Jack looked down at the little box that he cradled in his hands and then back up at the pint glass, half full with Guinness, that sat on the table in front of him. Had it really come to this? His eyes flicked back and forth between the box and his pint. He was sitting in the same pub that he had been drinking in since he was about fourteen. He had got off his commuter train from London Bridge about an hour ago and was on his second beer. His best friend Shaun had left only few minutes earlier.
Shaun had been the provider of the small box in his hand. Shaun was the man that could get you anything from a Korean hooker to the latest CD from Adele. Every pub in London had a man like Shaun. Jack had known him his entire life. They had been born and bred a few houses apart, and just around the corner from the pub in Clapham where he now sat.
Jack took a deep drink from the pint in front of him and smiled as he saw the white foam rings on the glass. It was a good pint and those white rings were the proof. He looked back at the box that he had asked Shaun to get for him. He could tell Shaun anything and he knew that it wouldn't go any further. They had a bond built over the last forty five years since they had first met aged five.
Jack began to smile to himself even though he was not in the best of moods as he remembered about Shaun and the box.
Jack had entered the pub to meet Shaun an hour ago. As usual his friend was propping up the bar and chatting with Sheila the barmaid. Once he saw Jack he laughed loudly and hugged his friend and ordered Jack his usual Guinness. Once Sheila had placed the full glass in front of Jack, Shaun delved in his pocket and produced the small box and placed it on the bar in front of Jack with a, "There you go Mate. As promised. Pukka fucking Viagra from the USA. You know the Yanks, they have to have everything bigger so this will definitely sort your fucking problems!"
Jack had turned a deep shade of crimson and snatched the box off the bar before Sheila or anybody else saw it. "What the fuck Shaun!" he scolded his friend.
They had moved to the table where he now sat alone. Jack had handed Shaun the agreed sixty quid and they had sat and talked about anything apart from the box and its contents. They had mainly discussed the football and how shit Millwall were this year. Then Shaun had told him he was off to the West End to meet some bird. Shaun had drunk up and gone out through the side door into the rainy London night and left Jack alone with his thoughts.
Jack sat there and nursed his beer and in his head he went through the reasons he was sitting here and holding the small box that he had just given Shaun three twenty pound notes for.
Jack was fifty years old. He was a branch Manager of a bank very close to London Bridge station. He had worked for the bank for all his adult life. He had left school at seventeen and he had joined the bank two months later. Considering that he had been working in an office all that time he was still in quite good shape apart from a few pounds around the middle. He played squash at least once a week, but the Guinness took its toll on his waistline. He was six feet tall and still had a fine head of jet black hair. No hair dye, it was just genetics. His eyes were a hazel brown and he wasn`t a bad looking man he had been told by a few people.
He had married Julie when they were both twenty nine. They had had no kids and had a reasonably good life with the annual holiday in Crete and meals out with friends and all the other things that married couples do. However, their sex life was shit. Julie just didn´t seem that interested and she would have to have had a few large vodka and tonics before she would let him anywhere near her. If she did let him shag her there was no oral, no anal and just straight forward missionary. Jack was sexually frustrated to the point of having a subscription to the Blue Movie channel and tuning in every night when Julie went to bed and wanking like an adolescent.
Julie did surprise him once though. She walked out about ten years ago and went to live with a woman in Hampstead that she had met through some lesbian chat room. Well that explained that, was his only thought, and if he was really honest he didn´t give that many thoughts to Julie except he was happy that she was fucking gone.
As a forty year old single man in London he had more than a few hook ups with the local bar flys who would shag you for a couple of port and lemons and a Chicken Tikka Masala. This scratched his itch for a couple of years and he was relatively happy with his life.
Then he had met Jill at a banking seminar. She worked for another bank in Victoria and also lived in South London. She was one year younger than him and also recently divorced. Her marriage was also a sexless one he had discovered later. They hit it off from the first minute.
She was a natural blonde and her long hair hung down to the middle of her back when it wasn`t pinned up at work. She had a great figure and Jack later found out she went to the gym two or three times a week after work. She was shorter than Jack at five foot nine inches, but had legs that seemed to go on forever and they finished at the most glorious bum he had ever seen. It was hard and shaped like a heart when seen from behind. Her breasts were a handful at most, but like her bum they were hard and not sagging. Her face was plain but dominated by the most beautiful blue eyes the colour of a glacier. In all she looked like a Viking princess, Jack thought.
Over coffee on the last day of the seminar they had agreed to meet up the following week for a beer and a curry. Jack was happy. Probably happier than he had ever been before. The anticipation of the expected date gave him a feeling that he hadn't experienced since his first date with Ann Swanson when he had been fourteen years old. Then it all came crashing down to earth a day before they were supposed to meet. Jill`s Mum was sick and she had to go and take care of her in Leeds. Maybe next Friday, was put in both of their calendars.
The big day arrived, and Jack had received no cancellation and he felt his anticipation grow. He went out in London in his lunch break and bought a brand new outfit of shirt, jacket and trousers. He even splashed out on a new pair of bright red silk boxers. You just never knew what might, and in his fantasies, would happen that night. He even tided up his two bedroom flat and changed the bed sheets just in case it all went as he planned.
They had arranged to meet at a curry house in Croydon. Neutral ground in the middle from her home in Caterham and his in Clapham. Jack was there at seven for their seven thirty meeting. He was already on his second Cobra beer when Jill pushed through the door at seven twenty and entered with droplets of rain following her through the door.
Jack stood to greet her and was left open-mouthed as he took in her beauty. Her long blonde hair was worn loose and splayed out over her shoulders and half way down her back. After he took her wet jacket and handed it to the waiter he saw that she was dressed in a figure hugging pale green sheath dress that accentuated every curve in her toned body and finished at least four inches above the knee. Her nylon clad legs led down to her shoes that were in a matching green with two inch heels. Her makeup was subtle but still brought out the best features of her luscious full lips and sparkling blue eyes.
After stammering a welcome that left no one in the restaurant in any doubt about how nervous he was, they were seated at a table for two in a secluded corner. Jill seemed equally nervous and the first five minutes were painful to say the least. Eventually Jill was provided with a beer and Jack with his third. This helped Jack to relax noticeably and Jill also took a long draft of the beer to calm her own nerves.
After the usual platitudes and talk about the crap weather they began to talk. Plates of poppadum's and pickles came and went. Main courses and rice arrived and were demolished. The Cobra`s came at regular intervals and they just talked. When everything was eaten and drunk they were still talking, about family, work, movies, holidays, travel and every other subject under the sun. Jack was mesmerized by this woman, and when she reached out and held his hand gently across the table he sensed and hoped that maybe the feeling was mutual.
Jack got the bill and glancing at his watch he saw it was nearly twelve. They had talked for nearly five hours and were totally comfortable in each other's company as if they had known each other for years. Jack didn't want this evening to ever finish. He was going to suggest another drink in a pub, but Croydon is not one of the safest places to spend a Friday evening and he didn't want to end the evening getting knifed or mugged. He took a deep breath and asked, "What shall we do now?"
"Don`t know about you, but I have had enough beer and really should be going home!" Jill`s response crushed him.
