You've been texting me all day. A few hours ago, at your last break I told you I was at a nightclub near you. Now you've finished work the idea of joining me crosses your mind. You reckon last entry must be around 1am and that gives you just enough time to get home, showered and changed. Of course you don't tell me this when you text me, just that you've finished work and you're headed home.
It takes me a while to reply, by which time you're showered and changed and wondering if maybe I've hooked up with someone and gone home, or even just gotten bored and gone home. My reply when it comes is simple enough, "main room rubbish, cheese room rubbish, dancing away in the back room, air con broken but music's awesome."
You send a generic reply saying that you're glad I'm enjoying myself but that you have an early start and I send back almost immediately "sweet dreams my dirty lil fb." You smile thinking I clearly have no idea what you mean by early start, and set off for town.
By the time you arrive it's almost 1am and the doorman
make a big deal of checking your ID and making sure you're not drunk. It's frustrating but you bite your tongue, thinking of how you're going to surprise me.
Eventually they let you through and you climb the stairs.
The club is busy and you figure the room at the top of the stairs must be the main room. They're playing a strange mix of chart hits, oldies and random rock and you move to the window, scanning the room just checking that I'm not there. Most of the people seem to be men and you can't see me but you linger a bit longer just to make sure, kicking yourself for not asking what I was wearing when you had the chance. Your signal in the club is pretty poor.
Finally after about 15 minutes you decide I'm not here, you walk back to the stairs and through the doorway to what appears to be a quieter room, there's people sitting on the sofas and a doorway to the right leading to the toilets. You quickly establish I'm not there and decide to move on through the doorway at the end of the corridor.
As soon as you step into the room you realise this must be the cheese room. There seems to be several hen parties of various ages and at the far end a line of queuing people. You're unsure what they're queuing for until you realise that door leads outside and probably to the smoking area. You consider joining the queue to see if I'm outside but realise that will take away the element of surprise so instead you lean against the bar, ordering a coke when the barman approaches you, again scanning the room for me.
You see a girl in a blue dress who looks like me from the back, but once she turns you realise you were mistaken. Again you scan the room an the queue, the smoking area looks like its one in one out and you can't imagine I'd have taken 20 minutes for a cigarette, instead you start looking around for the other room I told you about.
You look around and can't see anything so you figure it must be leading off one of the other rooms. You go back to investigate but find only doors marked 'staff only' and so you return to the cheese room. This isn't going as you planned.
You look around again but can only see the door to the smoking area. You're ready to give up when you see a girl walk past the bar and through a little door marked 'exit'. She doesn't look like staff so you push your way around the bar and through the little doorway. The heat hits you as you cross the threshold and you know you're in the right place.
