Infidelity for Beginners (13 page)

And with that he finally wandered off.

*

If that wasn’t enough, when I got
back to the bar I suddenly remembered Norman was still there waiting for me
with a year’s supply of John Smiths.

“Thought you’d fallen in,” he joked.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake….!” I mumbled to myself as Norman
handed me an enormous tumbler full of whisky.

“Ah no, just having to explain to someone else about
Rosemary. Is she still milking it?”

“Yes she’s got her coat from the cloakroom but she hasn’t
actually gone anywhere yet. I think she’s waiting for someone to ask her not to
go before she goes,” Norman concluded. That was quite good for Norman so I
smiled accordingly and decided I’d better ask him a few questions about
Christmas, family and his never-changing wife, just to be polite.

“How’s the family?”

“Fine, fine, ever so good. My youngest has just sent off the
UCAS forms – you know, for a university place – and is awaiting the
results.”

“Oh really, Oxford? Cambridge?” I asked.

“Nothing so ambitious, I believe Nottingham’s top of the
list,” he replied.

“Oh yeah, I wonder why?” I laughed, giving him a cheeky dig
in the ribs.

“What do you mean?” Norman asked.

“Well, who hasn’t heard all the rumours about Nottingham
being full of women? Three girls to every boy, apparently. That’s half the
reason everyone applies to go up there,” I said. “Probably the reason your
youngest applied.”

“Really? I hadn’t heard that. I’ll have to ask her,” Norman
said.

At that moment Elenor entered the bar and I was relieved to
see that Godfrey was no longer attached to her. She cast me a look as she took
her place at the bar next to me then swung her eyes towards Norman and back at
me again, all without saying a word.

I felt my mercury rise when I realised that Elenor had been
holding my gaze for almost a full five seconds and didn’t look like breaking it
off any time soon. I went to say something about something but stopped when,
unbelievably, out of Norman’s line of sight, she aimed a little “shush” at me.

At that moment, I not only knew we were both singing from
the same song sheet, I also knew that Elenor was going to suck me off once we’d
finished singing.

My heart thumped heavily inside my breast pocket and my
trousers tightened divinely around my hips. I twisted my legs at the ankles and
adjusted my posture to try and disguise my increasingly obvious excitement but
things soon got so bad that I was forced to resort to the old ‘hand in the
pocket’ ploy to cover up the physical evidence of my sinful conclusions.

I don’t know if Elenor or Norman noticed, I’m pretty sure
they didn’t, though there was one set of beady eyes on the other side of the
hall that weren’t as blinkered.

“Yes it’ll be a shame when Anna goes off to university,”
Norman was saying. “What with Joseph in Leeds and Brian already graduated and
living up in Edinburgh, I’m afraid the house is going to seem very empty.”

“Yes that happens,” I said without really listening.

“And how are you young lady? Enjoying the party?” Norman
asked when he finally noticed Elenor standing the other side of me.

“Yes it's fun, a bit like work only with booze and music.”

“Are you staying in the hotel tonight?” he then asked.

“I don’t know, are you offering?” Elenor replied, momentarily
knocking the smile off Norman’s face. It soon returned a couple of seconds
later with interest and brought with it a big booming laugh that drew a few
stares.

“My god, I’m old enough to be your father,” he pointed out
unnecessarily. “I'm afraid I'll have to respectfully stand aside and leave you
to some of the younger chaps.”

“Not too young though,” Elenor said, shifting her eyes to
mine. “I prefer my men to have a modicum of experience.”

She took a tantalising little sip of her drink then seeped
away from the bar in thirteen heel-to-toe steps before disappearing through the
door.

“By crikey someone’s going to get it tonight,” Norman
speculated.

I could no longer speak.

“Anyway, what was I saying? Oh yes, how’s that lovely Sally
of yours?” The sound of raised voices and a sudden kafuffle from across the
hall rescued me from this particular question as Norman decided he’d better go
and check out what was going on over in the Xtremers’ corner.

“... up and... ’sh ... ace in!” I heard someone shout,
before a familiar voice questioned the shouter's sexuality and suggested a few
places he should “fuck off back to with your fucking windmill”.

“Leave it, leave it!”

“Get off of me!”

“I’ll fucking have you!”

“Don’t Rob, it ain’t worth it!”

“Break it up! Break it up!”

Me and Norman pushed our way through to the front just in
time to see Tom take an almighty fist in the face. He tried swinging his own
fists in defence but he was already motoring back at a full lick and inevitably
crashed straight through the
Xtremers
’
beer mountain at a hundred miles per hour, arse-first.

I’d never seen fifty pints spilt at one time before and pray
I never see it again. A tsunami of lager drowned everyone’s feet within a 10
yard radius and the crash of breaking glass caused the DJ to gouge a new verse
into
Frosty the Snowman
. A couple of
women screamed and I savoured the sight of the other three
Xtremers
’ faces as their night’s supplies headed for the dance
floor before wading in make sure Tom was okay.

Surprisingly, he wasn’t too bad. He had a few cuts on his
arms, a bit of glass in his hand and his trousers probably wouldn’t make it
through the night, but other than that he was okay.

Absolutely drenched, but okay.

“You fucking bastard!” he shouted as he held his arms at
right-angles to drain the Stella from his sleeves. “You utter fucking twats!”

“What have you done?” one of the distraught
Xtremers
shouted at his mate.

“It wasn’t me it was him. He...”

“Now now, let’s all simmer down,” Norman interjected. “We’re
going to need a mop and a bucket,” he reckoned, then started ordering people
this way and that, breaking off to tell the
Xtremer
who’d thrown the punch that he wanted to see him in his office first thing in
the morning, before continuing with the clean up operation.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“What the fuck do you think?” Tom replied, examining his
phone, wallet and fags to find that only one of the three had survived. “Christ
al-fucking-mighty!”

I offered him my handkerchief to wipe some of the lager from
his eyes and they bore into me with a bloodshot intensity that knew no bounds.

“I’m going to have to go back to my B&B and get
changed,” he tutted. “Fucking walking half a mile down the road in this
weather! The bastard. I’ll be back coming back though, don’t you worry about
that,” he warned me before trundling off into the night.

That was it. I didn’t have long.

Maybe an hour or so if I was lucky.

I had to speak to Elenor.

I found Elenor a few seconds after
Tom found the exit. Several people had attempted to detain me with a load of
pointless questions about what had happened to Tom (Rosemary – still with
her coat on her lap – muttered, “I thought he’d be involved” as I walked
past) but I didn’t break stride until I found Elenor.

Once again Godfrey had cornered her and once again he was
pleading his case, but Elenor’s mind was not only made up, she was actively
enjoying the anguish she was causing Godfrey. At least that’s how it looked
from where I was standing. I’d hung back a couple of yards hoping to grab her
when Godfrey finally gave it a rest but the moment Elenor spotted me she turned
her back on Godfrey, just as he was reaching the crescendo of his humiliation,
and strode purposefully over towards me.

“Hi, are you looking for me?” she asked straight out.

“Er… I…you know, sort of…” I muttered by way of a reply,
reluctant to answer any sort of direct question with any sort of direct answer.
“Sure.”

“What’s up?” she grinned, swivelling her hips from side to
side and playfully toying with one of her loose curls.

I looked past her at Godfrey and saw all the misery and
suffering of the world etched onto his face. He made no attempt to disguise his
glare and kicked the last few fragments of his own shredded dignity into touch
by studying us for signs of intimacy.

“Had a fight?” I asked, nodding towards Godfrey.

“Hmm?” Elenor feigned, then laughed. “Oh no, just little
boys being little boys.”

Elenor looked back over her shoulder during one particularly
acute twist of the hips before redirecting her sparkling eyes at me.

“So what’s up?” she asked. “What are we doing?”

My heart leapt at the way she’d phrased that. What were
we
doing? I didn’t know, but at least
there was finally an acknowledgement that we were doing
something
.

Elenor stared at me and chewed her painted lip. It was
almost as if she was urging me to ask the question. I wasn’t entirely sure what
the question was and I certainly didn’t want to go bumbling about in the dark
without so much as a beacon to head for, so I stared at her for a moment,
chewed my own lip (not half as seductively as Elenor) then asked her how it was
going.

“Fine,” she smiled back twisting me, Godfrey and her loose
auburn curls around and around her little finger.

“Good, erm, what was I going to say?” I muttered, causing
Elenor’s smile to broaden.

Elenor had a lovely smile, really really sexy. Unfortunately
I couldn’t look at it because every time I tried I caught Godfrey glaring at us
as if we were holding him by a leash.

“Godfrey’s really staring,” I finally told her.

“Let him, I’m not bothered,” Elenor shrugged.

“Yeah but it’s a little off-putting,” I admitted, so Elenor
looked over her shoulder, then back at me.

“Okay, let’s go to the bar and… have a little chat?” she
said. “I’ll even let you buy me another drink if you want.”

“Okay,” I said so we turned and headed back to the party.

My heart was thumping as I fought the rising tide of
apprehension, but I knew it was now or never. So, taking a deep deep breath and
summoning up all the courage I could muster and grabbed Elenor by the arm.

“Actually, there is something I wanted to say. I want to
say… oh why don’t you give it a rest and leave me alone you miserable old cow!”

Elenor turned just in time to see Rosemary spin on her heels
and run back into the party with a fresh case of waterworks.

“For fuck’s sake, can’t everyone leave me alone for five
minutes?” I asked, then remembered Elenor. “Look, this is going to keep on
happening all night, we might never get another moment to have a chat so…”

“Do you have a room here in the hotel?” Elenor suddenly
asked.

My heart exploded into a million different pieces and each
of those exploded again. “Yes, room 64,” I replied, barely believing where this
was going.

“And do you have a mini-bar?”

“Yes, and a bottle of scotch I bought from the off-licence,”
I admitted.

“Even better. We could have a drink in your room if you
liked,” Elenor suggested. “Just to get some privacy.”

“Okay,” I agreed.

“But don’t you go trying anything on, you dirty bastard,”
Elenor warned me with a wry smile. “I know what you guys are like once you get
a girl into your room. You think you can just chuck us down on the bed and fuck
us at will.”

“Oh no, no, nothing like that!” I protested, shocked that
she should even think such a thing of me.

“Because I wouldn’t want it getting around at work that that
was what we’d done,” she said.

“Of course not, no, God forbid!”

“Good,” Elenor said, before drawing close enough to murmur
in my ear, “because if we did do anything like that, then I think we should
keep it to ourselves. Don’t you?”

How I didn’t cum in my pants at that moment is a mystery to
me. I was the definition of excitement. In fact, if you look ‘excitement’ up in
the
Oxford English Dictionary
you’ll
see a picture of me standing in the lobby of the Croydon Park Hotel with a
really obvious hard-on and a scantily clad secretary. Oxford English put it
there to save any confusion over the interpretation.

“I do,” I finally agreed, catching Godfrey’s eye once more,
though this time it was his turn to look away.

*

We sorted out the mechanics of our
tête-à-tête with the fewest words possible. Elenor told me to go up to my room
and said she’d follow me up in five.

“Just so no one sees us go up together. You know what these
gossips are like. Pour me a drink and I’ll be up before you know it.”

I had a brief vision of me standing up in my room all night
looking out of the window at Tom’s Xtremer in the car park but something told
me it wouldn’t come to that. Elenor would be up. Of that I had no doubt.

I twisted the lid off the bottle of Jim Beam once I got up
to my room and took an enormous belt. That soothed my nerves just a little,
though it did little to appease my excitement. That really needed attending to
and I wrestled over the conundrum of how I should go about things with Elenor
as I waited for that knock on the door.

Would Elenor lay it on a plate and drop to her knees the
moment she was through the door (God I hoped so) or would she see this as a
brilliant opportunity to tease me to delirium? Very likely.

Perhaps there was a clue in what she’d said?

“I know what you guys
are like once you get a girl into your room. You think you can just chuck us
down on the bed and fuck us at will.”

That was probably what she was after. She’d come up here and
act all coy, then she’d give me a little taster, possibly talk dirty to me,
then snatch it back once I’d fallen for her ploy. In the end, that’s what I’d
have to do. I’d grab her up in my arms, bundle her onto the bed and jump on top
of her.