The name you can't remember

He had ginger hair, fair skin, freckles and he was from New Zealand but was a Lawyer practicing in London. He as 8 years my senior, but kind of a geek and emotionally immature so I guess that explained why he was lavishing attention on someone so much younger than himself. He was 26 and I was 18. I can't remember his name.

We met when I was working in a retail store on Pier B of Sydney International airport, the year was 2001 and I had just finished high school.

It was a boutique, so frequented by arrogant bastards who only said things to me if they needed a different size or wanted to know if we took diners card. The Japanese men would frequently ask if they could spit phlegm into my garbage bin while they bought gaudy trinkets for their wives, it was rude to blow their nose but hocking into my garbage bin while I held it out for them, well that was just was fine!

We met very briefly; he was going back to London and had been in Australia for work, he was wearing a suit. I think I feel in love with the man in the suit, because the man who flew back from London to spend New Year with me and wore a Hawaiian shirt, I didn’t recognise him.

When we first met he had a boyish trepidation about him that was endearing. He fumbled with the wallet he had just bought, he tripped on the door as he left the store then had to return because he forgot his laptop, then tripped on the door again as he ran to make his flight.

When we met again and I picked him up at the airport, he didn’t stop staring at my breasts and his walk had changed. It is difficult to completely explain but I think me on his arm made him feel confident, so his boyish charm and nervous saunter morphed into a cock sure strut. When we checked into the room he introduced us as Mr and Mrs (insert his name that I can’t remember) and he would push me about the place, with his hand on the small of my back, in and out of doors, in and out of cars, up stairs, into bed. There is gentility / PDA and then there are physical displays of ownership. I detest the latter.


We had planned to hire a car and travel to Melbourne on the great ocean road but after one night with him I had the difficult task of explaining to him that I would only be comfortable with the trip unless we did it platonicly.

He wasn’t happy with this. I had paid for the hotel room and he still owed me $400 dollars for half of the room. He stood up without saying anything, walked to the hotel bar and bought a neat scotch and withdrew $400. He walked back to the hotel lounge were we were sitting and sat down with a huff, knocked back his scotch and slammed $400 cash on the coffee table and loudly said, “thanks for last night, I’ll call you a cab.”

All eyes in the upscale hotel lounge turned to face us. I just had been publicly outed as a prostitute, a cheap one! I turned as red as the heavy magenta curtains behind me.

What can you do? I had already packed my bag because I anticipated I may have to make a hasty retreat, he bundled me into a cab and I never saw him again. I think he was concerned for me because the last thing he said was,

“ I called to cancel with the travel agent and she wants to know if you are ok?”

“Tell her I’m fine,” I said.

My parents hadn’t expected me to be home for 2 weeks, I was never home early, so the fact that I returned home 1 week and 6 days earlier than expected, raised questions. I never answered them though. I still can’t remember his name.

Grant, George, Graham, something like that?

F**k Buddies

Heath was an aspiring actor. To date I think his claim to fame is a dominos pizza commercial. I have friends that still see him around today and tell me he is still fighting the good fight.

I was seeing, well, fucking Heath. I was never really seeing H. He had set out very strict terms when we first hooked up and I respected that. He said this would never be a thing don’t expect anything. I never did. No one got hurt.

He had been in a long-term relationship before and he said after a while fucking her felt like puss.

It was probably easy to follow his terms because I found him so utterly ridiculous. He had an amusing relationship with my bottom.

He was a really handsome guy, beautiful face and very camera friendly. Fair skin, dark eyes and black hair.

Heath was a tight arse. He would drink whatever the girl he was seeing was buying. I refused to buy his drinks, the highest complement I ever got from Heath was when he chose to stay out with me and he actually paid for his own drinks. I laughed so hard when I saw him out once with a Champaign cocktail,

“Fuck off, Saffron,” he said as he sculled his fruity beverage, almost choking on a campaign engorged strawberry.

He got very upset with me when I missed his performance in Hamlet. When I did finally get to the cast party he was drunk. He reminded me of the Irish comedian Dylan Moran. He constantly had a cigarette in his hand (although I’m sure he never paid for it) and was a funny drunk.

A girl who had been in the production as well was trying to seduce Heath; she was a very pretty little blonde. Heath flatly rejected her and swaying languidly at the top of his lungs screamed,

“Fuck off, Saffron’s bum is better! I like your bum, Saffron.” Smiling at me wryly, before he threw up over the pier.

My favourite memory of Heath was outside a hotel in Newcastle and we were waiting for our friend Hugh to show up with his combi van to drive us home. Heath had been behaving strangely all-night, stranger than usual.

As the van approached he stood up, looked left, then looked right, like a meerkat. He pounced on a ficus that was in a pot plant out of the front of the hotel, in one swift jerk he uprooted it, ran across the road and jumping into the combi he screamed, “punch it!”

He had been sizing up that plant since we got there 4 hours earlier, at his house the next week, there is was, pride of place in an empty keg in his bedroom. It died soon after. He hadn’t put any soil in the keg. I tried to tell him it might be a good idea, he wasn’t having any of it.

“I don’t want dirt in my bedroom!”

“Obviously,” I said.

Heath was a lazy lover. He would always prefer that I be on top. He argued that that was the best way to rehearse his lines and he could see my boobs. Hamlet was a big thing for him at the time.

It was kind of romantic actually. I enjoyed it. Riding him for hours and quoting,

“O, That this too too solid flesh would melt,
Thaw, and resolve itself into a dew.” I would say

“Frailty, thy name is woman!” he would reply

Hamlet, Act I, scene ii

“O! what a rogue and peasant slave am I!” He would scream as he came.

Hamlet, Act II, scene ii

Heath did a lot of screaming, now that I think about it.

His mother was a minister at a local church and she was very kind she had a lot of time for me. His father was an accountant, I come from a family full of accountants, and they are a stale bunch.

I met his father or rather his father met my arse as it was bare raiding his fridge one Saturday morning.

We never quite hit it off after that. I had just turned 19.