Looking back on those heady post-millennium days, it was easy to see why we thought it would need ever end. We were 'masters of the universe' and we had it all. I had a job as a well-paid trader in the City and a trophy girlfriend. The working hours at the investment bank were brutal but we played hard, enjoying the fruits of our labours and of the vines until late into the night. We ate in the best restaurants, drank in the best bars and danced in the best clubs. We survived on adrenaline, vodka and champagne, as well as the odd line of 'whiz' or 'coke' just to get started in the mornings and to keep revving during the day. I shared a large loft apartment with my girlfriend, Lucy. She was gorgeous and I was constantly reminded that I was punching well above my weight. As the Executive Personal Assistant to the Senior Vice President of a rival investment bank, she was paid to look good. Her considerable natural assets were expensively enhanced by regular visits to the gym and various beauty salons. Her long blonde hair was always immaculately coloured and styled. Her body was waxed smooth and her make-up was subtle but carefully and expensively applied. Her nails were expertly manicured and polished. She dressed in designer clothes with matching shoes and handbags. She was, in short a high performance and high maintenance vehicle.
It had not always been the case. Lucy and I had grown up together in a small, nondescript suburb of Greater Manchester. She was a brown-haired tomboy in those days who liked nothing more than joining us lads making dens in the woods and climbing trees. After university, she reinvented herself and rapidly climbed the corporate ladder to her highly paid executive role.
As we both knew each other when we were younger, it seemed natural that we would both move in together when we embarked on similar careers in London. We became a couple almost by accident but I was never entirely convinced that our relationship was much more than platonic. We shared a bed but were generally both too tired, drunk or stoned to have regular sex. Occasionally, at weekends, I would try to stimulate her waxed pussy lips with my tongue before a quick missionary fuck that did little for either of us. She insisted on me using a condom to avoid getting anything disgusting inside her that might make her smell bad later and she was very particular that we did not do anything too energetic in case it messed up her hair or made her sweaty. At weekends, she did her usual circuit of the gym, hairdressers, nail bars, beauty treatments and clothes shops. I generally watched sport on television in the pub on Saturdays and indulged my childhood passion for mountaineering on Sundays, usually at an indoor climbing centre. That was about all the passion I would get but I knew that most of my mates would give anything to sleep for just one night with Lucy.
Then came the crash. I arrived home early one day with a plastic bin bag of possessions from my desk and a P45. I, along with hundreds of others had been made redundant. I rang Lucy but got her voicemail. It was almost midnight when she arrived home and I explained that I was now out of a job. She appeared sympathetic, assuring me that I would soon find another one, but I knew different. This time the financial merry-go-round had properly crashed and it would not be repaired for a long while. I told Lucy that I was thinking of doing something different. A friend mine was working at an outdoor pursuits centre in the Lake District and they were looking for a climbing instructor. I was going to take up the offer.
Lucy looked incredulous while slowly shaking her head and saying, "Well that sounds like goodbye then. See you around, maybe."
The last bit hurt but I replied tentatively, "You could always come with me."
"What?" Lucy screeched. "Leave civilisation to go and live in a field like something out of the Waltons? I don't think so. Goodbye loser."
So that was how we parted. I packed my belongings and left. I used some of my redundancy money to buy a second hand motor home and went to live in the village of Amblemere to start a new life teaching climbing and guiding walking tours.
It was a few months later that I heard that Lucy's bank had closed as part of the ongoing chaos in global financial markets. I phoned Lucy to commiserate and perhaps invite her up to stay with me for a while. However, she was unrepentant. She was sure she would get another job soon and informed me that she was off to 'Marbs' for some R&R in the meantime. I knew that this meant she was going to Marbella for a few weeks of unrestrained drinking, drugs and, in all probability, sex.
I am not sure why but I was consumed with jealousy and anger. Her offhand attitude offended me and I determined to get revenge. I used her airline app logon details, which she never changed, to find the flight that she was coming home on. I then rang the police anonymously and explained that I thought that a young blonde woman on that flight would be trying to smuggle drugs into the country. She and I had done it several times before. Lucy would conceal a two hundred and fifty gram bag of cocaine up her rectal passage on our way home. It was the only thing that was ever allowed up there apart from a colonic irrigation tube. We kept some back for personal use and sold the rest to friends. It was not a huge profit but it paid for the holiday.
Sure enough, three weeks later, Lucy Jones was strip searched in a private room at the airport and a small bag of cocaine was manually extracted from her cute arse. She sobbed and pleaded but two months later, despite entering a guilty plea, she was sentenced to two years in prison.
After serving a year in prison Lucy was released on remission having served half of her sentence. I sat in my old Land Rover, outside a woman's prison in the Home Counties and watched a group of women leave in a minibus to be driven to the local railway station. I recognised one of them straight away. She was thinner and her hair was now a mixture of straggly bleached blonde with four inches of grown out natural brown roots, but it was unmistakably Lucy. She wore a shapeless sports top and faded jeans with scuffed training shoes. Her face was devoid of make-up and looked slightly gaunt. She now looked more slutty trollop than trophy girlfriend but something still stirred in me. I guessed she would be heading into London so I drove west and waited for the call. Sure enough, three hours later, my phone rang.
"Dave?" an uncertain voice inquired. "It's Lucy. I'm at the apartment. The landlord won't let me in but he says that you have got my stuff."
"True enough," I said, trying to suppress any emotion in my voice. "When you were declared bankrupt and evicted, he rang me to pick up your personal things, There's not much left but I have got a suitcase of mainly clothes at my place. The bailiffs took the best things."
"Oh!" The quiet reply concealed an infinite well of sadness beneath. Eventually she continued hesitantly, "I won't be able to pick it up for a while. I am living in a bail hostel in London and I haven't got any money for train fares."
"Well as luck would have it, I am currently in London for a couple of days at an outdoor activities exhibition so I could meet you for a drink - if you want."
There was a long silence before Lucy said "Please, I would like that very much."
Lucy walked nervously into the bar in the City which had been one of our old haunts. She looked quite out of place among the shiny suits and glossy women, but so did I, dressed as I was in my best walking gear. We sat at a quiet table and I asked how she was.
"Oh you know. I'm OK I suppose. No job. No money. No home. No friends. But life goes on."
She smiled bravely but I could see her tremble slightly and her lips quivered. She played nervously with the frizzy split ends of her hair. I leant across and looked into her eyes. Something was different. Apart from the matted hair and lack of make-up, there was something else that I was struggling to identify. Then it struck me. It was the smell. It was not rank but it was unmistakably the smell of a woman. In all the time I had lived with Lucy she had always smelled of expensive scents. Now she was devoid of make-up and perfume. Her naturalness was intoxicating.
"I must look a right state," she said as she returned my gaze.
I patted her hand and said, "You'll be OK."