Oh God, What Was I Thinking

We’ve had the therapy and the introspection. We’ve stared into the abyss of my twenties. Today, we’re getting back to the good stuff. No shame, no overthinking – which is exactly how I ended up in this situation: with a cute Welsh barman inviting me home, and a stranger in the taxi rank who decides she’s coming too.

So we’re still in Newport, and I’m still in my early twenties. Exact times and dates (and even names in some cases) have been lost on me. But these were the Newport Years and this is how it was back then. Enter the cute Welsh Barman. I’ve always been a sucker for a Welsh accent, so living in South Wales definitely had its perks in that respect. This guy worked in the same pub as me, but we were never scheduled on the same shifts. Until one evening.

There were definitely some flirtatious vibes that night. It wasn’t romance, he wasn’t boyfriend material – nor were we struggling to keep our eyes/hands off each other until it resulted in a quickie in the beer cellar (which would have made for great blog post to be fair). We kept things mostly professional, but there was enough chemistry in the air. Enough for him to ask me what I was doing when I finished my shift, and to invite me back to his place. My brain flashed 4 little words, which wouldn’t be the only time that evening: Fuck it, why not. I looked at him and said, “sure”. Nowadays, I’d at least expect him to buy me a drink first.

I lived 5 minutes up the road from this pub, but he lived further out, which required a taxi home. So there we were, in the queue for the taxi rank. Incidentally, the Welsh for ‘taxi’ is ‘tacsi’. It was a busy night, and the queue stretched on down the street. Long enough for us to get spotted by a girl he knew. She practically ran up to him, and flung her arms around him with glee, ignoring the fact I was there completely. In other circumstances, that would have sent me into a silent rage, but I was unaffected by this display. He wasn’t exactly my boyfriend, and while I found him attractive, I knew I was in that taxi queue because I had nothing better to do.

“Where are you headed?” she asked, directing herself fully at him and disregarding me as best she could. “We’re heading back to mine” he said, gesturing in my direction. At least he acknowledged the fact I was still there. “Great, I’ll come back with you!”

I braced myself. There was a part of me that expected in that moment for him to tell me he’d made other plans, and watch as the two of them hopped into a tacsi together. Instead, he looked at me and asked “well, what do you think?” What did I think about going home with the cute Welsh barman, and this strange girl who clearly had a thing for him as well? For the second time that evening, my brain decided fuck it, why not. I told him I didn’t mind. I’m not sure she was so thrilled at this, but as she was keen to go back to his place, she accepted I would be coming along as well. And so, my first ever threesome was officially formulating.

The actual sex was pretty awkward at first. I was beginning to see a direct correlation between sex being awkward and my general presence, too. I learned very quickly, however, that threesomes aren’t as fun and exciting as one might be led to believe when one-third of the party gets left out, and three was definitely a crowd. Unfortunately for Taxi Rank Girl, she was not commanding the room as she’d hoped, and she wasn’t the centre of attention. While I was perfectly ok with her being there, it wasn’t exactly something I was expecting, let alone hoping for, and I was definitely more into Cute Barman than her. And Cute Barman? He was far more interested in me than Taxi Rank Girl.

My ego rode that crest for a long time. She gave up halfway through, told us that she wasn’t feeling it, and went into the next room to have the noisiest sex she possibly could with Cute Barman’s flatmate in an attempt to remind us both that she was still there. We continued, just the two of us, and it was far more enjoyable after that.

The aftermath? Well, there was none. We weren’t a couple; it was very much a one-night-in-Cwmbran (or wherever that tacsi took us), and no more than a hook-up. There may have been a second dalliance with him a while later, but nothing noteworthy, and we definitely didn’t pick up any strays on the way that time. As far as I was concerned, the Newport Years were in full swing, I had my first threesome under my studded emo belt, and I wasn’t the girl who got left out. I was the girl who thought fuck it, why not.