PART 3
Flashback, Vodka Martinis and Surgical Gloves
This is a flashback within a flashback so turn your imagination to greyscale until we resume usual service…
Before I met Sophie, before I started to become a successful in personal training, just as I’d qualified, there was a very drunken night out with my mates. It’s poignant for a reason.
To celebrate my mate Tom and I passing our PT exams my best mates, there’s six of us (Jay doesn’t enter the story for another 6 years) all head out to Soho to get suitably drunk and dance. We meet up in Vodka Revolution just off Dean St, because we’re just plain classy.
When I first moved to London fifteen years ago I had no contacts and no clue so when it came to going out in the big city, I had no idea where the cool places were and how to get into them. I once got my name onto a guest-list for Movida where I was guaranteed entry. I was asked to leave the queue by the hostess and the bouncer once they’d looked me up and down. Jesus, the anguish. Now, after downing an unreal amount of purple, blue, red and brown vodka shots, me and the lads ventured out into Soho without a destination in mind;
“Looking for a club lads?” asked the dodgy looking club promoter. He promised a top nightclub for free. We were in. Not a big sell.
We stumbled towards the unobtainable entry club, I cannot for the life of me remember the name. The promoter wasn’t bullshitting! We got partially inside for free. The bouncer, realising how drunk and desperate we were decided to exploit £20 in cash each from all 6 of us and pocketed it himself. Skulduggery.
We enter the club all grumbling that we got ripped off which the assistant manager notices. Without realising she’d taken a shine to me she ushers us into the VIP area to make up for the robbery. She offers to make us Vodka Martinis and being a small-town Welsh boy I ask;
“What’s in those?”
Don’t worry, I’m still rolling my eyes even now. WE. GET. HAMMERED.
We’re dancing on tables, drinking more martinis, dancing with scantily clad young ladies, drinking more, until the room starts spinning and I can no longer identify my friends with my eyeballs. I think ‘Fuck it’ I’m starting to fade. I leave almost incoherent.
Stumbling…taxi…collapsed in the back…I’m dying…a text…”Shall I come over?”…”Why not?”…
OH DEAR. Somehow the assistant manager has my number…
It ended with me being asleep on my couch in Brixton, the doorbell ringing incessantly. I basically fall down the stairs to open the door to a rampant and extremely horny assistant club manager who springs on me like one of those little things from Aliens, but in a good way, obviously.
This is 3.30 am, I’m teaching a class at Bootcamp Pilates at 6.30 am. Teaching Reformer drunk is not a good idea, it’s mildly unprofessional and I regretted it for at least 3 days.
END FLASHBACK…return you imagination to colour, please.
Remember I started taking some clients from Gina? Well, she sent me another…
I turn up at Louise’s humongous house in Belgravia. I’m warned beforehand not to touch, look at her too much, or make her train hard in the slightest. When she opens the door, the brief becomes obvious. She’s dangerously thin and in her 60s, wearing surgical gloves and slippers. She hands ME a pair of surgical gloves and slippers and we crawl at snails speed to her top floor where we undertake the lightest and slowest PT session I’ve ever produced.
This was a massive lesson for a gung-ho 26-year-old Welsh PT eager to impress. I had to learn that not all clients will be fit and fabulous like the West London elite I was used to. I adapted, I learned, I got the HELL out of there! I half expected Penny-wise to jump out of a fucking cupboard at any point. I almost ran home to Brixton.
On the love life side of things I was totally smitten with Sophie from the Pilates class and began to chase her uncontrollably every day, seeing for just 5mins if I could! She felt the same way. She was beautiful, smart, successful, kind, like no one I’d met before and she’d diluted through brain, like squash (Welsh boy innit) in water. Consumed. That’s always a danger with me. I’m impulsive and instantly passionate.
As I told you before. A storm was coming…