mind blanked out what might have been a good night. He felt the fingers of the random arm twitch and prayed that he had used protection! The last thing he needed was a baby with a stranger! He rolled his eyes and sighed.

He wondered, ‘am I at least in my own bed?’. He made the courageous decision to lift his head. The room began to spin. He felt like a dirty T-shirt in a washing machine, but at least he could recognise his surroundings. The sensation of everything moving around him caused him to jump out of the bed and run into the ensuite. He barely made it to the toilet before the contents of his stomach were expelled. When he was finished, he laid down on the cold, smooth, marble tiles, knowing there was more to come.

Between bouts of vomiting, David tried to focus. He thanked God that he had made it home, not that he was a religious man in any way, shape, or form, but he could not picture the face of the woman in his bed for the life of him. When he got what he expected to be hundreds of euros worth of drink out of his system, he hauled his naked body from the tiles and tried to stand. He returned to the bedroom, his bedroom, holding onto the blue painted walls as he went.

With the navy, black out blinds still open from the day before, the sunlight beamed in through the windows and onto the bed. He was a bit steadier on his feet and wasn’t seeing double anymore, but even though he was naked, he still smelt like a brewery. Not knowing who was in his bed didn’t help!

There, in front of him, was the back of a body, whose long, brown, wavy hair was draped over her face. She was lying on her stomach, the duvet covering her ass and one of her legs. The other was jutting off the other side of the bed. He had no respect for women like that, women who had one-night stands. He prayed that he didn’t do, or say, anything that would have made her think anything different.

He put on his boxers that he found in the spray of clothes that trailed from the upstairs hallway, and nudged the bed with his foot. She groaned but didn’t move, so he nudged it harder. Because she still didn’t move, he made his way to the side of the bed she was asleep on and saw her make up all over his one thousand count, royal blue pillow case. Instead of nudging the bed, this time he gently patted her shoulder with an open palm. She stirred, moving her hand to swat away the hair from her face. David couldn’t believe how stupid he was to bring yet another woman who he didn’t know home!

As the woman smiled at him, she said, ‘morning handsome!’ David was mortified and took the initiative to gather her clothes. He threw them onto the quilt beside her. ‘You need to leave!’ he said with urgency in his voice. Her brow quickly furrowed! She looked from him to the clothes, and back to him again. ‘I thought we could go for round three!’ she answered. ‘No!’ David said sternly and pointed towards the door. He didn’t want to be a prick about it, but he didn’t even know her name and felt absolutely no attraction towards her whatsoever. They had obviously met when he had his tequila goggles on. She would never be the type of person David would go for in the real world. She was far too skinny, as David loved to have something to hold, and he would never go out with someone who slept with him mere hours after meeting him. He put this down to his best friend Eoin.

Eoin was a serial one-night stand type of guy. David couldn’t talk. This would make the number of strangers in his bed grow to three. He was a softy was David. He yearned for a wife, a confidant. He wanted someone he was excited to wake up to, not one he was eager to get out of his house the second he knew she was a slut!

His nightmare sighed, reluctantly putting on clothes he would see in the window of a sex shop, her ass barely covered! He escorted her to the front door and said, ‘by then!’. ‘Can I have a goodbye kiss?’ she asked smiling. David just closed the door, pulled the handle upwards and turned the key. He stood there, his back to the door and looked at his life in flash backs. That’s all he seemed to have as he had yet to meet ‘the one’! He knew she was out there; it was just a matter of finding her! David saw the state of the pillowcase in his mind’s eye and ran to the downstairs bathroom where he vomited again. After he flushed it down, his head pounding, he ran upstairs, two at a time, and stripped the bed, placing fresh sheets on it immediately. He picked up his clothes as he went and, after checking his pockets, threw everything into the washing machine, which was housed in a room adjacent to the downstairs toilet.

After a strong cup of instant coffee, the only coffee David had in the house as he had run out of pods for his Nespresso machine, David enjoyed a long, hot shower. He shampooed his hair twice and washed his body thoroughly, but still felt dirty afterwards. He searched for his phone to ring Eoin, to ask him why he woke up to yet another strange body. He found it on the hardwood floor against the oak bedside locker. He tried to dial Eoin’s number, but it was out of battery. ‘Typical!’ David sighed as he plugged it in. Like it had received the kiss of life, it came alive!

With 2% battery life that was growing quickly, he opened his contact list on his brand-new iPhone 4, and, low and behold, Eoin was at the top of the list of people he had called last. He touched the screen and the phone dialed Eoin’s number for him. The call went straight to voicemail. ‘You tainted the best day of my life you bastard!’ he yelled into the phones receiver and hung up. He had a feeling that Eoin would smile when he heard the message, but didn’t dwell on it too much. He was focused more on the fact that he still smelt of alcohol, so he took another shower.

After a week of dodging Eoin’s calls, leaving profanities fill up his voicemail, David thought Eoin had been punished enough, so they met for a beer in the local pub. David got there before Eoin by design, and asked the bartender to only serve them four drinks each and slipped him a €20. He saw the barman smile and nod at his request, placing the €20 in his trouser pocket.

David ordered the first drink and was lucky to find a booth in the line of sight of that particular barman. In fairness he was sort of hard to miss. Although he was in his uniform, he was the only one there with bleached blonde hair. When David first noticed Eoin, he saw his famous ‘strut’ approach him. When he sat down opposite David, it was obvious he was looking to get laid. Why else would there be so much product in his hair and be wearing one of his, ‘come hither’, shirts. He immediately drank one third of the pint that was waiting for him, letting out a satisfied noise before licking the foam from his cleanly shaven upper lip.

‘Hi!’ David opened. Eoin nodded in response. The pair of them had known each other since school. They shared Irish, English, and French classes. Even back then, Eoin was always smooth with the ladies. The pair constantly bickered over women, and the rest of their ‘gang’ knew it. It was usual for them to fall out with each other, making up eventually.

‘Did you like the girl I picked for you?’ Eoin asked with a cheeky grin. David rolled his eyes in response. ‘Hey,’ Eoin began, ‘without my help, how do expect to get laid?’ David looked at him through narrow eyes. ‘You’re always going on about this relationship crap! That’s bullshit! Mr Twinkie is there to be used, not just something to sit in your boxers!’ Eoin said, raising his right hand for David to hi five him. David was having none of it! ‘When I’m around you, I drink way too much! Do you know how disgusting it is to wake up with a stranger in your bed, her make up all over your sheets?’ David tried to get Eoin to see sense. Eoin, on the other hand, was trying to make David see that there was fun out there to be had! He will probably never settle down, and if he does, he’ll end up cheating on her before the honeymoon.

After David explained that he didn’t want Mr. Twinkie to be used by a slut again, Eoin nodded and their friendship resumed as if nothing had happened, like no argument was had! Things stayed that way for weeks, but only because when David went out with the ‘gang’ he refused to do shots, he was sticking to cider!

Every morning, David woke up and turned on his side towards the wife shaped hole in his bed. Yes, he was a millionaire, but very few people knew about that! He opted to keep it to himself, and his friends were sworn to secrecy. He didn’t want any bleeding-heart stories being delivered to his house every day. He knew all too well that people would start begging him for money had he broadcasted the information. It was bad enough that his closest friends knew! Eoin, being the leech that he was, was expecting David to share the wealth in the form of a car. He had ripped a page out of a magazine and said, ‘I want that one!’. ‘You can in your shite!’ was the answer he was given. David had to stick to his guns and put his foot down. He refused to squander away his hard-earned nest egg. He expected that the money would last him until he kicked the bucket, or not far off it. As it was, he was only living off the interest it was collecting. When he was asked how much he got, he played it down a little. People thought he had received four million, when in reality it was forty.