The EX-odus

Girlfriends, I have often reflected, are like buses: you wait ages for the right one, then three come at once (if you excuse the imagery). The same can be said of exes.

I shall set the scene:
My love and I have been going out for three days, in time-honoured lesbian tradition we have moved in and are living together, and she is collecting me from work for the first time ever. My love is irresistibly sexy in bike leathers (yep she had a motorbike), I am wearing a tailored men's suit and my distinctive long black Matrix coat (this touch of éclan proves to be my undoing). Eager to make a good impression I bound onto the street dead on time having vaulted down three flights of stairs.

The road is a relatively short one before leaving the city centre- five minutes on foot max. No sooner have we set off then we encounter my ex who bounds over to chat. We part on good terms (again) and continue on our way, while I ponder the likelihood of such a chance meeting as said ex is out of her usual territory, my thoughts are interrupted by yet another ex, whom I virtually collide with. She too says hi, is introduced to my love and continues on her way. “Small world” I say to my love as we continue, who agrees that life can indeed be coincidental. That is until ten feet later when she alerts me to a tall dark woman waving manically from the other side of the street: another ex (this one usually famed for her retiring reticence has suddenly become Judy-bl**dy-Garland on a float parade. I grimace hysterically back and do the I’m busy salute wave without slowing my pace.)

I begin to calculate the probabilities of this occurring by chance, I never hitherto considered myself a grape on the proverbial vine, could this be an ambush of sorts? I decide a drink is in order for both of us- always good for paranoia. This is not bright on my part, we sneak up the requisite side alley, enter gay bar, there seated in bar as the ONLY person in the room is another ex- yet another (this one normally lives in a different city). I spin us on the spot, steer my love out by the arm and we retreat. “Another ex?” she jokes, I flash a smile nervously, by now I am calculating the best route out to get us out undetected, Mission Impossible style.

“News travels faster than on Grease with the drive in and Rizzo’s pregnancy…" I offer up erratically.
"...Not that anyone’s pregnant,” I clarify redundantly. Cool has deserted me and I am beginning to babble, anything to drown out my love’s inner dialogue, she is visibly moving her fingers one at a time. My mobile rings, I seize it, grateful for a momentary distraction, up pops a former lover’s name. Call divert, city divert selected.

We reach the perimeter of the pedestrianised city centre at high velocity- I am avoiding the tree-lined pedestrianised avenue in favour of roadside pavement. I am striding as I never have before, and already breathing a sigh of relief, “Fancy seeing ALL of them like that!” I say, hoping I hadn’t overdone the otherwise subtle stress on "all". I am interrupted by a little dinging sound, as a cyclist veers in, “Hey!” chimes my cheery gardener ex, “Fancy seeing you here. What are the odds?” I warily survey my love- she has run out of fingers on the one hand, “You’d be surprised.”

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