It would appear I’ve gotten off to a flyer in 2013.

Here in Brazil, samba is in the air. Street parties, sweltering hot sunshine and then me and my pasty high-status skin colour. Who would suffer the cold of February in London when the promised land of Brazilian ass lies just a plane ticket away? I’ve barely touched down home from a romantic weekend in Barcelona with Belorussian before I’m packing my flip-flops and suncream to go visit my old buddy Suave. Ah, life is good!

I don’t speak a word of Portuguese but the local girls seem to find me shiny and exotic. You have to take your good luck when it comes. First night I make out with a tall leggy office girl who would’ve been good to go if her sister didn’t cockblock. Next night I get a super-cute university student but more sisterly cockblocking knocks that on the head. Third night I’m in Suave’s hometown and headed into the centre for a long street party. I’m excited.

Then he twists his ankle stepping off a kerb, hobbling himself. Our mightly plans to work the party evaporate. He hobbles home to ice it. Fuck. I’m left with a couple of his friends I just met who are making a good effort at looking after me but its a vibe-killer for game. Time to mentally reframe myself. Fate has forced me out of my comfort zone. All growth happens outside the comfort zone. OK, get into the Now, chat to these people, just enjoy the carnival like a normal tourist. So for an hour I’m following these people around and maintaining a faltering conversation. I really appreciate them taking the time with me. One is a woman who looks about mid-thirties but has kept herself in great shape, from mid-range she looks really hot in her short-shorts but just doesn’t maintain my boner up close. She clearly fancies me. And thus begins an internal tug-of-war.

This girl is smiling, dancing, making sure I don’t lose her. She’s a nice person having a good time. But my eyes constantly wander over all the hot young uni students also here, the girls Suave and I would’ve been making a crack at. So much supple young skin on show. I don’t see many eights but there’s a sea of young sixes and sevens. I’m at sixes and sevens now, looking at it but unable to touch lest I seem ungrateful to my hosts by ditching them.

And my vibe is flat. I doubt I’d make a good job of it.

Then two things change in rapid succession. I enter that magical beer-zone of just-pissed-enough that my social inhibitions drop. Then that girl makes a stronger play for me and I’m kissing her within a throng of party-goers. Click! I hit state. She goes off to dance leaving me with some dark skinned girl in a short wedding dress / tiara combo who responds splendidly to my reflexive attraction material. She’s touching, pawing, leading me by the hand through the crowd. Instinctively I know she’s a player, I recognise all the little touches to pull me off balance and into her frame so I backturn, talk to others, push away in correct measure. Mentally I have her recorded as a strong lead for an hour down the line. And then I’m just social-opening everyone, stealing girl’s hats, teasing. I spend ten minutes sitting on a kerb with a super cute little uni student dressed as a butterfly with colourful paint all over her. She’s into me but resists the kiss.

I’m buzzing. The new friends I’m with bump into me every now and then with a look of increduility that this is the same guy who was so serious and taciturn less than two hours earlier. My comfort zone has stretched. And then I see something that occupies the very centre of the most comfortable zone I have.

A solo girl walking alongside the carnival throng, in the opposite direction, going somewhere. Wearing a rucksack.

A fucking rucksack. Every London daygamer’s dream signal.

I cut through the throng like Rickson through a black belt and appear in front of her. Immediately its just on. Her eyes sparkle, she has a huge smile, and my patter is perfect. I kino fast with side hugs, hair-messing and so on. She’s got little Lara Croft shorts and schoolgirl socks pulled up to her knees. Little hamster-y face. My type all over, probably a low-7. She’s not drunk but on her way to pick up some clothes before starting work at 6:30am (it’s about half four now).

I kiss her less than five minutes in then bounce across the road for a sit down. I run comfort, kiss more, and start thinking about a fast street-to-bed. She’s agreed in principle so we start walking. I try to lie her down in the middle of a park but she’s not having it. So I try to drag her into a supermarket carpark. Not having that either. I can feel its on the edge, her desire to fuck exactly equal to the opposite anxiety over not being that kind of girl. We sit down on a bench and I pull her onto my lap. She’s verbalising how she loves sex but it has to be nice, not squalid. The window is closing, I think it won’t happen.

“We should go to a motel,” she says.

Brilliant. Flag down a taxi, jump in, and within half an hour I’ve got her face pushed into the pillow while I plow her from behind. Some seconds in the shower and then she has to get dressed for work. One hour street to bed, maybe faster. I’d like the Game Adjudication Committee to rule on whether this constitutes an SDL or an SNL. Essentially, this was a fast street-stop that happended at night, when I was drunk. On such details rests the fate of nations.