This is a minor re-work of a piece posted elsewhere last September.

Would it read better if I changed it from "Reported" to "Direct"? and from past to present tense?

THE VENUS FLY TRAP

The prospect of going to a "Grab a Granny Night" had been appalling but I'd been desperate. That is desperate for some adult company. The scene inside the Pub, whose side room, every first Friday in the month, became the "Evergreen Club", had been depressing. Sad balding paunchy men and blowsy women who both, like me, had had at least, one previous less than caring owner.

I had been rebuffed by perhaps four women who found me as unattractive as I inwardly found them. So in sheer contrariness I'd approached a woman that was too beautiful and young to need to resort to "Grab a Granny Night". I'd thought she might be on the game but in all honesty I would have paid just to have talked to and perhaps danced with her. As I'd had no belief that I stood the slightest chance, I'd been relaxed and flippant.

 I'd asked her if she were here to keep an eye on her Mother. She'd told me that that was the most original chat up line she'd heard that night. I'd asked her to dance and we went onto the dance floor.  I'd continued to chat telling her that I hated Peter Kaye. She'd looked surprised and had asked who Peter Kaye was. I'd told her that he was a very talented young northern stand up comedian. He had this patter about middle-aged relics like me, who at weddings showed themselves up on the dance floor.

She'd said to me that I should not worry, as I was quite a good mover. Unlike some she'd danced with, I actually seemed to enjoy it. We'd ultimately sat down and talked. I'd been astonished to find that she was a practicing Barrister specialising in Female Rights Issues. Without prompting she'd opened up. Her career had cost her a private life. She'd always got a big case on and was often in Brussels. She'd tried singles bars but the well-heeled flash would be adulterous married man that they attracted repulsed her. So like me in sheer desperation she'd tried "Grab a Granny Night." However she'd added several of the women here were on the game. One of them had threatened her.

I'd suggested that we should go, she'd agreed. I'd asked her where her car was. She'd told me that she had lost her licence and had come by taxi. I'd offered to take her home. She'd accepted my offer but warned me that I was not to try anything on for she was not in the mood for it.

 

The journey to her place had been an ordeal: one moment I'd tried to be funny and the next profound. When we'd seemed to have passed a particular cross road for at least the second time I'd started to feel uneasy. I'd looked in my rear view mirror but there was no car following us. The streets were quite empty. I'd left nothing to chance and had jumped at least one red light.
 

She'd finally said turn left and park in the lay by. Her place was just round the corner. She'd explained that an ex boy friend had been stalking her. He'd often followed her home. Cars left outside her house overnight had been vandalised. So she'd tried to ensure that he had not followed us. She'd hoped he'd thought we'd gone back to my place.

We'd walked to a large Edwardian detached house. She'd opened the front door and motioned me to enter. We'd turned left and went into a ground floor room that was at the front of the house. I'd been startled to find that it was furnished as a bedroom; well at least there was a bed, 2 bedside cabinets, 2 chairs and a coffee table. Oh my god I'd thought, she is on the game and I've been entrapped.

She'd understood my expression so had told me that her dressing room was through the bedroom's other door. She rented the ground floor on a furnished let and could not make any additions or alteration. So her things were in the dressing room.

We'd embraced and then kissed. She'd taken my hands and placed them on her top blouse button. I'd gently undressed her and then had stood back. She was beautiful. I'd asked her to turn. As she'd twirled, her body had gently rippled, but when I'd touched her she had been rigid, un-aroused and totally lacked the heat of anticipation that I'd hoped to have found.

I'd suggested that she did not want to go through with this, that she now thought it a mistake. I was rambling, I'd told her that what I'd wanted had to be given with enthusiasm and if not love at least affection. What I'd wanted was for her and I to have become us.

She'd looked back at me with dispassionate eyes. I'd found myself dressing her. I'd been very clumsy. I've no daughters so I've never dressed a female before. On balance she'd seemed less inclined to be dressed than she'd been to be undressed, but it had been a close run thing.

It was only later that I learnt how lucky I'd been. We'd been watched from the moment we'd entered the room for it had been set up with hidden CCTV cameras and wired for sound. The watchers had been undecided whether to jump in or to let me go. My instincts had served me well for having dressed her; I'd fished out my car keys and had fled the house.

I'd been surprised to find that though the journey to her house had taken twenty-five minutes I'd got back to the Pub in ten. I'd seen the landlord: he owed me. He'd said he would doctor the Pub CCTV's hard drive. It would then show that I'd never left or re-entered the pub. He'd told me to have a cuddle with Denise and then leave with her. The CCTV would catch the pair of us leaving. She'd then go home and I should bugger off. In fact I'd taken the barmaid to her house and dropped her outside. I'd then gone home.

When I'd got indoors I'd just burst into tears. She'd been so beautiful, everything that I'd dreamed of and so needed. I'd then got angry. A Detective Chief Inspector who had been taken in by some plausible little tart. Still retirement was not long off and if this blew up it might be enforced.

To Be continued.