Dougton

Dougton - Chapter 5

Mat put down the glass of water, took one last look at himself, pivoted around, and as soon as he found the nearest exit to backstage - he headed in that direction. He couldn’t believe he was actually about to do this. He was about to ask Martha to dinner - dinner!

As he was speedily walking down the corridor, out of doors and into others, Mat thought to himself; ‘What if she says no? What if she’s disgusted at the idea of having dinner with me... just me What if -’

‘Oi! Watch were you’re going!’ ‘Oh my god, I’m so sorry!’ Mat replied quickly. He had carelessly bumped into a, quite large, man. He must have been at least 2 feet taller than him and seemed incredibly strong. This dark - haired man was wearing a black shirt and had a backstage pass hanging around his neck. He also seemed to be getting increasingly mad at poor Mat - who was shaking uncontrollably.

‘I - I’m sorry, I should have been more careful’ Mat gulped as he apologized to the large stranger, only to be replied with a low grunt. The man squinted his eyes and walked off, not taking a second look at the thin man. ‘Oh dear lord’ Mat sighed and rested his back against the wall. With his confidence shattered, he started to doubt himself.

‘Who am I kidding... Why would someone as beautiful as her want to be with me...’ Mat found himself talking aloud, but thought nothing of it; considering there was music playing in the restaurant and no one knew he was lingering in the corridor. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes and quietly hummed his favourite song in the whole world - ‘Something’s Always There’ by the Aerojets. This always calmed him down, and it did just that; but not enough to convince himself to talk to Martha.

‘I think I might go look for him’ said Martha loudly across the table, trying to be heard over the music. ‘What?’ replied Jim, even louder. Realizing there was no use in trying again, Martha got up from her chair, walked around to where Jim was sitting and replied ‘I said, I’m going to look for Mat.’ Ben, who was sitting right next to Jim said ‘Are you crazy? you don’t have a backstage pass!’  Martha paused to think about this minor problem before replying. ‘I’ll think of something. Plus, if they still don’t let me in, well... I can be very seducive..’ Grinning, she turned her head to face Jim and gave him a wink.

‘You are one crazy lady, you know that?’ said Jim, chuckling. Martha laughed and stood up  - right. ‘Wish me luck, boys!’ Ben and Jim just rolled their eyes whilst Simon screamed ‘Good Luck, Martha!’ raising a glass of wine - even though he had no clue what Martha was talking about. Let’s just say he consumed a little too much alcohol for one night... which is not that suprising for Simon.

Martha adjusted her hair, and fiddled with her top, before beginning her quest for the ‘Back Stage’. (Dun dun duuun!)

At this point, Mat given up all hope of talking to Martha about dinner that night, and instead was sitting up against the wall, his thighs against his chest and his head resting on his knees. As he hugged his legs he vaguely recognised the song that was playing on the other side of the wall. ‘Ha ha!’ Mat laughed to himself. ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart!’ He couldn’t hear the song very clearly, due to people talking and laughing and making noise, as well as a thick piece of cement separating him from the stage.

Mat rested the back of his head on the wall, letting a naughty curl of his fringe fall onto the top of his nose. He blew if off. He then shut his eyes once more as he started to hum the lyrics to himself.

‘Excuse me, how can I get backstage?’ Martha was desperate to find Mat and talk to him about how wonderful his performance was... or even just talk to him. ‘Oh, sure’ replied the young lady with a pair of headphones around her neck. ‘Go right to the back of the restaurant there you’ll find a door labelled ‘Exit’ to your right. Go right down the corridor, until you reach the second last door to your left. Then simply go up the stairs and you’re there!’

‘That’s great, thank you!’ Martha smiled at the girl and walked to where she was told - avoiding chairs, tables and people holding platters filled with food. ‘I’m never going to remember that!’ Martha worrying thought to herself, acknowledging her terrible memory; but tried to repeat what the girl had previously told her. ‘Right, then second to the left. Right, then second to the left.’

Martha reached the exit door and entered the corridor. ‘Hello?’ said Martha quietly, but got no response. The corridor was completely empty - except... there was someone at the very end of the corridor, with their head in their hands... They looked sad. Martha frowned and started to walk towards the, what now looked like, a man.

Mat swore he could hear footsteps... high heels? No, he had to be mistaken... He sighed and dug his head deeper into his hands. ‘Mat? Are you alright?’ Mat instantly looked up to find Martha looking down at him with a very concerned look on her face. ‘Wow, she is gorgeous..’ thought Mat.

Unexpected butterflies filled his stomach and he felt like he could breathe again. He quickly stood up and smiled at Martha, trying not to look like more of a dork than he already had. ‘I - um... yeah. Sure’ Mat offered a nervous smile as his heart started to race.

‘Oh, that’s good then... what are you doing here?’ Martha asked, her heart also racing. ‘Me? Oh, I was - I was just... thinking.’ Mat replied looking down at his feet with his hands in his pockets; desperately trying to think of something to say. ‘God he looks cute when he’s nervous’ thought Martha.

‘More importantly, what are you doing here?’ Mat asked. ‘Oh, I wanted to tell you I really enjoyed your performance. You were amazing.’ Martha smiled. ‘You’re amazing...’ ‘What?’ ‘What?’ ‘You said I was -’ ‘Did I? I must have something in my throat...’ And in that moment, Mat wanted to crawl into a little ball and die, while Martha was grinning her head off; realizing that Mat had actually meant it.

Mat couldn’t believe he had said that. ‘Anyways, thank you.’ He said, finally breaking the awkward silence. Martha smiled at him in response. ‘So.. do you mind if I ask what you were thinking of?’ ‘Huh?’ ‘You said you were just thinking.’ Mat looked up at Martha and into her gorgeous blue eyes, his mouth going dry. He tried to speak but no sound would come out. ‘Yes...?’ Martha asked again, teasing him a little.

‘Oh my god, this is it. I won’t get a better opportunity than this’ Mat thought to himself as he tried to build up the nerve to ask that dreaded question. His head dropped back down to face his shoes as he started to shake a little. ‘I - I was... just, thinking...’ Mat managed to get out. ‘Go on...’ Martha said, a smile slowly crawling upon her lips. ‘Well, I was just thinking, if maybe... sometime...’

‘Proceed...’ ‘You would want to... you don’t have to... but I was just thinking...’ Mat’s palms were starting to sweat as he realised how bad he actually was at this. ‘Mat-’ Martha put her hands on his shoulders, forcing him to look at her. ‘Just tell me.’ Mat took a deep breath.

‘Martha, would you like to have dinner with me?’ At this point Mat’s heart had stopped the next 5 seconds of waiting for a response were the longest 5 seconds of his life. He looked straight into Martha’s eyes as he swallowed - and prepared himself for the worst.

‘I would love to.’ Martha couldn’t believe it! She had only dreamt that Mat would ask her to dinner! She wanted to dance on clouds and slide down rainbows and ride on unicorns all at once, but instead she replied with a very sophisticated ‘I would love to.’ ‘I completely understand. Don’t worry about it, I wasn’t - wait, what?!’ Had he just heard what he thought he just heard?! Mat couldn’t believe his ears!

‘I said, I would love to.’ Martha had a big smile across her face, causing her eyes to crease and turn her cheeks bright red. ‘Are you serious?! I mean, that’s great, that’s really good.’ Mat was also blushing and in that moment he was the happiest man alive. He wanted to hop across the stars in the night sky and go running though fields of sunflowers - holding Martha’s hand.

For a few seconds, they just stood there staring into each other’s eyes, smiling uncontrollably. ‘This was going to be good. This was going to be great.’ thought both Mat and Martha, as they walked down the corridor together - with their fingers intertwined.