After Hours: Black Lace Classics (11 page)

Venny was uncomfortably aware that the rest of the staff were watching them and grinning hugely. Again, he was undermining her authority. Again, he was trying to gain the upper hand. Well, two could play at that game. ‘Fine,’ she said coolly, and stalked outside.

What am I doing? wondered Venny as she sat in her car not far from the Pig and Plume, the East End public house where the hen night was being held. What am I
doing?
Passers-by gave her the occasional look as dusk gathered about the city streets, but she pretended to be checking her road map when they did so.

She had been sitting there for almost an hour, watching the women going into the pub, seeing their excited faces, hearing their raucous laughter. The bride had been instantly identifiable – the poor sap was dressed up in veil and L-plates. On a fluorescent pink poster pasted to the outside wall of the pub was the announcement that a private party was in progress and so the bar would be closed for normal custom.

Normal custom, thought Venny. She was beginning to feel distinctly uncomfortable with this whole idea. It was something she would never admit to a living soul, but she had never been to this type of thing before. She
hadn’t ever seen a male stripper on stage. She hadn’t even seen the Chippendales perform. And hen nights, where unclad males might – and probably did – stroll among the female audiences inviting bawdy comments, made her squirm. But here she was, waiting for nine o’clock so she could go inside and watch Micky Quinn jump naked out of a cake. She had the nagging suspicion that what she was doing was actually stalking Micky Quinn, like some sorry old perv in a tatty raincoat.

Dani was in there, working. Dishing up food to the female troops, keeping their enthusiasm up as the evening wore on. Micky must also be in there by now, although Venny hadn’t actually seen him go in. She’d been too busy keeping her head down, looking inconspicuous. But now it was ten to nine, and the cake event was happening at nine, so she had to move.

She got out of the car, careful of the traffic speeding past. Several male motorists gave her interested looks, but she kept her head down and ignored them. Still wearing her oatmeal work suit with brown kitten heels, she went over to the pub and hesitated in front of the main entrance. Music pounded out a powerful beat as someone slipped past her and went inside. Venny tried for a peek, but the door swung closed too fast, muffling the compulsive sound of the music and the almost overwhelming swell of overexcited women’s voices. She was suddenly full of doubts. Suppose they had bouncers on the door? Suppose she was very publicly flung out? Suppose Micky should realise amid all the hooha and fuss and bother that she had come to gawp at him like
some silly lust-struck teenager? God, how embarrassing would that be?

Cautious as ever, Venny instead walked around the side of the old building and, by looking for whirring extractor fans and wide-open windows, found the pub kitchens. She considered going straight back to the car, going back to work. What the hell was she playing at, doing an underhand thing like this? Venny steeled herself and pushed open the kitchen door, just a little. She saw Dani there with her two assistants, unpacking dainty eats onto a salver. No sign of the cake. She let her breath out in a rush and stepped inside.

‘Hi,’ she said casually.

Dani turned and looked at her in amazement. ‘Venny! What the hell are you doing here?’

‘Oh, I just thought I’d come and see how it was going,’ said Venny, aware that this might not be the most convincing excuse ever invented. The roar of the voices in the public bar seemed even louder from in here. In fact, there was something primal about the sound, something a bit alarming.

‘Where’s the cake?’ she asked, still determinedly casual.

‘In the bar,’ said Dani, staring at her friend in bewilderment.

‘And Micky’s inside?’

‘Ready to jump out in precisely’ – she glanced at her watch – ‘three minutes.’ Dani gave a rakish grin. ‘Come to check him out, Venny?’

Venny felt herself colouring uncomfortably. Well,
wasn’t that what she was really here for? She supposed so. But now that she was here, she was aware of other things happening. And it occurred to her now, quite forcibly, that there must be fifty or so women in the bar, and only one naked man. Maybe she was being laughably cautious, but she was beginning to feel that the situation could develop into something downright hazardous.

‘Are there bouncers?’ she asked.

‘No. Why would they need bouncers?’ Dani said, getting back to her work. ‘Listen, go ahead, be my guest. They’re all so slewed they won’t even notice you’re there.’

Venny considered. She felt suddenly nervous and wary. Then she had a thought. ‘Dani, have you got your cuffs? Those little play ones?’

Dani indicated her bag, which was on the floor under the table. ‘Sure. I take them everywhere with me. Never know when there might be an opportunity for a little impromptu fun.’

‘Can I borrow them?’

Dani looked up at her in surprise. ‘Well, sure. If you want. Why not? They’re in my bag, right there; help yourself.’

Venny fished out the cuffs and, using the velcro fastening, closed one about her wrist. She tucked the loose cuff into her jacket pocket. Then she pushed through the swing door into the bar. Her first impression was one of heat, then of noise. The music was nearly drowned out by the increasingly raucous promptings
of the women as they looked at the big pink cake set up near the bar and urged whoever was inside to come out right now. And he was about to. Venny looked at her watch. Thirty seconds to go. She stationed herself not six feet from the cake, elbowing herself into position against the jostling crowds. They set up a cacophonous and constant cry for satisfaction as nine o’clock drew nearer and nearer.

‘OUT! OUT! OUT!’

Ten seconds.

‘OUT! OUT!’

Five.

‘OUT!’

The lid of the cake flew back to a tumultuous roar from the crowd of women. Micky sprang out of it and was greeted by a wall of cheers and catcalls that must have half-deafened him. Venny stared, enraptured. Her concern, her reluctance to be discovered, all her reticence, vanished as she looked and looked at Micky Quinn, standing there with arms wide-spread and that unbearably cocky grin on his handsome face, naked as the day he was born and flaunting an erection that could easily win a prize.

Something seemed to melt in Venny’s stomach as she gazed at him. Oh, he was so gorgeous! He was lightly but strongly muscled; there wasn’t a spare ounce of flesh on him anywhere. She stared in something approaching wonder, and puzzlement. She had seen her share of naked men. But she had never felt this way about any of them. The women were clearly impressed
too; they surged towards Micky, and Venny saw a flicker of concern flash across his face as he realised he was about to be mobbed and possibly gang-raped.

Venny got a grip and pushed forwards furiously, shaking out the loose cuff. Doing a very good impression of a possessive and enraged lover as she reached the stage, she slapped him a resounding whack across the face – which wiped the smile right off it, she noticed with some satisfaction – and then clamped the other cuff onto his wrist, joining them together.

‘You bastard!’ she shrieked at full volume as the women floundered and looked on at this new aspect of the show. ‘Come on, you’re coming home!’

Venny, heart thudding in her chest, turned and dragged Micky after her towards the kitchen door. Fortunately he had the presence of mind to simply follow. She glanced back and saw him giving the watching, clapping women a sheepish wave. Jesus, he was such a ham! They got through the kitchen door in one piece, and Venny led him straight past a speechless Dani and her two grinning cohorts.

As they reached the outer door, Micky started to protest.

‘Venny!’ He was laughing, trying to reason with this madwoman who appeared to be forcibly abducting him. ‘I’m stark naked! I can’t go outside like this!’

‘The car’s right outside,’ countered Venny determinedly. ‘See you, Dani,’ she called, and hauled him out the door and into the alley. It was a painful twenty yards to the car for Micky.

‘Ow!’ he complained, hobbling slightly. ‘Cobbles damned well hurt, Venny.’

‘Listen, be grateful,’ advised Venny, not looking back at him as he trailed behind her. ‘They were about to rip you to shreds and eat the pieces, or didn’t you realise? How come they didn’t have bouncers in there? How could Dani, or the publican, or someone not think of that?’

‘So you thought of all this, and came to rescue me from a fate worse than death?’ Micky panted as they hit the pavement. ‘Now, why don’t I believe that?’

‘Why shouldn’t you?’

‘Because I’m getting to know what a hot little fox you are, Venny. You came to see me stripped. Be honest. Admit it. And you only realised I was going to be mobbed at the last minute.’

‘Your ego,’ said Venny frostily as they reached the car, ‘is the biggest thing about you, Micky Quinn.’

She opened the passenger door first, unfastened the cuffs and shuffled him hurriedly inside.

‘I thought my cock was the biggest thing about me.’ Micky grinned sweetly up at her. Venny slammed his door closed and trotted round to the driver’s side. She got in, closed her door, and reached into the back seat to pick up the old travelling rug she kept there. She flung it into his lap, where it sat suspended over his still rigidly upright penis like a makeshift tartan tent.

‘For God’s sake,’ Venny complained, glancing at it as she started the engine, ‘what are you taking for that thing, Spanish Fly?’

‘Sorry, my little dominatrix, but I love bossy women. They turn me on something cruel. As you can see.’

Venny tutted impatiently and pulled out into the flow of traffic. At least it wasn’t too heavy at this time of night. ‘I’d better take you home,’ she said, glancing at him in annoyance. ‘Get you some clothes.’

‘I had clothes right there in the pub kitchen,’ Micky pointed out. ‘You dragged me straight past them. And incidentally my car’s parked back there, too.’

‘Tough,’ said Venny shortly. ‘You’ll just have to collect it later. Which way?’

‘Um. Well, keep going,’ said Micky.

After a long while and several concise directions from Micky, Venny started to get suspicious. ‘Look, where is it exactly you live? Because I don’t want to land up in Calais, thanks all the same. I could have dropped you off at Caspar’s; you could have crashed there for the night.’

‘Or your place, which is, after all, right next door to Caspar’s,’ suggested Micky, tongue-in-cheek. ‘Only trouble is, all your flash neighbours would see me trot in there wearing nothing but a travel rug, and I think your reputation’s already had more flak than it can take, don’t you, after that interesting little interlude in the lift?’

‘I was drunk.’

‘Ha! You loved it.’

‘I could stop this damned car, you know. I could dump you on the hard shoulder and leave you there.’

‘Truth hurts, huh?’

‘Look, just shut up, will you?’

Micky shut up. He shut up as they sped along the M2, he shut up right until they eventually hit Whitstable, and then he directed her again until they were near the seafront.

‘I don’t believe this,’ complained Venny. ‘When I said I’d drop you home, I assumed you had a place in London.’

‘I know you assumed that,’ said Micky calmly. ‘However, I don’t. If I stay in London, I crash at Caspar’s.’

‘Now he tells me,’ she muttered, and turned where he directed. Suddenly there was shingle crunching under the tyres and Venny heard the heavy roar of the sea. Her window was half open, and through the gap she smelt a powerful whiff of ozone. There was a line of little wooden buildings here, each one not much bigger than a double-sized garden shed. They pulled up outside one of them, and Venny killed the engine. It was very dark down here, and apart from the pounding waves washing up close by, very quiet.

‘Here we are, then,’ said Micky, jumping out. ‘Home sweet home. Coming in for coffee?’

Having told him that the place was insecure – no alarm system, and a spare key hidden under a pot near the door, for God’s sake – Venny followed Micky inside.

‘But they were expecting you back at the restaurant at eleven,’ she fretted.

‘Chill, Venny, will you? They’ll manage.’

‘Oh,’ she said in surprise as he turned on the lights. It was a lovely little place. There were bare bleached boards on the walls and floor, and a cream-coloured couch and fluffy rug set out in front of a thin, circular wood-burning stove. Nautical ephemera dotted the place – model sailing ships and starfish and old gnarled pieces of driftwood.

‘You like, huh?’ He grinned. He pushed open a door. ‘That’s the bathroom right there,’ he said, then moved across the room to push a floor-to-ceiling curtain to one side. ‘Bedroom’s right here,’ he told her, pleased he’d changed the sheets and tidied the place up since the vampette’s visit. ‘And this is the kitchen,’ he said,
pulling back another curtain to reveal a tiny galley-shaped place for cooking.

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Venny.

Micky shrugged. ‘It’s basic, but it’s home,’ he said. ‘Look, put the kettle on, will you? I’ll get some strides on.’

Venny went into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water. ‘How long have you had this place?’ she called out as he went into the bedroom.

‘What?’

‘I said, how long—’ Venny started, coming out of the kitchen alcove. Either by accident or design, Micky hadn’t pulled the curtain across after him. He was facing away from her, standing naked by the double bed. He’d dumped the rug. Venny stared at the broad shoulders, the narrow waist and hips, the tight, muscular globes of his buttocks as he shook out a pair of jeans. There was a birthmark – no, it was a tattoo – on his left buttock. She was staring at it curiously when he turned his head and saw her standing there. Their eyes met.

‘Kettle’s boiling,’ said Venny suddenly, and bolted for the kitchen.

‘Actually, I think I’d rather have wine,’ said Micky, coming into the cramped kitchen behind her and opening the fridge to take out a bottle of white. Now he was wearing just the hip-skimming jeans and his torso was bare. Venny seemed to be able to focus on nothing but his torso, which was an embarrassment in this small space. His chest was well-but not overdeveloped, and there was a faint suggestion of a six-pack around his
well-toned midriff. A tiny line of black hair ran down from his navel and disappeared beneath the waistline of his very faded and torn jeans. She wanted, insanely, to trace it with her tongue right down to the root of his penis.