1. Never take your first date...
...To a nudist beach.
"Come on, Bella!" Mike shouted as he jumped out the car. "Take your kit off!"
"Excuse me?" I sat paralysed in the car, my hand still resting on the belt. "Nobody said anything about taking our clothes off!" Mike looked at me as if I was crazy, and I was beginning to wish I were. At least then I wouldn't give a toss about being naked or not!
"Bella, I told you we were going to a naturalist beach. What else could it mean?" he said slowly.
"I don't know," I said weakly. "That we were going to be surrounded by nature?"
"But we are, Bella, we are! Nudity is as natural as it comes!" Mike said with enthusiasm, as he slammed the door and came round to my side. I shrunk in my seat as Mike went round to the back, and got a towel and some sunglasses out of the boot- which to be honest, was all he needed. So stupid of me to assume he had his swimming trunks under his clothes, like the bikini I wore under mine. Turns out I needn't have bothered...
As I followed Mike down to the beach, I wondered where had it gone all so wrong. The first time I clapped eyes on him at work, my girlies had encouraged me to latch on fast.
It came with the terrority I guess, being happily partnered to the man of your dreams just made you want to see other people happy. And since I was the only single in the office, whenever fresh meat entered the builiding I was immediately set to work in securing him.
What I didn't tell those girlies was that I tried every trick in the book to make the guy run a mile whenever he saw me.
How?
Well, by merely mentioning how pro-commitment I was and essentially proposing the first time we meet, but without saying the actual words. Nothing makes a man run more than a hapless female breathing down your neck since the word "go."
Back in the office, I was the picture of innocence, sighing over another potential husband biting the dust and blowing my nose in Kleenex. I faked disappointment and hurt. I questioned my attractiveness and personality and all the other things girls do when guys dump them. And I must be good at it, because I've yet to be rumbled!
Mike was a different story. He seemed unfazed by my heavy panting (figuratively) down his neck, and every marriage innuendo I made he rebuffed with ease.
That's how it lead up to him first asking me out actually. We were in the photocopying room, and belying my panic completely, I was running my fingers up and down his arm as he pressed for 12 copies and then GO.
"You punched that in with such authority," I swooned. "I like a man who knows what he's doing."
Mike did nothing more than grin.
"You know what?" I said, frustrated because it seemed like I wasn't getting to him at all. "Like doesn't describe my feelings at all. I love a man who knows what he's doing."
Mike fluttered his eyelashes. Seriously. Like he was the girl in the relationship or something! What was the wrong with the man? Any other hot-blooded male would nervously be edging their arm out of my grip by now, before anxiously tugging/running a finger around the neck of their tie. Trying to loosen it or whatever. Not because they were feeling the passion but as a sign of wanting escape! WHAT WAS WRONG WITH HIM?
I decided to bump it up a notch. "It's funny you should press twelve into that photocopier because that's how many kids I want. Twelve. And I want them all with you."
Oh, so now he chooses not to bat an eyelid? Mike, why are you grinning?
This is only the second time we've met, the first being when the boss called a conference meeting which actually turned out to be a "greet & meet." Ignoring the burning gazes of my friends, I shook his hand firmly and asked him if he was the type of man to believe in destiny and perhaps, wedlock.
And then I rubbed my ring finger the entire time he answered me back and made no secret, of looking at his ring finger. (Which to my disappointment, was actually bare!)
Angela and Jessica were so going to die.
"But we have to get married before we brew them, you know. And of course I have to be a stay-at-home mom because looking after twelve kids is never easy. That means, my love, you are the sole-breadwinner for the house! Are you sure you can cope?"
I didn't bother tenderly gazing into his eyes. Instead I glared and vowed to make him run screaming from the room if it was the last thing I did!
But Mike threw a spanner in the works when he gave a hearty smile, and said those ill-fated words that should have never have left his lips: "Brewing is all good and well, but what about the fermentation? The decantation? The plucking? Bella Swan, will you go out on a date with me? To a naturalist beach on Sunday afternoon? That is...if you're free..."
That was it. My get-out-of-jail-free card. I should've fallen upon it like a dehydrated man upon an oasis, or a dung-beetle into a pile of poo! But I think a part of me wanted to prove that I wasn't a run-of-the-mill maneater and maybe I was being a little harsh. Mike had managed to survive all my propaganda, hadn't he? And still he came back for more, even though by all rights he should've been running for the hills by now.
Maybe I should give man-kind a chance, instead of being so career driven all the time. Coz hey...
There must be something sweet about this relationship business because it's pretty darn popular in the states. Not to mention the world! Wasn't it how I was procreated by my dear father, Charlie and my equally dear mother, Renee before things turned sour and for the worse?
"A naturalist beach?" I said, smiling genuinely for the first time in ages. "That sounds good."