The lads had come round, we had plenty of cans in and then, lo and behold, the match was cancelled due to flooding!
For want of anything better to do we started browsing on e Bay. Dave was the first to spot a group of students advertising dates to raise money for rag week. Some of them were serious lookers and the jokes soon got lewd. The bids were getting serious as well. But what is four figures when you are pissed. Some of the guys started talking about bidding but a scrap threatened to break out when several guys wanted to bid for Annette.
For some daft reason the peace maker in me suggested giving them numbers, drawing lots and each making a bid for one girl. That's how I got number 7, lucky for some but not, apparently, for me.
She said her name was Claire. There was no photo probably because she admitted that she was a mature student, aged 42, with two kids and a few extra pounds. Unlike the others her profile was not salacious. Not surprisingly she had attracted no bids. She had no reserve price so, for a lark, I bid two quid.
None of us had realised that the auction had only one hour to go. But the only sucker who got caught with a winning bid was me.
Next day sure enough I had an e mail via e Bay asking me to contact her. I sent her a non committal reply that didn't offer any time or place. To my surprise I got a pleasant, chatty response within an hour with an invitation to chat on MSN. Feeling this was getting out of control I hesitated. But curiosity got the better of me.
If she was insulted by my valuation of her it didn't show. In fact she seemed genuinely interested in the prospect of a date. But she was also a realist about herself. "I don't suppose you want to splash out on an old fattie like me," she wrote and proposed that we go for a walk in Bradgate Park, a free local beauty spot.
I agreed and the following Sunday pulled up outside her home and hooted as instructed. I didn't really know what to expect because she didn't have a webcam and had been coy about giving more details of her appearance. She came to the door with a friend who noted my registration number. Clearly she was no fool taking heedless risks. Claire herself, for that was her real name, smiled and waved.
She had long, thick, tawny hair, chubby cheeks and a rosy complexion. She hadn't tried to disguise it with blusher and looked natural and homely. Her blue eyes stood out beneath high arched eyebrows divided by quite a prominent nose. She wasn't a conventional beauty but she had her own charm especially when her full lipped mouth broke into a smile.
Aside from her hair her most striking features were her breasts. They were huge and pendulous, braed but not enough to stop them swinging under her tight short sleeved pink sweater. Lower down she was in jeans which made an only partly successful attempt to disguise flab at her waist and, buttocks. She had meant what she said and completed her outfit with walking boots and a rucksack, both well broken in.
I sensed her mentally assessing me as I had done her. Friendly and relaxed on the journey she seemed to like what she found. She knew Bradgate Park well and directed me to a nice spot for a picnic. There I realised that she had gone to a lot of trouble. The food was delicious. Not in the least self conscious about her weight she indulged in sandwiches, cakes and biscuits as well as fruit.
That didn't mean that she neglected herself; far from it. I noticed little things like the fresh apple scent of her shampoo and her beautifully manicured pink nails. She wanted to impress. But she wasn't taking any chances. She had chosen a well known beauty spot which was busy on a fine spring day so there was no chance for anything personal to develop. In any case she seemed happy for us to get to know each other slowly. It helped of course that she was intelligent and easy to talk to. I learned that she was studying for a BTEC management certificate; aiming for a second chance in life after a bad marriage and messy divorce. But her love was nature and she knew a lot about the plants, trees and birds in the park.
Normally I am more interested in things mechanical, but she had a way of explaining that brought topics to life. She offered to show me some of what we had talked about and we set out to walk into a less frequented, wooded region of the park. She was used to walking but I wasn't, the sun was high in the sky and I was soon seriously hot in my sweatshirt. When we sat on a tree stump for a break and a drink I took my shirt off. She wondered aloud, "Why can't women do that?" and laughed.