He walked out of a building. The dark doors whistled as they swung gracefully and gave me a knowing wink as the blue stained glass caught the glimmer of the sun. Hopping down the steps with an air of cocky confidence, a mop of curly hair and designer spectacles he ambled down the street and disappeared out of sight yet loitered in my brain. A road and a pane of glass separated us but I still blushed and swayed in my chair as I tried to hide my noticeable swoon from my friend. A grin spread over my face that didn't depart for the remainder of the afternoon. I was smitten.
A week went by, and nothing. No sightings. The mop of curly hair had disappeared off my radar. I went about my business as usual standing a little taller so my radio waves of passion could detect his handsomeness if he was near, but no alert was sounded. Another week went by and still no sightings. It was time to accept that the mop of curly hair was clearly an anomaly, a passing visitor flying in on the departing autumn wind. Despite a lack of contact or conversation, he had been a welcome distraction during a time of design work and deadlines and I drudgingly set about completing the many tasks at hand instead of depicting in detail the chance encounter of meeting him. I was only twenty one after all, there were handsome men a plenty in my vicinity I would ogle a new one by the end of the day and set my lasers to stun.
I was dressed as a kissing booth the first time we spoke. Dirty, sweaty checkerboard flooring, seductive red lighting and two girls dressed as Bill and Ted were the backdrop of our meeting. Ecstatic electro music and pints of watered down lager filled our bellies. I had made twelve pounds fifty (fifty pence a kiss) by the time he started to approach me. My immaculate hand made red PVC cardboard booth included a money-box, a secret compartment that housed a box of wine and two helium balloons for advertising my whereabouts to potential customers. The balloons had clearly worked, business was booming.
He danced over to me, hips to the centre, right leg twitching, index fingers pointed to the ceiling, two pints in his hands. Booming indie disco music filled the empty dance floor with hula dancers, Adam Ant, Marge Simpson and a packet of crayons. His robot costume glistened as the tiny square reflections of the disco ball dotted around his tin foil embellished ensemble. He smiled and laughed casually as he swayed and sashayed past a flasher, a trio from Top Gun and a female Russell Brand. His angular darting dance shapes drew closer as he caught my eye and nodded knowingly. After copious trips to argue with the long-suffering DJ (my arch nemesis that evening) my chosen song finally started playing. Trumpets tooted, a piano was plonked and drums were thrashed as I squealed with delight. Business would be shut down temporarily as I threw shapes on the dance floor. Grabbing the beat with closed punched air fists and moving as eloquently as a person could wearing a weighted cardboard box, I gave the robot a doe eyed glance. My song finished, elated and euphoric with adrenalin pumping through my veins I needed more rum to sustain my epic dance floor delights and some dutch courage to be able to talk to the robot. It was clear a conversation was imminent. With an inebriated smog filled head, I darted across the dance floor to the bar leaving the robot chatting with the trio from Top Gun.
My two helium balloons had clearly grown bored of my playing hard to get and had secretly formulated a plan to ensure this long awaited and sought after conversation would occur. As I made my way back to my gaggle of creatively attired pals, my balloons started dancing to a different ditty and wrapped themselves round the robots helmet. This was it.
I smiled sweetly as he leaned in to whisper something in my ear. I was giddy with excitement. Finally the mop of curly hair was going to talk to me. My brain whirled into action as I thought up humorous anecdotes to bewitch and entice him. Our love of cardboard costume making was clearly a good starting point. I tried to think up wildly intelligent things to say but rum and lager had melted the section of my brain required to act demure and intelligent. I was drunk; demure was definitely out of the question.
He mumbled something in my ear. Mishearing him due to the swirling raucousness around us, I shuffled in closer, our cheeks were almost touching. He smelt delicious like log cabins and rosewood. He had very comfortable looking shoulders and edible pasta shaped ears. There were no roads or panes of glass separating us now he was stood centimeters away from me, our cardboard boxes shuffled together as a Morrissey melody played the soundtrack of our first proper encounter. I held my breath as he leaned in closer still. Finally it happened, mischievous forget me not eyes and a lopsided grin combined with the illustrious line:
"Have you got change of a fiver?"