Bachelor Boy

Plants were absolutely everywhere. On the windowsills, shelves, on the carpet, hanging from the ceiling, even in the toilet!  The first time I saw Fiona’s plant-stuffed flat I was mesmerised.

“I just adore plants, all plants anywhere and everywhere!” she declared, leading me downstairs to the garden, where she owned a small section of the communal garden, which was similarly a riot of green leaves and trailing tendrils, like a miniature jungle.

“I don’t mind plants,” I told her, “but don’t you think it’s a bit over the top? Reminds me of that film, The Day of the Triffids, where plants from outer space take over everything and kill everyone.”

“I’ve not seen that film,” she said, turning to me and smiling with interest. “Sounds good, I’d love to see it. Do you think we can get it on DVD?” And she continued as she always did when we came back to her flat, pottering around with her plants, watering them, trimming them, even talking to them as if they were her babies, leaving me feeling a bit lost.

Fiona was an absolutely marvellous girlfriend. Beautiful to look at, kind, friendly, tremendous company, always happy. However, we’d been going out for quite a few weeks when I began to be a bit wary of her behaviour.

It all started one day when I’d stayed overnight. She followed me into the shower, and I was pleased, naturally assuming that she wanted to pioneer a different style of lovemaking, but no. Instead, she asked if I minded her holding the shower above my head and showering me. I didn’t mind at all, until it became a bit of an obsession, and she was always wanted to shower me for minutes or longer, with no associated sexually activity of any kind at all. It all seemed a bit absurd.

It was winter and I had an old green anorak I usually wore when we went out. It was getting frayed and old, so while we were out shopping one day, we went into the men’s outfitter department of the large store and I picked out a new anorak and took it to the till.

“You can’t wear that!” she declared, hoisting it up and staring at it. “It’s brown!”

“So?” I replied reasonably. “It’s nice and warm and waterproof, who cares what colour it is?”

“I do!” She went back and found a green one. “Have this one. It’s a much brighter green colour than your other one, isn’t it? Much better!”

After that, she insisted we ask at the desk of the men’s clothing department about me getting a green suit to wear for work.

“No one wears a green suit,” I protested. “I’ll look ridiculous.,”

“Nonsense, Gerald, you can set a trend,” she insisted, asking the assistant if they had any green suits. He looked surprised and assured her that they could probably order one in for next week.

I told him not to bother.

Then again, she insisted on cutting my hair. I normally just go to the barbers and ask for whatever was usual, but Fiona wanted to style it, so that my hair was much longer than normal and fell sideways in a silly sort of curtain, either side across my face, just like one of her long-leaved weeping plants.

When she again insisted on showering me for the second time in an evening, I decided.

Enough was enough.

“Sorry Fiona, you know I’ll always love you,” I explained. “But I’ve decided to join the Foreign Legion, so I can see a bit of the world and have some new experiences. It’s best if we call it a day.”

I met Caroline a few weeks later when I was walking in the park. Caroline was leading six large canines on a lead and told me that she was a professional dog walker. I love dogs myself, so we soon got chatting, and one thing let to another, and the following week I went back to her home for the first time. In addition to walking other people’s dogs, she had several fur-babies of her own – from a tiny Chihuahua to a German Shepherd, they all adored her, and formed one large friendly pack. I’m glad to say that they accepted me cheerfully, and I became a kind of ‘honorary dog’ I suppose, in their eyes, though I was probably a dog that was decidedly low in the canine pecking order.

However, despite Caroline being very beautiful indeed, and marvellous company, things began to rankle slightly. After we’d been going out for a few times, she began to address me in a rather bossy tone of voice. “Stop doing that Gerald!” she would shout, for all the world as if I was a canine in her care.

And another thing. She knew I liked Hobnob chocolate biscuits, and took to carrying a few broken hobnobs in her pocket with her everywhere. And if I did something that pleased her she took to giving me half a hobnob for “Being such a good boy!”  

More disturbing still, was the time before we made love, when she persuaded me that nothing got her in the mood more than if I began to bark like a dog. I did it once, and felt such a fool that impotence followed, and the night was a disaster. Annoyingly, she professed to understand, called me a “such a Good boy!”, and handing me more hobnobs. But I resolved then and there, that things were not right.

Enough was enough.

So, on a gloomy rainy Monday evening, I confessed to Caroline that I felt I had been called to be in God’s service, and that I was going to join a monastery in an island off the coast of Sierra Leone, and that I was destined for the single life.

Life was passing me by, and I still longed for a girlfriend. It was fortuitous that the one time I had agreed for Caroline to put a dog collar around my neck and make me walk on all fours, I had pulled a muscle in my neck. Physiotherapy was recommended, which was how I met the glamorous Germain physiotherapist, Heidi ‘twin pack’, the twin pack being her own jokey reference to her extremely large breasts, which quite took my breath away.

Heidi was fantastic. Lively, friendly, beautiful, with a figure to die for! And even better, just like me, she loved all kinds of sports. She was a champion swimmer, played Netball for a prestigious team, and to my delight, happened to follow my own football team.

Sexy Heidi was splendid in every way, and I knew that now I had met the girl of my dreams. If she were to agree to marry me, I knew I would be the happiest man alive.

But strangely enough, although we’d been going out for two months, I had never seen her home in all that time, she always made some excuse if I suggested visiting her.

Finally the day came when she took me home.

“People sometimes are a bit surprised,” she confessed as she unlocked her front door and we stepped into the hallway of her large detached house.

All around the walls were glass cases, in which there were on display all kinds of animals. Dogs, cats, birds, terrapins, even a tiger, you name it, they were everywhere.

“What do you think of my hobby?” she asked me, spreading her arms wide to indicate the stuffed animals on display.

“It’s – er, it’s very interesting,” I told her in a weak voice.

“Yes, taxidermy,” she went on, her eyes alight with excitement. “I love it! If I see an animal or even a person sometimes, I always have this insatiable and overpowering urge.”

“An overpowering urge?”

“Yes! To stuff it!”

There and then I decided that I was going to be an eternal bachelor boy.

Enough was enough. . . .