I managed to get out without Kully on Friday night. My next door neighbour Andy a 43 year old systems analyst with a serious drug and alcohol habit asked me to some works do. He asked Kully too but she reckoned he was an old deviant so she stayed in.

Andy is a good laugh, one of these guys who likes having fun and doesn't dwell too much on the consequences. He was one of those eighties students who did loads of hitching across Europe, taking drugs and sleeping in huts, watching Liverpool in European Cup finals and getting into all that Summer of Love ecstasy crap at the start. He has a fine collection of shit albums by guys like the Stone Roses and Happy Mondays. In the 90's he grew up got a decent job then in keeping with times (he really is Mr Zeitgeist)jacked it in to bum around Moshav work camps, Egypt and eventually India for a couple of years. When he came back he lived in a few London squats before marrying some crazy woman from Walthamstow who ripped him off and divorced him once he'd bought the big house for her. That was about four years ago, he moved in beside me shortly afterwards and our shared interest in beer and shagging has led to some decent nights out.

Anyway I have rambled a bit but its useful background for what happened this weekend. Andy's colleagues are the usual bunch of IT twats with plenty of money and no commonsense and that geek's idea of a good time. Once the free bar closed me and Andy went off to the pub next door and got talking to a couple of eighties throwbacks, goth females one with wild Siouxsie hair and the other with blond crimped hair. We almost wet ourselves looking at them, the Siouxsie clone was called Skippy or Chippy I couldn't tell the music was too loud. The other one was called Sarah and I got on quite well with her.

At closing time we went to their favourite club, where me and Andy looked like the freaks, two catalogue men (mature section) in a world of black clothes and white face powder. By two o'clock we were walking back to Sarah and Chippy's place. Andy and Chippy were bickering about the Mission and the Jesus and Mary Chain. Sarah and me were arm in arm and getting friendlier.

At their place after an hour of so of polite conversation Andy was unconscious and I was in bed with Sarah. Sounds great so far eh! Well not quite a home run, lots of kissing and petting but no penetration. A real disappointment. Sarah had a very similar build and body to Kully and strangely the same stringy nipples, must be something in the water round here. I did have the odd pang of guilt about my live in lover, back home but it didn't out me off.

We talked a lot too and it soon became clear she had a boyfriend and that was why the action wasn't going to a conclusion. I asked where he was and she said he was a soldier. 'In Iraq or Afghanistan?' I asked. 'Neither he's a deserter, and he's on the run. He didn't fancy going back to Iraq so he slipped out of Catterick six months ago and has been lying low ever since'. 'One of these guys who didn't like the army when it stopped being a shoe polishing club, is that it?' I said. 'No, it was the stress out in Iraq. He couldn't face the hostility of the people he was trying to help' she whimpered. 'I've enough experience of the Brits idea of helping the locals at Killyleagh border post to understand exactly why the local Iraqis treat them with a little hostility' says I.

She took my cynicism rather well and told me his name was Bill, a scouser and surprisingly a para. In Iraq apparently the first time his unit met some hostiles late one night, they dropped to the floor and he admitted to shitting himself unable to look up or fire. Seemingly he wasn't the only one who bottled it. There were lots of smelly blokes after the firefight ended.

The next morning she made breakfast and we stayed in bed most of the day talking and petting. I turned off my mobile to avoid any calls from Kully. Andy had disappeared before anyone else got up. On Saturday evening we went back out to the pub I met them in, along with a lod of their pals including an arse called Chris from Newry with a real attitude problem. The kind of kid who missed the worst of the troubles but still feels oppressed by the British state. We argued intermittently. We went back to the Goth club and then home to Sarah's for a late night bevvy and boring drug smoking session. We retired to bed for more snogging and fondling. I was getting a bit smelly by this stage and determined to go home asap but Sarah seemed to like me so I stayed the night.

After breakfast on Sunday morning I said my goodbyes, exchanged phone no's and promised to be in touch. Sarah seemed keen to see me again. I wandered home to face the music, suddenly concerned about how I had treated Kully. The flat was empty, her clothes were gone, there was no note, the only trace of her was several empty Nescafe jars on the draining board. I sat down listened to some fraught and abusive answer phone messages but didn't feel too upset at her departure.

After lunch I knocked Andy's door, he answered rather sheepishly. 'Oh I'm really sorry mate, I didn't mean any harm' he gibbered. 'What the fuck are you talking about?' I retorted. 'You don't know?' he gasped. 'She didn't tell you?' 'No she called me a few names on Saturday morning but nothing since then. What happened?'

I sat down in his living room and he told me a story that really confirmed that life is stranger than fiction. He got home about nine on Saturday morning and went to bed. Kully practically kicked his door in an hour later, demanding to know where I was. Andy, possibly due to the drugs, just can't tell lies and generally doesn't bother especially if he is hungover. He told her the full story and suggested that I had gone to bed with sarah but he couldn't be sure because he had fallen asleep. She went ballistic then burst into tears and went back to my flat. Andy could hear her sobbing through the wall. Being a sensitive soul he went round and made her something to eat and gave her a hug. According to him Kully went a bit wild and started snogging him. Before he knew it they were naked in my bed. Just as he was about to enter her she leapt up, shouted this is not right, get out you old pervert. He tried to remonstrate but she pushed him naked out the dooor and threw his clothes after him. Through his spyhole he saw her leave an hour later with her suitcases. Hence his sheepishness.

I laughed 'Don't worry you did me a favour, pal, if she was in when I got home she would've killed me.'