~ Ash ~

This summer I met Ash. [Boing! She is going right into it. Suppose, that’s one way of telling the story. Knows nothing about story arcs.] Boy. Cheeky. Challenging. Chubby. The chap of the three Cs, CHs even. [She is really going for this! Straight in. Baited!] We met on holiday. Nope, not like that! Hold your romantic pictures! It was not on a sunny beach. It was nothing like love at first sight nor hot sex at first sight. What I met is another person. He made me feel warm, welcome and a bit fuzzy round the edges, boundaries dissolving. In short, he makes me feel like a person.

My last relationship had ended five years ago and I have not been interested in relationships then [see, we told you, you’ll get a condensed version!]. I have had no real cravings for another relationship, apart from one time. But he turned out to be gay. All that remained was that I laughed at myself for days! Seriously, it amused me that I had not reckoned with that possibility. “And here is my partner Lewis”, he said introducingly. And my head went implode. Overall though, I was probably quite happy with Lewis and all because it also took away the possibility of a relationship. I was not ready. I am not ready now. I am not physical relationship material. That’s the story I currently tell myself (and everyone who asks).

But back to Ash. Chubby, cheeky, challenging Ash. At the time we met he was chubby, charming, chatty Ash. For a long time I had not spoken to someone in a manner so open and so refreshingly easy as with Ash. We flowed. We plodded along together in our disintegrating hiking boots – his in a more dire state of repair than mine, with one sole completely missing. And we flowed. We slid, glided, floated. We had one day of walking together. That was it. Yet he had charmed me deeply! There is nothing more sexy than openness. Call me perverse, but that’s my thing. I cannot stand people who have no knowledge about themselves. I already told you. I might have expressed it differently earlier on, but that’s my bottom line. Know yourself. Or better and more truer to the cause: seek to know yourself.

Why are you looking at me now? Are you accusing me of arrogance? [Oh dear! She is addressing the reader in anger, goodness help us. Questions like this one always contain the thought that has already been thought by the speaker: at one moment or another, she herself accused herself of samesuch arrogance. Perhaps we should tell you more about Angela. Yes. This is a good point. But before we interrupt her flow, let us remember and pay some dues: it was she who got us to this point in the first instance. Her anger creates new openings, cleaving like a sharp knife. *CUE > Switch chapter*]