1. Cayden's Once Upon a Time

I just realized that by now you know all about me: the boys I've dated, the boy who owns my vcard, the boys who broke my heart, my orgasm-induced toe cramps, and my backstory leading up to how I ended up in this magical little magical fairytale. But you don't know all that much about Cayden, aside from the fact that he has an adorable accent and he's made me the happiest girl in the whole world. So I asked you all via Twitter if you'd want to Cayden to write a chapter (if you're not following me on Twitter, do it! @whitforbrit), and the consensus was yes!

So, I'm handing tonight's chapter over to Cayden. From reading this, I hope that you see that he wasn't always a Prince Charming, and he's been the frog many poor little ladies in the past. But some frogs grow up to be princes :)

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9 years Before Whitney

Cayden here. I heard you want to hear a little bit about me, so here goes. I must warn you, if you thought my early emails of epic proportions to Whitney back when we first met were long….you may want to grab yourself a strong coffee for this one!

Ok, so the story begins.
I had just turned 17 and started my first year of college in my home town in the North of England. It wasn’t the most happening place to be, people set in their ways with little in the way of ambition. People there had no desire to move away and see what the world had to offer. Truth be told, I didn’t really want to see what the world had to offer, all I knew I wanted was to be working in a great job, earning great money in a big, bustling city. I didn’t know where that would be, at the time I didn’t know where that even existed, so I kind of just went with the flow and began studying business.

Although I achieved good grades at school, I was never the studious type. My mind would wander, I was impatient, and I wanted a good career there and then and without having to go through years of painful studying just to receive a certificate at the end of it all. I realised this partway through my first year of college and made the big decision to drop out and join the Royal Air Force.

The day I left for the Royal Air Force back in June 2000, I knew it would be a hard day. My mother had gone through a tough few years of life, and I was the last of my siblings at home with her and I was about to leave. I knew my mother would be upset, she’d be left alone in a huge 5-bedroom Victorian house that had seen so much drama over the 30 years she’d lived there. Most people would have dreaded leaving their mother alone in that situation, alone and feeling empty, but I knew that if I didn’t leave, I’d never get away. Saying goodbye to her that day with tears rolling down her face, it was one of the hardest days of my life to date. As the next few years of my life would teach me, that’s life and you just suck it up and move on.

My first summer in the Air Force was a life-changing experience. I was the youngest guy in a room of 16 men aged between 17-29 years old, many of whom had experienced far more in life than I had, and I was able to learn from them. We couldn’t drink or leave the base for the first 7 weeks of training, so we had no option but to bond with each other. In the 7 weeks I had gotten to know these people, we all became extremely close friends and vowed to remain good friends when we went our separate ways after our basic training was over. I’ve not spoken to any of them since, and that is just a reality of working in the military, you learn to forget about your feelings and move on to the next thing. Little did I know at the time, that this applied to girls, too.

When my basic training came to an end, I was sent to a different base to commence the training for what my career would actually entail in the Royal Air Force. No more playing soldier. Oh no, reality hit—52 weeks of intense physics, 8am-5pm Monday to Friday. What the hell had I signed up for? I HATED physics. I once got 10% in a physics exam at school because I just couldn’t face studying for it. Unfortunately, I was now getting paid, and I’d dropped out of college, so I didn’t really have much of an option but to learn. Fifty-two weeks of physics, there was only one way to get through it: drink copious amounts of alcohol Tuesday through Sunday. Don’t worry, I took Monday’s off. It’s not like I had a problem or anything.

As the year went on people began to get hurt. I remember a Monday morning inspection from a Sergeant Major who was mean as hell. I roughed him up a little in a sports game once and didn’t realise that he was the new boss in town. After turning up on parade with about eight other guys with black eyes and bruises, I was soon to know who he was. That weekend we were drinking in a local bar and a fight erupted, we got caught up in the middle and ended up in a scene from a Wild Western, even the women got involved. It was total chaos but totally hilarious, too.

Another time, a guy figured it’d be a great idea to climb a tree and fell out of it. He hobbled back to his room in pain but was walking and everything seemed fine. When he woke up in the morning, he was screaming in pain and was covered in blood. He’d broken his leg in three places but was so drunk he didn’t realise it. A friend who recently got married and has become a little more sensible in his elder years, as have I, actually ironed over his penis when ironing his uniform for the morning in the buff. Try explaining that one to the doctor in the morning. Yes, injuries like that became a common occurrence as did break ups.

On a military base full of drunken men and women, sex was rife, and so were STDs. I was fortunate enough never to catch an STD, because I was always careful but a number of my friends, not so much. Seeing guys in agony and hearing the stories they provided, it’s enough to remind you to bag up and play it safe. I heard a story from a different base where a girl had slept with so many guys that a notice went around actually advising that everyone have an STD test on base.

As I mentioned further up this post, forgetting your feelings and moving on applied to girls, too. I was always brought up to respect girls from my family and I’d like to think I’ve done that most of the time. For a while in my life though, I kind of stretched the rules out on this. My main aim when I went out with friends was to meet women, as most guys want to. I wasn’t bothered about a girlfriend, I just wanted to sleep with a women, not call, and move on to the next. It was easy this way and didn’t involve the drama of explaining why I didn’t want anything more than a fling. Seriously, if you’ve not seen the movie ‘He’s just not that in to you' please do ,because it pretty much is spot on.

If I’m honest, most one night stands have been dreadful. You’re both drunk, you don’t get to know what each other enjoys and when you’ve gotten off, you just turn over and sleep. I guess the only bonus, no Tic Tacs needed because you just don’t care. After a fair few on- night stands, I began realising that it wasn’t the sex that I was enjoying, it was more the thrill of meeting a girl and the satisfaction of getting lucky with her. It was kind of like a game, and the more I won, the more confident I became.

I’m not going to talk passionately about those hookups as Whitney has previously because if I’m honest, I wouldn’t want to give them that much credit. I will though tell you of some of the funnier situations I’ve found myself in.

I was working one weekend at an airshow and had been out in the sun all day, flirting with the girls coming through the gates as I stood there in my camouflage uniform and sunglasses. That night, we decided to meet up with a few girls we’d met that day and went to some local bars. We got drunk and we all left with different girls. I agreed to stay at this girls place, but she’d forgotten her key. So, we walked to her parents' place where her mother was asleep. The girl began throwing stones at the window to wake her up, the dog started barking and the lights came on. I was met by her step dad, obviously not happy with the fact that he’d been woken up by his step-daughter who’d disrupted his sleep so she could get laid. Anyway, we got the keys and went back to her place and got down to the business. I’d ordered a taxi for 5am and it was getting late. No sooner had I gotten off, the taxi beeped its horn outside and I literally just got up, zipped up my pants, and I was out of there.

“Do I not get your number?” she asked.

“Yeah” I replied, as I walked out of there and jumped in the taxi and went back to base.

I arrived back to base, had a shower, put on my uniform, and went to breakfast where I filled in my friends on all that happened.
They liked it and as we all strolled down the runway at sunrise to meet everyone for another day of flirting and fun at the airshow, I was enjoying the fact that I didn’t have any commitments or relationship worries.

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Cayden wants to know what you REALLY want to hear about. Any stories you want to hear from his POV? Comment away!