On New Year’s Day that year, it was boiling hot and Ben phoned me early in the morning, telling me to get ready (to wear shorts and a very small top) as he was taking me to a pool party. At the time, I had just spent a pretty lonely Christmas in Australia and was missing my family in the UK very much, so I didn’t really feel like partying or dressing up. However, I tried to think back to all the fun I had had with Ben over the previous year and so once again forced myself to go. So at 3pm Ben beeped his horn, and I walked out of my house wearing a very casual pair of short denim shorts, high heel shoes and a teeny tiny top that a year previously I would not have even dared wear to bed, and we headed off to yet another very exclusive bar in Sydney.
When we got there, the queue was a mile long and as I heard the bouncers asking for tickets my heart sank. I hope he has a ticket, I thought to myself, although I doubted he did as he was definitely not a forward planner.
Ben, on the other hand, walked straight to the front of the queue, past the entrance, and started talking to one of the bouncers. I was so uncomfortable at that point. After all, I am British and we are brought up to queue. I watched him carefully from a distance and after a few words and a friendly handshake, the bouncer let him straight through. Ben then turned to check that I was still following but, of course, I was not. Not really knowing what to do or where to look, I had politely joined the huge queue of people by myself.
After searching for me in the crowd, Ben finally found me and made eye contact. He gave me a stern look and shouted my name extremely loudly and abruptly. I, very embarrassed, hurried to the front of the queue like a small child, with everyone staring at me like I was some sort of celebrity. Without even paying the $300 entrance fee, my wrist was stamped and I was in the lift on my way up to the bar. I really did feel like a celebrity that day and it 100% took my mind off my lonely Christmas and boosted my confidence three fold.
Very unexpectedly, that day, I probably had one of the best days of my life. It was hot, the sun was shining, the party was great and the drinks were flowing. Ben and I spent hours chatting and drinking that afternoon, just the two of us. He had brought me a pair of Louis Vuitton sunglasses which matched his own and made us look like partnering gangsters. After a few drinks he even let me take a selfie with him! Even though at least once every fifteen minutes a girl chatted him up, even when I was standing right next to him, I was a very happy and content girl. I got to play at ‘cool girl’ again but this time I got to do it with confidence. I even got chatted up a few times but I thankfully managed to brush them off before Ben saw.
After the party, we went to our local pizza shop and ordered some pizzas to take home. As one of the men in the queue started to talk to me, I got that sick feeling in my stomach, thinking that Ben would go absolutely mental. As Ben started to tense up, the man turned to him, completely ignorant of what was about to happen and said, ‘You definitely brought the hottest girl home from whatever party you went to. You are a lucky man.’
Ben literally calmed down straight away and actually looked pretty pleased with himself. Ben then turned to the men behind the counter and said, ‘Just put all the pizzas on my bill.’ As everyone in the shop looked amazed, not for the first time, I couldn’t help but swoon.
The week after New Year’s, Ben and I headed down to Canberra for a classic car show. Well, Ben went to the classic car show while I chilled out in the very lovely five-star hotel. After a day of visiting the spa and having high tea, I slipped into a very tight, low cut, bright orange dress that Ben had bought for me a few months before and I’d only just plucked up the courage to wear. I knew I would be meeting a number of Ben’s friends that I had never met before, so I wanted to look ‘hot.’ Although I felt like a complete idiot / prostitute in the dress, Ben’s face when I stepped out of the bathroom told me he approved.
When we met Ben’s friends at the hotel, they were in complete awe of me, maybe because I was the only girl on the classic car weekend, but I like to think it was the dress. After a few drinks, we all headed into the city for a night out. We approached what I am told was a very trendy bar that had a queue half a mile long. Ben and his friends were all behind me, chatting about classic cars, so I strolled toward the back of the queue, feeling quite uncomfortable, constantly pulling my short dress down as I walked. I didn’t really expect to queue up; I hadn’t queued up to go in a bar or club since I had met Ben, but again I wasn’t really sure what to do, so I did the polite thing and went to join the back of the queue.
As I walked past the entrance, a very handsome man in a very nice suit called me over and asked me who I was with. I was immediately concerned Ben was going to kill him, so I hastily pointed over to Ben and his friends, who, to be honest, looked like a group of gangsters ready for a turf war. I hoped that would warn the man off talking to me. When the handsome man called Ben and his friends over, I wondered what was going on, but quickly realised that he was the bar manager and he was telling us we could just go straight in. Although I had no idea what had just happened, I followed Ben straight through the bar door. Of course, Ben was used to that sort of treatment. I don’t think he had queued for anything in his life; however, when he turned to me and said, ‘That’s because you look so damn hot,’ and gave me a kiss on the forehead, I realised he was actually really impressed. My inner goodness did a little dance inside, and my confidence increased fourfold.
That night, I began to think that despite what I had previously thought, I could continue to live in that crazy f**ked up world on a long term basis, where all the women were beautiful and all the men were millionaires. Faking it was becoming easier, and almost more natural to me, and most importantly more fun the more I did it. I now knew I could just be myself, and I really didn’t need to fake It that much at all anymore. I knew I could just blend in with the rest of the beautiful people as long as I had confidence. Of course, within the hour, we had all been thrown out because Ben tried to kill a poor group of young boys who dared to chat me up, but it was definitely fun while it lasted.
As we all headed back to the hotel room, we decided to all go to Jack’s room, which was the largest of the hotel suites. One of Ben’s brothers was already in the room, as he had left the bar early, so as we sat down, we caught him up on a few things and continued our drinking. When there was a knock at the door, Ben’s brother asked me to answer it and informed me he had some friends coming over and I should show them to one of the three bedrooms so they could get changed. I was a little surprised that he had friends coming over so late and that they needed to get changed but not wanting to be rude I did what I was told. To my amazement, when I opened the door, there were ten miserable looking girls standing there wearing tracksuits and carrying overnight bags. Trying to hide my shock, I invited them all in and showed them to their room, while trying to offer some small talk about how they knew Ben’s brother and where they had been that night. All ten girls exchanged looks but no one said one word to me. I found the silence a little intimidating as I was obviously about to spend the next few hours with those ten girls, who were ultimately Ben’s brother’s friends. So, in one last ditch attempt to make friends, I asked the girls if they would like me to get them a drink while they got changed. As soon as I said it, at least three of the girls burst out laughing and the rest all sniggered to each other, exchanging confused looks. I shut the door and walked away, feeling a little rejected. I popped into the bathroom to compose myself and to make sure I didn’t have anything on my face that would all of a sudden make ten random females laugh at me.
Feeling a little deflated, I left the bathroom and when I walked back in to the main room, I was absolutely amazed to see all ten girls topless, all wearing a variety of skirts, shorts, knickers, thongs, heels and boots parading around the room with trays of drinks and canapés. Ben and the five other men were acting as though they couldn’t even see that the girls were topless and behaving completely normal, taking drinks, chatting and flirting with them. All I could do was try to avert my eyes from their top halves while trying to find Ben amongst the crowd of people so he could tell me what was going on. Surely Ben would have asked me to leave if he knew they were ordering prostitutes to the room, I thought to myself. When I finally spotted him talking to a hot blond girl wearing just a thong and thigh high boots, with her fake enormous breasts right in his face, he beckoned me over while in fits of laughter.
As I got closer, he asked very loudly, so everyone could hear, if I had really just asked the topless waitresses if I could get them a drink! As everyone around him laughed, I couldn’t help but see the funny side. I had honestly thought they were friends of Ben’s brother! I had no reason to think anything else! As all seventeen of us chatted and drank the night away (and yes, there were really only six men to all those topless waitresses! Apparently, they were a ‘present’ from Ben’s brother), I was asked by one of the topless waitresses, whom I found a little bitchy, ‘So how come you get to keep all your clothes on?’ Ben later told me the answer should have been, ‘Because I am his girlfriend,’ not ‘Because I worked hard in school.’ ‘Love the struggle. After all, we are going to need something to talk about at the top.’ — Unknown.