He wanted me … it was obvious the second he appeared on the steps. His eyes were on my body, left right centre, and then he looked straight at me, like never before. I always knew he fancied me a bit, wouldn't mind, and he was cute too, but he never came out with it, always looking the other way, maybe because he always had that miserable Anna with him. And there she was that day as well, popping up behind him and looking around, not too happy to see me but making a show of it, well who could blame her really. But for the first time he really looked at me, those serious grey eyes on me, and suddenly I was liquid.
He wouldn't have done anything, though, and that would have been it, but now I wanted to see what he was like, I wanted him to, you know, crystallise my desire. I wasn't going to wait until he screwed up the courage to screw me. They looked so boringly comfy over dinner, like an old sofa set, that when she started to go on about all the happening shit in her life, oh I made a couscous the other day and I'm learning Arabic and Ben and I are going to Lebanon this year blahfuckingblah, I thought why shouldn't I have a new hobby of my own? Soon as dinner was done Simon and Tina dashed off to meet some mates up in the city and though I'd been thinking of tagging along, once Anna and Raj said they'd do the dishes I knew it had to be right then and there or never. I knew they would start nattering about something like yoga or aromatherapy, and that it would piss her off if I asked Ben if he wanted a joint, so much that she would pretend she was having a jasmine tea or something and wouldn't come down to the garden for as long as it took for a fuck in the dark.
It wasn't much of one, he was so nervous for the couple of minutes it took him, but that was cool, we could've done it again soon enough if the idiot hadn't gone and made his confessions to her. Of course she left him! He came to me quivering, still not sure what'd hit him. Hoping I would take her place. He was a good guy, sure, but way too serious for me. I wasn't gonna be his next project, his or anyone else's, he was Anna's project. To be honest, I'd never be able to trust him, not after!
But I couldn't tell him all of this, could I? We had to go through the whole bullshit, playing our roles instead of all of us making a clean break and doing whatever we wanted. He cried, she cried, shit, even I cried in the end. Probably because we were still in the same damn place and knew the same damn people and that wasn't gonna change overnight and it was all double depressing once summer was over. I could've told him Anna would leave him, just to save him the time. But I was pretty surprised when she shacked up with Raj. Raj! Maybe it wasn't that surprising really. I felt sorry for Ben, really I did, but that was about it, what could I do? It was just what it was. It was just a fuck in the dark.