With autumn setting in, I decided the time was right to get a rotation going. One-night stands are a lot of fun, but being a teacher at heart, I missed watching the gradual improvement of a repeat lover. First, I made a mental list of the different lovers I wanted. This list, much like my shopping list, is based partly on what I need and partly on what is available at the local supermarket. Steak pie, for example, is not on the list, and Mr. Ticks All The Boxes isn’t either.
Rotation Number One was young, nice and hot, and was first on the list mainly by virtue of being there. He was handsome, had a body like chiseled granite and a sweet vacant mind. By the second date we had already covered the same topics at least twice, and fucked about nine times. The boy gave new meaning to the term ‘wood’.
Cultured, funny and boozy was Rotation Number Two. I wanted someone to attend art gallery openings, discuss books and philosophy, and go on drunken rampages with me. He was an artist with a gift for being extremely and inappropriately funny during sex. Laughing and sex are possibly my two favourite things in life.
Slightly older and with a real job was Rotation Number Three. Through this man I hoped to discover the world of adult entertainment. Not adult entertainment as in strippers and peep shows, but as in people who went out to dinner, trained for marathons on the weekend and had Sunday lunch with the family. He was a doctor, which completely excused the fact that he tucked his shirt into his jeans and wore white Y-fronts. Lives hung in this man’s hands, and they were sexy hands.
Fitting a three-lover rotation around friends, birthdays, festivals and laundry takes a special kind of grit, but I was doing it. The days were warm and the nights were sweaty. A girl couldn’t complain. But then, like the happy picnic in the woods at the start of any good horror movie, it all started to unravel and the body count rose dramatically.
[quote align=»left»]But then, like the happy picnic in the woods at the start of any good horror movie, it all started to unravel and the body count rose dramaticallyIt began with a quiet night at Rotation Number Two’s flat. We talked about work, he cooked pasta, and we watched a movie, falling asleep without having sex. It was inexcusably domestic for the man who was, albeit unknowingly, in charge of Rampaging and Culture.
The next night was dinner at a rooftop restaurant with Number Three. He chose the place and the wine. There were dishes I barely recognized and drinks I’d never heard of. Red wine was aerated in swirling goblets. Lips puckered with a darting pink tongue smacking over the taste thoughtfully followed by a final nod to the waiter to fill the glasses. This was nice, I guessed. Nice restaurant. Nice food. Nice guy. The bill arrived. He checked it: “One hundred and forty euros, so that’s seventy each.” An awkward five minutes while I choked noisily on the fruit I had been eating and he had to thump me on the back. Finally, with tears not solely accredited to the fruit streaming down my face I was able to whisper “I’d like to pay my part by card please.”
Later that night, at around 02:40 a.m., my phone rang. It was Rotation Number One. I wasn’t in the mood so I cut the call. He called back. I cut it again. He called back. I answered the phone.
— Polly!!!!! Polly!! Hey….. H….How are you? How are you Polly?
I was polite, — Look don’t call me tonight.
— Polly!!!! Polly are you going to sleep?
— I’m already asleep.
— Oh…are…are you angry with me?
— Look, find someone else to party with tonight.
I hung up. At 02:55 my phone rang again. It also rang at 3:13, 3:17, 3:34, 3:41, 3:59, 4:10, and 4:22. He appears to have lost consciousness shortly after the final call at 4:55. Hot, but fatally ignorant of the international code of booty calls and drunk dialing conduct.
At the end of the weekend of horror, I emerged from the woods alone and logged back into Tinder to update my profile. Polly: Have a free space available on my rotation, perhaps you’ve got one available on yours?
