22 March - Tongue & Marrieds

My friend Issy had an incredible sex session at a central London hotel recently. She had to knock a drink or two down to get over the shock of seeing him at the bar in his casual clothing, but she knows the guy pretty well from years of infrequent get-togethers of ex students of a certain university. The flirting had obviously been there sort of all along over the years, but am not sure why passion now could no longer be restrained. I mean, he did tell her he has no sex with the wife but that’s old and cliched’ though no less true in many cases. A previous lunch had ended up with teenage-like shenanigans in Soho square and here the plan was hatched for the afternoon session. Mr Tongue (as he’s been code-named to me) did also overcome Issy’s long standing fear of lifts (hope he can work on the going underground one that also restricts her movements or rather, makes her take soooo long to cross town). Turns out that by the time they’d downed their second or third drink at the bar and he headed for the lifts and she realised their room was on the sixth floor, she just couldn’t make him take the stairs and finally ascended in the enclosed space. And … survived. I felt a twitch of jealousy ‘How come you never went in a lift with me’ sort of thing… (we used to work together for a few years on the 5th floor of a company) but I wonder if the promise of passion would cure another friend who can’t /won’t fly. Must suggest.
Issy didn’t give me too many details – am always keen to learn something new - but seemed very satisfied when she texted from the bus home. Seems my friends are getting my life and I’m getting… good stuff but not illicit, go for broke sex. Issy is my legend this week. More aptly Mr Tongue is also a legend as he’s over 50 like her other recent adventures and it seems that life bodes well if this landmark birthday doesn’t shrink their prowess.
Slowly but surely most of my g/friends have had the long or short liaison with the married man. ‘s probably ok now they are all 40 somethings, but am still smarting over being judged a bad person back in the days when I had mine. Ok so it lasted much longer than most and was most exquisitely painful, but I kept pointing out that it tends to be an unwelcome aberration in one’s own relationship history and not the norm. Just because I had a married man didn’t mean I wanted any other ‘marrieds’, and so please relax, your partners are safe. It’s not a predatorial thing, shit happens and I fell for that one. Extra hard. And he always was… extra hard that is. The hard that then takes ten years to get to a rapprochement of sorts. Which was short lived a couple of Summers back. It had to be, a hug and the scent of his skin was enough to feel the swoon coming on again. RIP status was finally achieved. Gosh, he’s 50 himself now and also a bad dresser. The moment I get wistful, another friend reminds me of a certain outfit very a' la Kevin from Dexy’s Midnight Runners he used to wear, you know, the bleached out dungarees with neckerchief and Converse (my all time ‘hate them’ shoes) and that quickly snaps me out of any reverie. But I wonder. No, he’s not Mr Tongue. I think Issy and that one bond over a mutual love of Californian rock. We were more NIN.