Alexa's Story Chapter One

Chapter One


My brain acknowledged that a horrendous noise was being made outside my realm of consciousness and, as I crawled out from under my covers and squinted in the direction the noise was coming from, my brain slowly clicked into gear, my eyes came into focus, and my hearing realised that it was the alarm clock shouting at me, telling me it was time to get up.

Seven o’clock. I hate seven o’clock in the morning. Unless, of course, I’m approaching it after having been out all night, in which case it marks a wild night and is generally welcomed with open arms.

I contemplated ignoring the fact that I needed to get up for work and considered rolling over and burying myself back under the duvet for at least a few more minutes, but I realised, just in time, that if I hit the snooze button again then there would be no time to grab a very necessary coffee from Starbuck’s before reaching the office.

I forced myself out of the nice warm spot I’d created for myself and stumbled around my flat, showering and attempting to make myself presentable for eight hours in an office. After a few moments of panic at not being able to find my mobile and then realising I’d left it on the bedside table, I dashed out of the house and headed to the tube station. I live in North London, close enough to the city centre to be able to travel in or travel home at pretty much anytime of day or night, but far enough away for it to be considered suburbia , and to not be charged extortionate rent prices.

I entered Harrow-on-the-Hill station. I bought my ticket and headed down to the platform. I tried to catch a glimpse of my reflection in a shop window, and attempted to check if I looked any slimmer. Of course I didn’t. But then I realised that the reflection couldn’t be me because the outline reflected had an afro. A split second later I understood that, in fact, the reflection was me and somehow, in the panic of mislaying my precious mobile I had totally forgotten to brush my hair, let alone use any products on it. You see, last night I used a deep conditioning treatment on my medium-length, brown-blonde hair in order to try and make it as soft and silky as the advert suggested, and so went to bed with dampish hair. After all my moving around in bed (I was alone I might add, I just happen to be quite a restless sleeper), I had ended up, not with luscious silky locks, but with a mop of frizz, and was in desperate need of a brush and a hair band to scrape it all together.

I had to frantically decide whether it would be worth going back out of the station and trying to find a shop open that sold anything that could possibly help me, or to board the train that was due in 3 minutes and attempt to hide my big bush hair until I reached Oxford Street and could dive into the nearest Boots and restore my head to normality. I decided on the later, simply because I couldn’t be bothered trekking out of the station, missing my train and arriving late for work. Plus I thought I could get away with mad hair for about an hour. Being in London does have its advantages after all.



I legged it into Boots, bought the necessary emergency equipment on my straining credit card and after being tutted at by the overly made up sales assistant for not having enough cash on me (and for having a bad hair day and daring to even make an appearance looking as I did) I rushed into the coffee shop next door and bought myself a latté – skinny of course.

I headed towards Soho, relishing the few minutes of freedom I had left before I entered the offices of Global Group Ltd and climbed up the stairs towards the Finance offices. A lot of my friends think I’m lucky to work in Soho, and for a media-related company, but I don’t understand their enthusiasm. Yes, the company I work for does things for the BBC and every so often gets a famous person in to do a voice over, but that side of the company has absolutely nothing to do with me because I work in the Finance Department. And as for working in Soho, I have to admit that it’s quite cool to be able to say to people that that’s where I work. In the summer there’s a great park nearby where it’s nice to bloke spot and have lunch, but apart from that I’m actually cooped up in an office all day and the view from the 3rd floor isn’t all that fab.

I really can’t be bothered to describe to you the tedious, boring, repetitive things I have to do each day, but be it suffice to say I make tea or coffee as many times a day as possible and the longest I’ve got away with playing Solitaire on the computer, and not working, is 3 hours and 13 minutes. Not bad, huh? Instead, I’ll describe myself. I'm fairly tall - not overly so, but enough for it to be nice when a guy is taller than me. I'm 25, with fair skin, and I have brown wavy hair that I try and lighten with highlights when I can afford them, and I either wear it curly or straight (one of the advantages of wavy hair- a disadvantage being this morning’s drama), and I'm a size 16. Not many people actually admit to being this size, but after quite a few years of being called large, big boned, curvy and, my least favourite, “in proportion” I’ve come to accept what I am. That is to say, not a skinny person. I never have been, and I never will be. I try and give the illusion that it doesn’t bother me, but deep down I’d love to drop a dress size or two. If I was to describe my body I’d say that I have a typical hourglass figure; a decent bust, a smaller waist and, as my grandmother would call them, childbearing hips. My favourite part of my body has to be my face. Not all of it though. I’m proud of my eyes and after having got rid of glasses and moved on to contact lenses I show them off whenever I can. I also like my lips. I’ve been told I have very kissable lips and I think I have to agree. I don’t understand how people with hardly any lips can kiss. And then there are my teeth. Frankly, I’m not amazed by them, but plenty of guys have commented on my white teeth (straight of course, thanks to my mother’s insistence on regular visits to the dentist).

All in all I’m not ugly, but I'm certainly not beautiful and after having realised that I’ve got to put up with what I’ve been blessed with I make full use of what I do have. Let’s just say that my curves are appreciated. Oh, I won’t beat about the metaphorical bush, I have many a man whistle after me (and not only builders and old codgers), but in general black men are the majority of Alexa appreciators. That’s my name by the way. Alexa. Pleased to meet you. Typical me! I tell you random things about me before you even get to know me properly. Well, anyway, back to Black Men. They go for me. And I go for them! Don’t get me wrong I'm not some white girl bling-blinging it up all over the place, attempting to be black, but I do love R&B and Hip Hop. I love to dance and I’ve been out with a fair few black men. Now, I know exactly what you’re thinking here, and yes for the record I will say that in my experience it tends to be true! But not all the time, ok? I’ve also been out with white guys, Asian guys, Jews, Christians, Muslims and Indians. If they interest me and I interest them then they have a chance. Right now I’m not seeing anyone and the last bloke I dated was a nice guy from Barnet. But he was just a little bit too nice and a little bit too Jewish. I'm Jewish too; I just don’t make a big deal out of it like he did.

In regards to religion, I believe but I don’t practise, mainly due to my lifestyle (i.e. young, living in London) and I'm not overly religious. I rarely go to synagogue but I do attempt to not eat pork and other non-kosher food. The one thing that does tend to be a problem is my parents. They aren’t overly religious themselves but they still have their traditional backgrounds to contend with and therefore find it quite hard to accept that I might have a non-white boyfriend, and that I’m certainly not a virgin.

In general, my parents are okay. I lived at home until I was 18 and went to the University of Lancaster (Accounting & Finance degree, hence the boring job I have now). Without going into too much detail of the ups and downs of university life I will just tell you that I made some excellent friends (my best mate Laura), learnt how to drink excessively and made it through three years without attending many 9am lectures. One thing I did plenty of at university was enjoy myself, and one of the places I had most fun at was work. I had a part time job in one of the bars in the city centre, but it wasn’t your typical student bar even though it was mainly students who ended up working there. I always had great fun at work, and was in my element shaking cocktails and my booty on R&B nights. I even became supervisor after having worked there for two years and I carried on working there for a while after university finished in order to get some cash together before having to get a “real” job. If only I knew then that a “real” job meant being bored from nine till five, Monday to Friday, I would have never left.

At least today is Friday and I don’t have to worry about getting up at an ungodly hour tomorrow. Tonight I'm supposed to be meeting Laura in my local pub and have a good catch up session on what she’s been up to all week. Saturday night is normally my clubbing night, and Friday night is normally my pubbing night. Nothing too hectic after having been working all week, but without the worry of drinking too much and having to function properly the next day, in spite of a hangover.

I looked at the grey clock on the walls of my office and calculated that I have seven hours left till I can wind down and relax. And only three of them to be spent at this desk. Roll on the weekend.