Even despite my near miss at being unwittingly dragged into prostitution, Ben didn’t speak to me for three days after I slept with his friend. Although I was a pretty upset—not that I really cared that much about Ben at that stage, but I did care I was no longer part of their crazy world which had become such a great distraction for me, and I knew I would never get another chance to re-enter it—I kind of expected it to end quickly in such a way. Although it had been such an incredible experience for me to just have a tiny taste of their lifestyle, we were from such different worlds that I knew deep down it was not practical for us to have any sort of long-term friendship or relationship. However, thankfully, he did contact me again.
A few days passed and I didn’t hear from Ben, then he randomly rang me out of the blue and asked if he could pick me up from work. It was the most awkward car journey of my life. He obviously knew what I had done with his friend, and also about my near miss with prostitution, both embarrassing events I wanted to forget, but for some unknown reason he said he had missed me and wanted to see me again. After all, he had told me to have sex with his friend. He said the feeling was very new to him to miss someone. Apparently, it was very normal for him and his friends to swap girls like that—something I won’t pretend to understand even now, but who am I to judge other people? His friend in no way took advantage of me. I knew exactly what I was doing and that was trying to distract myself from my own lonely world. Nonetheless, after that day, Ben picked me up from work nearly every day for three years, and my distraction began to grow into something else.
I guess that was the real start of our ‘relationship’ and it was very different from how we were before. Ben said I was the only girl that had ever driven him crazy. He said I made him laugh so much his stomach hurt; although I’m not really sure if that was a compliment, as most of the time I was really not trying to be funny.
I also found Ben funny, as well as sexy, charismatic and confident, but after that day, I additionally found him to be jealous, percussive and, to be honest, damn right mental when it came to me and other men. I couldn’t even remember the last time we went out and he didn’t end up in a fight because some man spoke to me or looked at me the wrong way. He literally changed overnight. I recall one birthday party he took me to: it was a pool party and was probably one of the best parties I had ever been to. Ben was one of the hosts and so I went with Elly, who thankfully saw the funny side to our prostitution mishap. As we pulled up at the house, Elly wearing a short summer dress covered in flowers, and me in short denim shorts and a long sleeve lace top, there were paparazzi outside, complete with a red carpet. Although we were both complete bundles of nerves, we both felt like celebrities walking down the red carpet in our high heel shoes. As we handed over a bottle of Moet Champagne (we didn’t want to turn up empty handed), the birthday boy laughed, in a friendly way, and said, ‘Put it in the fridge.’
As we approached a wall of fridges, there must have been at least 500 bottles of Moet in them. We continued on, through to the outside seating area, where there was a DJ, cocktail bar (complete with beautiful waitresses, barely dressed), caterers and a huge ice sculpture right in the middle that we later discovered allowed you to pour drinks in the top and when they came out the bottom they were ice cold. The decorations around the outside seating area were typical for a party with balloons and banners, however the banners all seemed to have a photo of a very beautiful female body in a bikini on them. Although it was still early, quite a few people were already there, and for some reason everyone was staring at us.
I started to feel very uneasy. Later, Ben told me it was because we looked hot; I doubt that was true, I have a feeling that the truth was that we stood out in his world like sore thumbs. Although Elly and I were pretty, girl next door pretty, with nice figures (that I gained through heartbreak and she was given naturally), and dressed, we thought, relatively well, we just didn’t have the fake cleavage, inches of make-up, pumped lips and attitudes that the girls at the party seemed to have. We looked, felt and I’m sure acted, like fish out of water.
However, as we ate, drank and chatted, we began to relax. If we could do this wearing detachable thongs, we could do this fully clothed! In spite of the initial stares, most of the people we spoke to were lovely and very welcoming, if not a little miffed about how two completely normal girls were invited to such a cool party.
I saw Ben flirting with a lot of very beautiful, perfect women and I admit, I was a little jealous. He introduced me to an ex-girlfriend who was absolutely lovely and of course absolutely stunning. A few hours later, I was on my way to the toilet when I happened to glimpse in a bedroom and saw Ben lying on top of his ex-girlfriend on the bed. They were both fully clothed, and it was pretty obvious they were joking around, but a tiny bit of me was hurt. After all, he had barely spoken to me all night.
Ben’s ex-girlfriend that he introduced me to that day actually caused a huge argument between the two of us, and it was that argument that made me realise how much I liked him and how attached I had become to someone that really was just supposed to be some fun. Ben’s birthday was coming up and I really had no idea what to get him, so I suggested a threesome with another girl. I know that sounds crazy, but Ben and his friends had changed me a little—not by force but because I had wanted to change—and my newfound freedom was very refreshing. Plus, I had always wanted to experience a threesome, and I thought that would be my perfect chance. I mentioned it to him on the Friday, and I didn’t think he was that keen at all, from his reaction. The next day, he went to a wedding and phoned me at 1am, very drunk, with some exciting news. He had found a threesome partner.
When he announced to me that he had phoned his ex-girlfriend and asked her to be our partner in a threesome, I went absolutely crazy. I had never gone crazy at him before, mainly because I just didn’t really care enough to go crazy, but also because I was trying to be that ‘cool girl’, so that it would never get overly complicated between us. But for some reason, his idea really upset me. I had been thinking of a complete stranger, an escort maybe, but to pick his ex-girlfriend out of millions of hot, gorgeous women on this planet was deeply insulting to me. Especially when he hadn’t bothered to call me all day from the wedding, but he had obviously had time to call her and tell her the good news.
Looking back, I know he was just being an insensitive arsehole, but at the time, I took it very personally. I refused to speak to him for two days and it was the most awful two days you could imagine. Maybe not more awful than what Guy had done to me, but, weirdly, I was definitely equally as upset. I had no idea how I had gotten to that stage, and it scared me a lot that I was that upset over someone who was meant to be just a bit of fun.‘It’s funny how you can meet a million people and none of them really leave much of an impression. Then, you meet one person and they somehow change your whole life.’ — Unknown.