1.
E, my slightly younger banker friend, found herself in a bit of a bind.
Her boyfriend, in mergers and of longish standing, had been for a while no longer upstanding. Blame the markets if your will, but that did not change the facts. She had noticed a decided droop in standards. And stocks just kept on falling.
The story went as these stories go: after a period of his performance being less than outstanding, she found herself legless at a conference…. and since non-standing unable to withstand the lines of a standard-operator.
I don’t blame her. He was in acquisitions. And I’m sure her plan was to stand firm. But in certain situations, not even the best laid plans can stop a girl from getting laid.
In short, she went belly-up, and now, she told me over sashimi, she had a burning sensation down below. And she was quite positive it was not all guilt.
2.
My plan was to limit my involvement in this shit-storm to nodding sympathetically between bites of California Roll. But when I learned that she, as becomes one fed on milk-and-bullshit, wanted to rush home and unburden herself immediately, I had to put my foot down.
I told her that despite the obvious joys of explaining to her boyfriend how a one-night-stand had got her a sparkling new STD - quite as sparkling, actually, as the watch he got her for X-mas… she might want to postpone this happiness until she’d had some tests done.
And she told me, in turn, that while she saw my point, she also saw this whole thing as my fault, and it was my duty to come with her to the Clinic. Which I did, against the promise that I could write the whole thing up.
(Unfair though. Technically I suppose I was the one telling her to pack that dress, but really, you can lead a whore to water, but you can’t make it take of its pantyhose, and if she’s old enough to earn twice my salary then she’s old enough not to need instructions on condoms… etc etc)
3.
Let me tell you this: the Clinic is where honour, dignity, and the will to ever have sex again go to die.
If I ever get a kid, I will drag it there while pre-pubescent, to stare at the ugly taupe walls, at the horribly explicit instructions taped to the lavatory walls (insert Swab and stir), and to listen to the rather à propos choice of music: Slippery When Wet, with Bon Jovie.
I waited while E filled out her form (almost as intrusive as the Swab) and while she hung out with some sharpish metal objects in the other room, I people-watched. Never have I seen people less keen to be watched.
All cross-legged, for some reason, all wearing rather sweat-stained business suits, and no one willing to go near the water fountain, they were all intently perusing back issues of Home and Garden (and probably crying, on the inside, for the Homes and Gardens they’d ruined with their wanton ways).
After a while, E reappeared, looking rather shaky under her paper-bag head-gear. We headed for the exit and a strong cocktail, and I realised that E was not quite on the mend yet when she did not laugh at my quip: that that was as close as she was getting to a cock, ever again.
4.
As if to punish me for this cheap crack, a week of intense telephoning ensued.
Every morning, E called the clinic to see if her results had come back. And every lunch, she called me to complain that she’d not got her results yet. And at night, she called to worry about how her boyfriend had not, as yet, made it necessary for her to claim a head-ache. And asking whether I thought he suspected. And asking whether she shouldn’t just come clean.
To which my constant answer was: there is no point in coming clean until the shit has actually hit the fan. Mightn’t it just be a case of yeast?
5.
And then, it all came to a head, when she came home one evening, to a big red bunch of roses. And on the sofa, a boyfriend looking stupendously sheepish. And trying to explain how he really hadn’t meant for any of this to happen. But the stocks had been down. And he’d been feeling sort of low. And he’d sort of discovered how low he could go. And the notice from the Clinic had come that day.
Please, for the love of god, would she ever forgive him.
5.
A week later, when she was finished with her penicillin, we met for a drink. Her treat. We toasted her sparkling new engagement ring, and what she described as last nights glorious new issue of shares.
