An Older Lady’s Play Thing

Episode 149

It was 2006, a year filled with dubious fashion choices, bad pop music, and me, at the ripe old age of 35, freshly single and drowning in self-pity at a bar that could only be described as a dive for people too drunk to notice. Picture it: the kind of establishment where the air is thicker than a Glaswegian accent and the floor sticks to your shoes with a mystery substance that likely has its own ecosystem. I was nursing a whiskey, contemplating the futility of existence and the cost of alimony, when she walked in—Helen. Think Lady Macbeth with a credit card and a desperate need for distraction.

Helen was rich, successful, and so bored with her marriage that even a bloke like me, who looked like he’d been dragged through a hedge backward, seemed like an upgrade. She sauntered over, oozing money and Chanel No. 5, and parked herself next to me. "You look like you could use some company," she purred. In any other setting, this might've been the start of a crime drama, but here, it was just the universe laughing at me.

Fast forward through a couple of overpriced cocktails, and Helen had decided that what she needed wasn’t a divorce but a hobby. And that hobby, astonishingly, was me. Now, I wasn’t raised to be a gigolo. My mother had dreams of me becoming something respectable, like a taxidermist or a career criminal. But there I was, signing up to be Helen’s personal boy toy. And no, it wasn’t about the money, I told myself. It was about the adventure. Alright, it was mostly about the money.

For a few months, my life was something out of a bad rom-com. I was dragged to high-end restaurants where the food was as pretentious as the clientele, luxury shopping sprees where I learned that socks could cost more than my rent, and weekends at her beach house, which was basically a mansion that screamed “compensating for something.” My mates were half-convinced I’d sold my soul, and they weren’t far off.

But like all good things, it was bound to go tits up. Enter Lydia, the wife of an arms dealer to the Asia-Pacific. Lydia was the kind of woman who made Helen look like Mother Teresa. She had the air of someone who could order a hit with the same casual ease as ordering a latte. We met at one of Helen's ludicrously expensive parties, and despite my brain screaming, “RUN, YOU IDIOT,” I was drawn to her like a moth to a particularly well-dressed flame.

Our affair was brief, torrid, and about as smart as juggling chainsaws. When Helen found out, she went ballistic. But Lydia’s husband? He made Helen look like a teething puppy. Messing with the wife of an arms dealer is like playing Russian roulette with a semi-automatic—it’s not going to end well. Suddenly, my life was less "Pretty Woman" and more "No Country for Old Men." I spent a few weeks dodging shadows and contemplating witness protection.

In the end, it was Helen who saved me. She used her ridiculous wealth and connections to call off Lydia’s husband, possibly by promising to buy him a small country or a football team. I didn’t ask for details. The whole escapade ended with me back in the bar, broke and single, but now with a story so absurd that even my friends started buying me drinks just to hear it again.

So there it is. The tale of how I became an accidental gigolo, got entangled with an arms dealer’s wife, and lived to tell the tale. And if there's a moral to this story, it’s probably something about not mixing whiskey with desperation. But who am I kidding? I'll probably be back at that bar next week. Cheers.

Music:

Elbow - Grounds for Divorce

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