Hymn: Pinch

The evening in the club was notable for reasons other than our miraculous escape. In unexpected outbreak of Dadaism, a girl pinched my bottom. A girl. A real girl. And my bottom. Three times. Three times.

Now, I’m not a young man anymore. In my youth, in the 1860s, I could cut quite a dash but now warts and wrinkles have replaced my Marty Feldman good looks. Nowadays any form of female attention is quite a surprise. Unless it’s abusive. Or medical.

At first I thought I’d made a mistake.

I was dancing, you see. That I could be fondled while strutting my funky stuff is remarkable for a number of reasons. One, I have no coordination or rhythm so my movement is entirely unpredictable. Two, my flaying arms can be lethal to anyone in a three metre radius. Three, I look like a twat.

The first time, I wondered if I’d been punched, albeit somewhat pathetically and a little low for Queensbury rules. After all, in the drunken Stag do circumstances, I was expecting violence to erupt any second. But no. As I wheeled around, there were just two girls. Not even looking. Although they were trying hard to suppress a smile. Or it might have been wind. But they didn’t look aggressive.

It happened again a few moments later. Naturally I assumed a different culprit, someone stumbling off the dance floor, a random collision, an accidental bum bump. Those two girls were still the only ones around. As I looked round, one of them peeped at me. It’s not something I’m used to. It was definitely a peep. Perhaps it was an eyelash in her eye. Or a dodgy contact lens. No, it was definitely a peep.

I looked around for the gang of friends howling with laughter, handing money over for some hilarious wager but the rest of the world was oblivious. Drunk and oblivious. I began to wonder if perhaps I’d had too much Dirty Digger. If I’d started to hallucinate. In a psychophysiological way. Or perhaps I had simply lost my marbles. I knew it would happen one day. All the signs are there. And the medication.

I rubbed my eyes fully expecting to see turquoise rabbits in stripy raincoats skipping around an upturned VW camper van or a number of anonymous men in surgical gowns when I opened them again.

But it was just those two girls. My God. They were flirting with me. Making eyes. Teasing. I was in uncharted territory. Nothing like this had happened to me since, well, ever, as far as I could recall. Not without some drugs or a legal document, at least.

I wanted to alert my fellows that something utterly astonishing was happening but they were too busy dancing the Okey-Cokey around a bunch of legless teenagers in rugby shirts. So I did what years of paramilitary training and a stint with the travelling circus had taught me: I studiously ignored the coquettish girls. By far the best strategy for dealing with something unexpected, I’ve always found – do nothing and hope that it goes away.

It, they, didn’t. They pinched again. I knew that I risked looking like a gauche insensitive fool. I am, after all, a grown man. A man swinging his arms wildly and attempting to move his legs in time with a tune of one hundred and sixty beats a minute. What greater embarrassment could I fear?

I swung round, attempting to stay in time with the music, a manoeuvre so violent that it almost decapitated the girl nearest to me.

‘You pinched my bottom!’ I shouted above the strains of the Techno.

I’m not sure what surprised them most: my sudden attention, the bellowing or the fact I had used the word ‘bottom’ without any hint of irony.

“Would you like to dance?” the blonder one asked after the deafening silence became almost unbearable.

I was utterly flummoxed. My flum had never been more oxed.

‘Erm...’ I shouted back with my usual eloquence.

They looked at me. Dry ice appeared right on cue.

‘I’m a married man.’ I said blandly. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings. But enough was enough. They had pinched my bottom. There could be no greater accolade. I was already a conquering hero.

I tried to remember the last time someone pinched my bottom. 1973. And sadly dinner lady-pupil relationships were frowned on at the time.

Still, I am a Love God.

No-one would listen.

I came home and immediately told T.

She patted my head.