Jack the liar- the ladies (pt 2)

When I introduced you to Jack, I'm not sure I did a good enough job in describing our main character. Forgive me, this is my first attempt at such storytelling.

I'm a heterosexual man so while I'm not actively looking for attractive men in my life, I also have no problem admitting when another man is handsome. I quite happily take part in the singles at work chats about their tinder matches or celebrity crushes.

I wouldn't say Jack was handsome enough to be a universal objective of desire; he wasn't my cup of tea but from what I witnessed, he was a flavour of tea some enjoyed. Or at least a tea they were happy to settle for at 2am on a Saturday night.

Jack was English but not posh English - if you asked the other English people we worked with, they described him as a bit of a chav (the UK equivalent of our Australian bogan or for our US friends, a red neck) but for some, he had that British accent that made him irresistible.

A chiseled jaw but at the same time baby faced, incapable of growing facial hair with quite pale skin. Loved to wear a white single (or vest, again depending on where you grew up) under his work shorts but also as the primary item of clothing on a weekend.

Dark brown, even black hair that I think he may have actually dyed black potentially to cover some early greys. He was only in his mid 20s when we worked together and as I grew to understand how superficial he was, covering up some greys with the cheapest packet of Just for Men he could get his hands on, would have been no surprise.

Skinny but not with rippling muscles, if he were an Olympic athlete he's look most like a middle distance runner.

Deep brown eyes. Had they been baby blues, we would have been at his mercy.

But it was his confidence and cheek paired with British accent that turned him into the boy your mother warned you about. And he was definitely a boy in the time I knew Jack, he was many years and maturity points away from becoming a proper adult man.

The first time I witnessed his him in action was quite early in his time working with us. We did these yearly client gift drops and I got paired up with him to drive around Sydney for a day, just Jack and I in my 2003 dark blue Toyota echo filled to the gills with boxes of donuts.

One of the first clients we visited had a young receptionist who he locked onto like a heat seeking missile the second we walked through the door.

"Is Kate here?" I asked.

"No she's not in today, but I can take that for you" the receptionist offered and took the box from me.

Great, in and out I thought. We had about 30 more of these to do that day and I was keen to get through them as quickly as possible. I was half way out the door when I turned to see where Jack was and he was back at reception, crouched down to eye level with the receptionist, a cheshire cat grin on his face and a coy, blushed face on hers.

"You. Are. Gorgeous" he said through a smile.

WTF is this guy doing I thought. I'm not one to get between young love but this is our clients office, it's 9:34am and he's trying to pick up?

I could have been jealous, my dalliances as a single man were usually through someone I'd met more than once i.e. at work, studying, through friends or like a lot of Australian men, when drunk. This sort of confidence - or was it arrogance - was not something I'd ever possessed.

Within a minute her phone number was on a sticky note and we were out the door.

"Wasn't she a naughty little thing?" Jack said, as creepily as you'd imagine it would have sounded. I didn't respond which I often did with Jack, I wasn't the source of the type of banter he wanted.

I don't want to paint myself as the perfect gentleman who has never had conversations like this with mates but I barely knew Jack and we were at work plus he was so gross about how pervy he was that it even made me - a bogan kid from Western Sydney - uncomfortable.

Jack's romances weren't a primary concern of mine at the time, so if the receptionist found him attractive enough to give him her number, may a thousand blossoms bloom for all I care.

So when I introduced Jack to a friend of a friend on a night out, I didn't think much of it. She was single, he was single, maybe they will find eternal happiness.

Well Jack and Bianca did not find eternal happiness but they did find short term happiness, 2-3 times from what I recall.

I know this because on Monday, Jack sent me a VERY detailed email describing the temporary love he and Bianca shared. So vivid was his email that I couldn't dare repeat it here without risking a life ban from LinkedIn, it was R rated for sure. I remember the email as well as my reply: "FFS Jack, too much info and it's not even 10am"

Months later I saw Bianca at a party and she asked about Jack, who I explained had recently left our company.

"oh good. He gave me an STD you know"

No Bianca I didn't know that I thought. What I said was something awkward like "that's not surprising" because I'm not good when you put me on the spot with such random information that I definitely didn't ask or give any indication that I wanted to know.

He had a few other ladies in his life that he liked to tell me about. One was a client who we hardly worked with but was all of a sudden a guest at an industry event.

Another I don't remember much about, except for one particular story that Jack told me with a huge amount of pride. She was really into him, he wasn't fussed by her. One day he was in her area and text her to see if she was home and she was.

He was there 5 minutes later, did a sh*t and left. "Did you just come here to take a sh*t!?" she yelled on his way out of the door. He thought it was funny, she did not.

Surprisingly, Jack did find eventually find love with another and while the relationship wasn't interesting enough to tell you about, it did result in two of Jack's most unhinged lies.

Part 3 - A tube in the bum - up next.