Thing is, Ava, sometimes an unkind man can be a laugh.
Sometimes it’s fucking hot, you know?
The surveyor had a Masters in City Planning. Was
obsessed with order, cleanliness – clean lines – he loved
concrete. Like, loved it.
Miracle sauce, he called it.
It never fully cures, he told me once while I was on all
fours, it just keeps hardening forever,
keeps getting stronger forever
harder forever
stronger and harder
harder
and harder
harder –
oh, but Ava I fear I’ve made that
gastropub sound grim.
I did have fun there,
loads of fun before the –
this one night – I’d been working there about a
month – we had a lock-in that was pretty jolly,
lines of coke,
quite Christmassy,
and all the cuter guys were being cute. Old curly-
boy was telling me he thought I was the type of girl you
could play golf with –
isn’t that sweet?
I thought,
they’ve really got it made, these boys.
They’ve built a kingdom for themselves,
were giddy with it.
I’d probably be the same.
The chef made extra pizzas, brought them out, the
manager let us choose our drinks from the top shelf.
And there was no talk of escorts,
no Ketamine Chris.
Someone put some music on, and one lad, the KP –
a Star Wars fan – had a stormtrooper mask in his bag,
they found it, teased him, got it out and
passed it round.
Everyone had to do a funny little dance.
