I only bought the T-shirt for a laugh. My mates and I were out on a pub crawl of Covent Garden, and we came across this market stall selling dozens of T-shirts. The one that caught our eye was hanging from the awning of the stall. It showed the soles of two pairs of feet, as if their owner were lying down. The large, male, pair were pointing downwards, and outside them the small, female, pair were pointing upwards. Between them were two hillocks, representing the bloke's bum. A couple of wavy lines above that indicated up and down movements. Above this image were the words 'Smile if you fancy a shag'. One of my mates peered closely at it and said, "Oi Chas, that looks like your bum."
That caused a lot of hilarity, with the others asking him how he knew what my bum looked like. I grinned, and replied, "Yeah, it was bloody hard work posing for that picture." Well, after that I had to buy the shirt. It was black, my favourite colour because it contrasts nicely with my looks. I'm Chas Butler, 26, a shade under six feet tall, with dirty-blond hair and a sunbed tan I've carefully nurtured to look natural. I work out at my local gym a couple of times a week, and when I tried the shirt on at home it stretched nicely across my well-toned pecs.
After that it sat undisturbed in a drawer for three weeks. Finally, I thought I'd bought the bloody thing, I had to either wear it or chuck it. So one day when I was going out I pulled it on, feeling like a complete berk. Normally I have no trouble finding female company, but I'd been going through a dry spell for a couple of months and I was a bit low on confidence. To be honest, I half expected women to slap me and blokes to threaten me when they saw the shirt, but generally reaction was surprisingly positive. Most people tended to do a double-take, read it carefully, then look up at me with a big grin. If they were female I normally responded with a return grin and a wink, which would often produce an embarrassed look and a sexy giggle. Of course, I got the odd dirty look or blank stare when people saw the shirt, but for the most part they took it in the right spirit: as a saucy joke intended to give them a brief laugh in their busy day.
Then one day I was caught slightly unawares on a tube journey. An American lady was sitting opposite me. She looked in her early 60s, and quite haughty, dressed in tweeds and sensible shoes, sort of a university professor type. I saw her eyeing the shirt, and when she leaned towards me I was half expecting to be told off. Instead, she asked, "Excuse me, but does 'shag' mean what I think it does?"
I gave her a wolfish grin and said, "Yes gorgeous, it means exactly that."
To my surprise she gave me an even filthier grin and, with a sigh, said, "Damn! If only I didn't have a plane to catch." Not surprisingly we got talking after that. She really was a professor, from Harvard, and she gave me her business card and told me to give her a call if I was ever in the States! That was the closest I came to getting propositioned from wearing the shirt. Until three weeks ago.