When Alicia's first date in yonks ended in hospital, she wondered if she'd hit rock bottom...
Adding the finishing touches to my make-up, I messaged my friend, Layla.
I’m venturing out on a date, I wrote. I need to stop being such a grandma!
Oh, good luck! she texted back.
My date was with a guy named Chris, who’d first messaged me on Instagram.
I was a raunchy content creator, so I often got messages from men, and didn’t usually respond.
But I couldn’t help noticing this guy had a great body in his profile photos.
Chris didn’t drink, so we arranged to meet up at a local food market.
I’d never been the nervous type, but it was a relief to see he looked just like he did online.
‘You’re my dream girl, you know?’ he said, grinning. ‘I knew I needed to take my chance when you followed me back
on Insta.’
Over the evening, we wandered around the food stalls, sharing pasta, quesadillas and dumplings.
We had both moved to the area only recently, and talked about how hard it was being away from
our families.
The conversation was a bit deeper than a usual first date!
Later that night, Chris drove me home.
I hadn’t been planning on asking him in, but just as I was about to get out of the car, I changed my mind.
‘Would you want to come up?’ I asked.
‘I wouldn’t say no,’ he replied cheekily.
'This can't be happening'
We fell into bed, and I soon discovered it wasn’t just his biceps that were super-sized!
And it turned out we both shared an adventurous approach to bedroom antics.
Chris stayed over and, as the next day was Sunday, we had plenty of time for round two.
This time, we got a bit more creative and made use of a sex toy – a butt plug – I had handy.
But just 10 minutes into our shenanigans, I felt it fall out.
‘Hold on, it’ll be here in the duvet somewhere,’ I said.
But after a few minutes of searching, it was still nowhere to be seen.
That’s when something occurred to me – maybe it had never actually emerged…
Inserting a finger into my nether regions, I soon felt the unmistakable shape of the plug through my vaginal wall.
‘This can’t be happening,’ I said. ‘It’s stuck inside me!’
‘Try squatting down in the shower and removing it,’ Chris suggested.
I hurried down the hall to the bathroom, though I made Chris stay in the bedroom.
It was embarrassing enough as it was, without him watching!
But try as I might, it was stuck fast.
Luckily, my friend, Layla, was
a nurse, so I gave her a ring.
When I explained the situation, she reacted the way any true best friend would – she burst
out laughing.
‘You could try laxatives,’ she suggested when she’d calmed down. ‘But otherwise you should probably go to hospital.’
As I got dressed, I told Chris he didn’t need to come with me
if he didn’t want to.
But he said there was no way he was letting me go alone.
So, we continued our first date by driving to A&E, stopping off for breakfast bagels on the way.
At reception, I explained what was wrong.
‘It’s not painful at all,’ I said. ‘But it’s definitely up there.’
‘I can see you two have been having a fun night!’ the nurse giggled.
She led us to a curtained room where a doctor came in to speak to us.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘We’ve seen much weirder. One man even put a set of Russian nesting dolls up his bum.’
‘That makes me feel better. At least the plug is meant to be there!’ I joked.
The X-ray also had us in stitches.
The little heart-shaped base showed up hilariously clearly on the image.
But though the nurses did their best to extract it manually, they had no luck, and I was starting to get really sore.
Chris even had another go when they left the room.
Eventually, they decided they’d need to get me into surgery and prise it out with forceps.
‘There’ll be a bit of a wait,’ the nurse warned me. ‘Can your boyfriend stay with you?’
‘Um… yes, I think so,’ I said awkwardly.
I didn’t want to admit that we were actually on a first date!
Chris fetched me a few things from home and we settled in to wait.
I decided against telling my mum – she was just as sex-positive as me, but I didn’t want to worry her.
Chris and I spent the rest of the day watching Netflix in my hospital bed.
But as the day went on, I started feeling more uncomfortable.
I wasn’t allowed to eat, so I was starving.
At the same time, I was anxious about getting behind with work and, worst of all, I was beginning to feel like I needed the loo!
'We'll go in with forceps first'
In the end, the procedure wasn’t performed until the following afternoon.
The hospital wouldn’t let Chris sleep over, but he promised he’d be back before my operation.
And true to his word, he showed up with a huge bunch of flowers just before I was wheeled in.
The doctor gave me a quick rundown of the procedure.
‘The heart-shaped base is a problem,’ he explained. ‘The narrow edge makes it easier for your body to just suck it up like
a vacuum.’
He said that if I didn’t get the plug removed, it could even lead to a perforated bowel.
‘We’ll go in with forceps first,’ he said. ‘But if that doesn’t work, we’ll need to make an incision through your stomach.’
‘Sorry, what?’ I asked.
‘That will make the recovery time much longer,’ he continued. ‘And you’ll have to be fitted with a stoma. But hopefully, there’ll be no need.’
My stomach flipped with anxiety, but at that point there was nothing to be done but go ahead.
And just 10 minutes after they
put me to sleep,
I felt myself coming
round from the anaesthetic.
My first move was to check my stomach.
But fortunately, there didn’t seem to be an incision!
The nurse told me they’d successfully removed the plug with forceps.
‘I did have to throw it away afterwards,’ she said.
‘Believe me, that’s totally fine!’ I replied.
After a few hours of waiting with Chris – and eating horrible hospital sandwiches – the doctors told me I was OK to go home.
We stopped for a KFC before heading back to my flat.
‘Time for a second date?’ Chris joked.
The next day, I rang Layla to update her.
‘You won’t believe it,’ I said. ‘But when we got home, we went straight back to bed!’
‘Alicia!’ she said. ‘You didn’t use a butt plug again, did you?’
‘Oh my gosh, absolutely not!’
I replied.
Since then, it’s been a great first-date story to tell at parties, especially with the accompanying X-ray!
I don’t mind being the butt of the joke.
Unfortunately, Chris and I didn’t end up working out, as he wasn’t comfortable with some of the things I do for work.
Even so, I’m still so grateful for all his support in hospital.
No ifs, ands or butts about it!
Alicia Davis, 32
Follow Alicia on Instagram @littlebrunettebaddie