Haley Hill - It's Got To Be Perfect - A laugh out loud comedy about finding your perfect match

Absent from the comforting canopy of candlelight, the crudeness of reality was unveiled. The guests clambered to their feet and wiped their lipstick-smudged faces as though desperate to reclaim some dignity. From a hidden alcove, I watched everyone leave. My eyes tracked Nick as he sauntered up the stairs, my stomach churning when I noticed a leggy brunette tottering after him. When he smiled at her, the smile that I’d secretly hoped he’d reserved for me, the electricity tripped and the room was plunged back into darkness.

By the time Steve had flipped the fuse, the bar had emptied out. I dropped back down on my seat. Only a few hours earlier, before the guests arrived, the atmosphere had seemed charged and full of anticipation, but now the flowers had wilted, with their stems slumped and petals curled. The candles had withered down to useless stumps, droplets of wax eating away at the polished veneer. Beside them stood smeared glasses containing fluids mixed and merged. Beneath the tables, trampled cherries bled into the carpet.

‘Imagine all the shagging that’s going on tonight, thanks to you!’ Kat said as we shared a taxi home.

‘There might be a little baby being made as we speak,’ Cordelia joked.

I huffed. ‘That’s not how it’s supposed to work. I was hoping for blossoming love not rampant sex.’

‘Don’t the two go hand in hand?’ Kat answered.

‘I’d settle for rampant sex,’ Cordelia chipped in.

‘Rampant rabbit for me tonight,’ Kat said before curling her bottom lip. ‘Not quite RAF pilot. But—’ she paused, retrieving a damp piece of paper from her cleavage ‘—I got their numbers!’

‘So, what about you , Ellie?’ Cordelia asked. ‘That guy you were chatting to—what happened there? He looked gutted when you walked off.’

‘Yes, he was cute but—’

‘He had a cute butt, I saw.’

‘Kat, stop it,’ Cordelia interrupted and looked back at me. ‘But what?’

‘But I don’t have time for a relationship at the moment. I’m concentrating on other things.’

‘That’s utter bollocks!’ Cordelia shouted, waving her arms around. ‘You haven’t had a relationship since …’ She paused, placing her hands back on her lap.

‘You can mention it, you know. I’m not going to break down into a gibbering wreck. Since I got dumped by my fiancé, you meant to say?’

‘No. Since your lucky escape from that twat. That’s what I meant to say. You know it wasn’t your fault.’

‘Look, I really don’t want to talk about it again. It’s in the past.’

‘You never want to talk about it. And it’s not in the past if it’s stopping you from meeting someone new.’

‘I’m fine. I just want to focus on—’

‘Whatever!’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Great strategy. You’ll never get hurt again if you never have a relationship again. Brilliant idea!’ She folded her arms and looked away from me.

‘Okay, that’s enough, ladies!’ Kat interrupted. ‘You can have one of my pilots if you like?’ She turned to me with a silly grin.

‘I’d make sure she washed the milkmaid outfit before borrowing that though,’ Cordelia said, unfolding her arms and offering me her olive branch smile.

I leant forward and put my arms around them both. ‘Stop worrying about me, you two. I’m fine.’

Initiating a drunken group hug was a bit of a challenge in the back of a fast-moving taxi, especially as the driver took a sharp corner onto my road at our most vulnerable moment. Kat went flying, bottom over boobs and onto the taxi floor, Cordelia managed to retain her composure for a few seconds and grabbed my arm to steady me, but as the driver slammed on the breaks outside my flat, it was too late. I knew I was going down and that she was coming with me. Flying out of our seats, I landed across Kat, my face cushioned by her inbuilt airbags, but Cordelia continued to slide around the taxi before finally settling between Kat’s legs, her mouth open against black satin knickers, hands gripping her lace-topped stockings. It was like a particularly creative scene from Girls Gone Wild.

The taxi driver did a double take in the rear-view mirror.

‘All right, ladies?’ he said, turning around and looking a little alarmed, but clearly refusing to acknowledge any responsibility in the matter.

‘Yes, we’re fine, thank you,’ Cordelia replied, her recovery marginally thwarted by the penguin ensemble.

When we were vertical again and safely out on the street, I leant in to pay the driver. He looked at me, his eyebrows knitted together, with an unsettling empathy in his eyes.

‘You’re a nice-looking girl,’ he said, peering down my top. ‘You’ll find a man, don’t worry.’

I rolled my eyes and Kat slammed the door.

‘There goes your tip,’ Cordelia said as she waddled after us.

Lying in bed that night, wedged uncomfortably between a fidgeting Cordelia and a snoring Kat, I realised how much the dating game had changed. Before I met Robert, I’d never had to look for a man. They’d always seemed in plentiful supply and ever eager for a date. However, from my observations that night, it seemed that now the men had all the power. And it appeared it was us women who had handed it to them. With a cherry on top.

I wondered if Matthew was right. Had men been socially conditioned by the recent wave of engineered sex bombs—sporting glued-on hair, mutilated boobs and creosoted legs—so that a normal girl didn’t stand a chance any more?

One who wasn’t prepared to strut around with her bottom in the air, proclaiming a love of anal and threesomes?

My temples throbbed at the injustice of it all. As I pulled the pillow over my head to drown out Kat’s snores, I remembered the brunette trotting after Nick, her ridiculously short skirt riding up over her bottom. I felt a rage burning inside. It was as though my blood had been on a low simmer but tonight the heat had been ramped up a notch.

HE SLAMMED HIS business card on the table ‘This is me. Google me. Now can we talk about what I’m looking for?’

‘Er, hang on,’ I interrupted, picking up his card. ‘Richard Stud. Consultant gynaecologist.’

I looked up to see him shifting uncomfortably in his seat.

‘Is that really your name?’ I asked, assuming he was having me on.

He let out an irritated sigh. ‘Yes. It is. It’s not like my parents gave me any choice in the matter.’

‘Okay. Sorry. It’s just—’

‘I know. A gynaecologist called Dick Stud. I’ve heard it all before. There’s also dermatologist called Mr Cream, so you can use that one for your dinner party anecdotes too if you like.’

‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to offend. Honestly, I thought it was a joke. Anyway, I’ve had to live with the name Eleanor Rigby, so I know where you’re coming from.’

‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘It’s a Beatles’ song.’

He shrugged his shoulders.

‘About a desperately lonely woman who died a spinster? Anyway, moving on from my issues, let’s talk about yours. Apart from bottom groping in wine bars, what do you like to do in your spare time?’

Two days prior, I’d received a call from a man with a familiar Irish accent. The man explained that he had been headhunted in a bar a few weeks back and wanted to book an appointment to see me. It was only when he arrived that I’d recognised him as the bottom-groper from the queue at Apt. I suppose I could have argued the accuracy of his use of the term ‘headhunted’, or his suitability as a client in general, but something stopped me. When I’d first met him, his jet-black hair and white teeth made him look like one of those cheesy Just for Men adverts. But this time—albeit through the haze of a cherry-plucker hangover—with his bright blue eyes and floppy hair, he reminded me, a bit, of Rob Lowe.