It was Thursday evening and I was having a few after work beers with some mates. It wasn't a big session, we all had work the next day and homes to go to. I lived with my Mum and sister, it was a source of shame to me that I still did, I was in my mid-twenties and hadn't gone to university, and to be living at home still, eight years after leaving school was really embarrassing. It wasn't just the cost of finding somewhere and living alone, it was more the living alone bit. I just couldn't seem to find anyone to live with.
I was talking about a woman of course, I didn't want to share a flat with some hairy arsed bloke, I wanted to settle down with a someone I could love. The problem was I was terribly shy, I found it very difficult to get on with members of the opposite sex, finding myself tongue-tied and lacking in amazing wit and sparkling repartee. All my mates were 'shacked up' to various extents, some even married, some with live-in partners and some with steady girlfriends, but I remained steadfastly single.
I got on well with women, in a general social setting I was fine, I wasn't unintelligent or bad looking, I didn't have bad breath or spots, but as soon as I was on my own with them I became terminally boring. Or so it seemed. Some broke up with me, "It's not you it's me", but I knew it wasn't. Some I gave up on before they gave up on me and I was starting to feel a real failure. Mum and my sister Pauline were great, they knew about it, but never got on my back about it, Pauline had even taken me out on double dates and with her group of friends, but it was no different and I'd stopped accepting her offers for fear of further embarrassing her.
As for sex, well I wasn't a virgin, I'd had a couple of sexual encounters, neither of them memorable for either of us and it was mostly my right hand that kept me sane and I have to say, busy. Masturbation most nights and pretty much every morning was the order of the day. Fortunately, living with two women, albeit family, gave me plenty of fodder as neither was particularly careful about closing doors. I considered myself to be on more than nodding terms with my mother's breasts, and a casual acquaintance of her bush. As for my two year younger sister, I'd encountered her a couple of times naked in the bathroom, she hadn't seemed to be overly bothered and to be fair she'd caught me wanking a few times, so it pretty much evened out.
I did sometimes wonder if they deliberately let me see them naked as a sympathy vote, but I preferred not to go down that route. In exchange I didn't go out of my way to spy on them, our encounters were frequent enough not to have to sink so low. Yet.
I looked around the pub, aside from our small group of blokes, it wasn't busy, most were couples, there was a single man a bit older than me sitting at a table by the window, which looked a bit strange, and I wondered what his story was and whether that would be me in a few years.
"Billy?" came woman's voice from behind me." I turned to see a young woman about my age standing looking inquiringly at me. Long experience of looking allowed me to appraise her in a single glance. She was dark haired, cut in an attractive bob, a shapely figure, definitively curvy with full breasts and a nice bum. But it was her face that drew my attention.
It was distinctly pleasant with a broad smile that reached her eyes and moreover she was looking at me as though she knew me. I peered back, running through the not exactly huge catalogue of female friends, then going further back. "Ashley?"
"Of course it's me silly, I haven't changed that much have I?" Well she'd never seemed drop dead gorgeous before, although to be fair my main memories of her ended at age 11. We'd been in the same class at Primary School, we'd shared a desk for a lot of that time, our surnames starting with the same letter, and to be fair we'd been almost inseparable until puberty. It wasn't only that change that separated us though, quite simply she went to an all-girls school and I went to an all-boys school in another town. Of course we still bumped into each other, but my growing shyness and her apparent attractiveness to every boy who laid eyes on her drove a wedge between us. Then she'd gone to university and I didn't, and apart from an occasional glimpse across a pub bar our paths had not crossed again. After university I never saw her again, until that moment.
So I was most surprised when she threw her arms round my neck and hugged me tight, proclaiming how wonderful it was to see me again, and telling me how good I looked. All my mates were looking on and I started to feel too much in the spotlight and the hard shell that protected me began to form round me and I felt my throat drying up and words would not come.
Before I could totally embarrass myself however a man came up to us, "Sorry, Ash, but we haven't got a lot of time, we need to be going or we'll be late." It was the guy who'd been sitting by the window and whom I'd mistakenly thought was on his own. He clearly wasn't, he was with Ashley.
"OK Martin, I'll be there." she replied shortly, shrugging off his hand. "Look, I haven't seen you for years and years and it would be great to catch up." I managed to stammer that I'd like that as well as she continued, "How about we meet up tomorrow then, say half seven here?"
Finally my voice returned, "That would be great Ashley, although I've not got a lot to tell you about me."
"I'm sure that's not true Billy. Until tomorrow then." She leaned in and gave me a peck on the cheek and turned away to follow her friend Martin who was waiting impatiently.
As soon as the door was shut behind them there was chorus of questions.
"Who was that then?"
"I didn't know you knew Ashley Simmonds."
And one rather different, "Well I'd fuck her."
I explained we weren't really friends but had been at Primary School together and hadn't seen her for years. Secretly I was glowing, it seemed that my status in the group had risen by a couple of notches and I had a date for the next day. Well not exactly a date, but at least I wouldn't be sitting at home wanking to ingrained images of my mother and sister.
The next day I was like a cat on a hot tin roof, I couldn't settle and wished I'd not agreed to see her, and thought numerous times about cancelling, but I'd not got her phone number, didn't know where she lived and leaving a note at the pub was definitely not on. So I was committed to going. Perhaps I'd enjoy it, I kept telling myself, knowing full well that I wouldn't.
My sister asked me why I was going out two nights on the trot and I told her that I was going to meet an old friend. "Who is he?"
"It's a she actually, Ashley Simmonds from Primary School."
"I remember her from Secondary School, didn't she get married and have a baby or something?" My heart dropped and now I really didn't want to go, but I was committed so I was in the pub a quarter of an hour early, nervously sipping at a pint, and looking up every time the door opened. I'd nearly finished it when she was there, standing in front of the table.
