Paper Aeroplanes & Other Stories

Lone Star Date

Part One:

I'd been single for the last year and a half without so much as a sniff of male interest unless you count the drunken snogs and wandering hands on 'two for one Thursdays' in Enigma.

It wasn't even as if I was looking for 'the one.' I'd settle for someone who'd take me out and not expect me to pick up the bill or offer me more than a wilted bunch of carnations two days after my birthday.

So, given my history, I suppose that when my sister Stephanie announced that she'd set me up on a blind date with one of Matt's friends, I should've jumped at the chance. And I probably would have, had she given me more than two hours notice.

"Well, how do you know I don't already have plans?" I asked her.

"Because you never have plans," she answered with a smug look on her face. "Now hold still will you," she said as she pulled the wax strip off my leg; that soon wiped the smug smile off her face, but it's not as if I had anyone worth waxing my legs for.

Okay, so it was true; I hardly ever made plans, but I didn't need her to rub it in.

We spent the next hour with Stephanie contouring me to within an inch of my life and making me try on outfit after outfit until she was happy. Looking at my reflection in the mirror, I had to admit that she hadn't done a bad job even if the dress she'd picked didn't quite fit right in some places - she wasn't called Big Tits for nothing.

"Date's here," Stephanie shouted up the stairs.

Shit! I so wasn't ready for this. Two hours wasn't long enough to get ready, but I was sure that even if Steph had given me a month to prepare for this blind date, it still wouldn't be long enough. I'd been out of the dating game too long.

Seeing the flash car he'd arrived in though I was kind of excited to see where we'd be going on this date, I imagined it would be to some fancy restaurant somewhere out of town. But any ideas I had of him being a gentleman soon went out of the window; he didn't even open the car door for me. I mean I know I'm not exactly a lady, but still he wasn't making much of a first impression.

"Hey," he said when I climbed into his car. "I would've got the door for you, but you know it's raining, and I've had my hair done today.

I didn't know what I could say to that.

"The name's Dallas by the way," he said, introducing himself to my chest.

"Elsie," I said as I tugged at the top of my dress, desperately trying to cover myself.

"Elsie? What kind of name is that?" he scoffed as if he had any right to laugh at my name, at least I wasn't named after some crappy, eighties tv programme.

So things hadn't got off to the best of starts, and to be honest, I did think about climbing out of the car and running back into the house to Steph and Matt, who were peeking from behind the curtains. But there was part of me that wasn't willing to write off the whole date just yet; I was desperate after all.

"I thought that maybe we'd go and get some food, see where the night takes us," he smiled, and I won't lie, yeah, he was hot.

Any illusions of a fancy restaurant were soon dashed, because as he navigated the streets of the housing estate on the outskirts of town, I knew that I was overdressed for wherever he was taking me. By the time he pulled into the car park of The Hobby Horse - apparently it was a family pub, I couldn't wait to get out of the car and away from him, every time he changed gear his hand would somehow "accidentally" brush against the exposed skin of my thigh.