Oh god

On Monday my boyfriend excitedly informed me that his band have gigs in Rotherham, Skegness, and Rhyl, and he is now off on a three week inventively titled ‘Northern Tour’. I am not convinced that the kudos of the venues particularly warrant him taking three weeks precious annual leave that we could have spent on holiday together, and his bandmates ‘Snake’, ‘Nasty’ and ‘Diesel’ (aka Rupert, Rodney and Dave) are not exactly paragons of morality, law or hygiene, so I decided to take my boss up on that offer of a night out in the City on Wednesday (well, she did say the first bottle of Champagne was on her).

What I didn’t realise until my boss and I arrived at the bar, was that her Swedish au pair already at a table with a glass of Moet bestowed upon her by an admirer, was to be my partner in crime for the evening. My boss made her exit and good god, it began.

The top that au pair Helena was wearing made it perfectly clear exactly how much money she had spent on surgically enhancing her chest, and I have never quite seen anything like the clearly practised sultry glance that she used to gesticulate interest to any man who had foolishly flashed a credit card in the vicinity. She quickly informed me that she did not want anyone to think that she was ‘just’ the au pair, and that she would be telling people that she was my boss’s PA. What did that make me? I didn’t have time to come up with a suitable alternative, before two men came over.

Both ‘Tony’ and ‘Steve’ were (in my eyes) hideously unattractive, but there must have been something about the bulge in Tony’s wallet that Helena liked, as she immediately latched on to him, leaving me to make painful small talk with his sidekick. After barely two minutes had elapsed she announced that we had been invited to the VIP area of another nearby bar with them. For my purposes this was an order, not a suggestion.

Two hours later, I was quite tipsy, albeit on house white wine – it seems that while Tony’s American Express card was platinum, Steve’s Natwest credit card was maxed out. Then again I was her boss’s cleaner (thanks, Helena) and I too was maxed out - on conversation involving cufflinks, sports cars and how much I charge on an hourly rate (for my cleaning services, of course). So when Helena suggested a turn on the dancefloor, I was only too glad to oblige. However it seemed that Helena was now intent on articulating her powers in the bedroom department through the medium of dance. Cue moves worthy of a Pussycat Doll. This was a little off-putting, but bearable in comparison to the earlier humiliations of the night, that is until she decided to involve me in some erotic grinding. Oh god. I think the idea was to titillate the guys, but the result was me suddenly standing there horrified and statue-like, the pole in her pole-dancing routine.

It seemed to work for Tony though who left with Helena in tow, smugly triumphant after he offered her a job as his new PA. Ha ha. I would warn my boss, if I thought her childcare was in any real jeopardy.

And I’m going to book a train ticket to Skegness this weekend. My boyfriend has run out of clean socks.