The Gay Delusion

17: The Gorilla Delusion

17: The Gorilla Delusion

Work that day – known forevermore as the day I molested Griffin - was hellish. Work the next day was hellish. The next two weeks were utterly bloody hellish.

All because I didn't exchange a single word with Griffin douchebag Davis, who was avoiding me like the plague. To be fair, we were both sort of avoiding each other, meaning that we had a great system of mutual avoidance going on. We seemed to have reverted to the method which I had used on my first day at work, all those months and adventures ago.

It stung a little (more like a lot), how a friendship that had grown to be quite strong – until the last couple of weeks, I would have considered calling Griffin if I was stranded somewhere and needed someone – had suddenly disappeared. It was as if it had never existed at all, and now we were simply two awkward co-workers who apparently couldn't stand to be in each other's vicinity.

It seemed as though the closest I would ever come to seeing or touching Griffin again would be if I accidentally (on purpose) groped him again. But even that was incredibly unlikely, considering the way he turned around and walked in the opposite direction every time he laid eyes on me.

One time in particular came to mind from the previous week, where I had been at the scanner in the office, copying in photographs of Milan as part of a report Kate was making me do on the convention there. Griffin had been making his way towards the photocopier, stopping in his tracks when he saw me standing beside it. Promptly turning on his heel, he walked away before I could say anything or tell him that I was literally two seconds away from finishing with it, and that he needn't walk all the way back to his desk.

There was so much I wanted to say to him – so much I wanted to do to him (depending on which light you looked at that in, it sounded pretty psychotic). But I couldn't.

'Bang him! Bang himmmm!' I yelled at the TV screen, shaking my spoon at it. I flopped further back into the pillows which Verity, Cassie, Freya and I had thrown onto the floor. All of us were wrapped in Verity's massive duvet, with our eyes glued to the screen as Hugh Dancy came into shot, standing in his office and looking like the biggest sex bomb as we all wished we were Isla Fisher.

We were having a movie night, binge-watching romcoms and gorging on junk food – currently, two movies in, Confessions of a Shopaholic was playing. That evening, Benji and Lewis had taken one look at the DVDs we had stacked on Verity's coffee table and decided that they would give our movie night a miss, dragging Verity's husband Matt out mini-golfing with them.

Reaching over and grabbing the spoon and the tub of Ben & Jerry's out of my hands, Verity spooned some into her mouth before she asked, 'Who would you rather bang - Hugh Dancy or Hugh Laurie?'

I gave Verity a look and pointed to my own torso, where Hugh Laurie's face was printed on my favourite t-shirt. I hadn't worn this in ages, the fact it was old and had been through the wash a thousand times resulting in the black being slightly faded, as well as the print of Hugh's face. 'No contest. Does it look like I want to bang anyone more than I'd bang Hugh Laurie? I don't think so.'

Freya and Cassie sniggered while Verity rolled her eyes.

'But he's a married man, you nutter!'

'That wouldn't stop me,' I said boldly, before cackling. 'All right, all right, I lie - I wouldn't go there unless he was single, I'm not that big of a bitch. Who would you lot rather shag?'

'Hugh Dancy any day,' the others all agreed immediately, while I looked aghast.

'I will never understand you guys,' I said, throwing a piece of popcorn up into the air, trying (and failing) to catch it in my mouth, with it simply hitting my nose and falling lamely onto my duvet-covered lap. 'Clearly your tastes in men aren't as refined as mine.'