|
'Only the yobs you hang about with would ever want to get between your trams, hen!'
(Jessie Kesson - 'You've Never Slept in Mine')
Yes, thought Trev, nineteen, helping himself to another Black Label, there was no doubt about it. Mel had got himself a real swish joint. Four hundred grand, and that was before you counted the gold taps on the jacuzzi or the sparklers in Chloë his missus's jewel case. Not to mention his-'n-hers Ferraris in the garage with the boat. Definitely class. There must be real money in amusement arcades. Even the speakers had set Mel back over a grand apiece.
And the carpets! Christ!, the pile came half-way up your backside, and when you sat in those big pink leather chairs you sank down almost till you got lost. There was more kinds of booze in the cocktail bar than in most pubs, and every drop free - no way could you ever say old Mel was tight-arsed. As for Chloë's dresses and jewels - she must have bought up the whole of Harrods. Style, that's what it was, lots of style. What a place for party!
And the birds! Where did Mel find them? Any one of them could have stepped straight out of Trev's Sunday Sport. Sure, a lot seemed to have arrived with geezers in tow, but so what? Trev briefly stopped to admire himself in a Louis XIV-style mirror (scooped up by Chloë in a Houndsditch Warehouse sale.) He could pull any bird he fancied, and if her bloke made trouble he'd soon find out who could hit hardest.
The disco was in the big conservatory at the back of Mel’s house. Between swigs on his Black Label, Trev scanned the females with a practiced eye. It was hard to know where to start, they were all such lookers.
Then he saw her. She was about twenty, with long black hair and a body the Sunday Sport would have paid a million for. But what really transfixed Trev was her dress. Of thin orange leather, it clung to her body like shrink-wrapping on ripe pears. The neckline plunged to a tight scarlet belt, the hem barely reached the tops of her thighs. But, best of all, she wore black tights with rear seams that enticed the eye upwards to the thrilling mysteries above her hemline.
As the girl danced, so each bump and fold of her fabulous body peeked and stretched through the supple material. She danced with unselfconscious abandon, bumping, twisting, thrusting herself fore and aft. When the record changed to a smoochy number, she clung to her partner, a large thuggish-looking blond youth, slowly rubbing herself over his body, raising and lowering her amazing seamed legs between his thighs. He for his part draped himself over and around her in curiously stiff, proper fashion, like an shell enclosing a pearly oyster.
‘If it's Leanne you‘re fancying, she's spoken for,' a voice announced from behind. Trev turned to find a sallow dark-haired girl watching him. There were smudges, well-masked by make-up, under each eye, and splash-marks on her black dress. She carried a large half-empty glass.
I’m Donna,' continued the girl, carefully laying the glass down, 'And I'm not spoken for.’
Slowly Trev's gaze turned back from her to Leanne.
‘You're wasting your time, mate.' She slipped her arms round him from behind, clasping her hands over his midriff. 'Darren's bigger than you.'
'Is that her bloke?' Trev tried to disengage Donna's hold.
'Looks like it, don't it?' Donna suddenly unclasped her hands and reached up inside his jacket, fondling his chest and nipples. 'Like I said, he's bigger than you -,' in a flash she slipped a hand down the front of his trousers and grabbed hard, ‘everywhere!’
Trev gagged on his Black Label. 'Oi! leave it out!' Angry and disconcerted, he forced her hands clear and spun round glaring.
'My! Aren't we butch?' Donna stood a few inches from him as if looking for a fight. He made to push her away, but she deftly ducked his hand and, closing in, locked her arms round his shoulders and her lips to his. Her tongue, tasting of vodka and tonic, thrust against his own. He felt the fingers of her right hand scratching up and down his spine, while the left grabbed a fistful of hair at the back of his head, forcing their mouths harder together. His arms fell round her waist, as he let himself be dragged slowly through the hallway to the under-stairs cloakroom.
Donna had already half-undone his belt as the door closed. When his trousers and briefs had fallen she leaned back against the mirror, arms stretched sideways like a crucifix, staring at him.
'Now, big boy,' she said, 'let's see what you can do.'
Afterwards Trev wondered if the scratches would bleed enough to spoil his clothes and reminded himself he had done it only to take his mind off Leanne. He fetched another Black Label from the bar, and wandered back to the conservatory, where he flung himself on to a large leather chesterfield.
The music had changed to 1950s rock-'n-roll. Leanne was still dancing. She bucked, she spun, she shimmied and jived, stretching, hitching and rippling the orange leather dress, flashing the shiny black seams on her tights. To Trev, exhausted and slightly drunk, these seams took a life of their own, tempting eye and mind ever upwards, parallel lines meeting at an infinity of bliss. Memories of Donna faded as returning youthful energy made Trev's eyes and flies bulge in unison. Like Tam o' Shanter, Trev felt himself as one bewitched, and thought his very eyes enriched.
'Tramlines to the gates of Paradise, Trevor?' It was Chloë's ginny-genteel voice. She had perched, in a magnificent if optimistically-sized gown, on the chesterfield arm, her jewels scattering showers of miniature rainbows.
'Hi, Chloë.' Trev, not pleased to be roused from a rapidly moistening daydream, was still aware enough to be polite to his boss's wife. She was, he noticed with disquiet, swaying slightly and in tears.
'I am a poor abandoned wife, Trevor.' Her wet black-rimmed eyes met his, unwillingly diverted from their preferred object. 'My hushband hash.. has..forsaken me for hish..obschene videos.'
'Wot, Mel?' Trev was unsure how to handle this. 'Naw, he's OK is Mel.'
'Oh dear, I suppose you men will always stick up for each other.' She slumped heavily against him. Instinctively Trev shuffled along the chesterfield. But Chloë, with a husky sob, moved along too. 'Oh Trevor, are you also going to rebuff me?' She pressed against him in a cloud of scent and gin. 'I believed in you Trevor; I believed you were more of a man, and I do so need a man.'
Trev had never read the Bible (or indeed anything other than the Daily and Sunday Sport), but the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife would have meant much to him now. Just as Chloë's heavily ringed hand reached his knee, he jumped to his feet, pleading toilet, and made for the stairs. But Donna, who had an outdoors coat on, broke away from her group and waylaid him in the hall. To Trev it seemed she had been lying in wait.
'Leaving already?' She blocked his way. He shook his head and made to pass, but she stepped in front. 'Why don't we go home together, to my place.' She giggled, 'We've got all night and all tomorrow all the haymaking time in the world, big boy.'
Something snapped in Trev. 'The name's Trevor, if yer don't mind, and you've ‘ad all you're getting.' He shoved her brusquely aside and bounded up the stairs, pursued by furious shrieks of ‘Pimpleprick!' (Donna evidently having changed her mind on this particular) and 'Fucking Wanker!' From the stair-bend he noticed Chloë advance from the conservatory, commanding in cracked, regal tones: 'Stop persecuting the poor boy.'
Mel, fat fag-smoking and fifty, was in his den on the top floor. He seemed unsurprised to see Trev, motioning him to a small drinks cabinet. On the video screen a blue movie ground grimly to its climax.
'Come in, mate, and tell me what the crumpet's like down there.' He cocked a head in the direction of commotion below. Trev could not resist a quick glance over the banister and noticed, to his dismayed surprise, Leanne and Darren following Donna through the front door which slammed behind them. 'Was that my missus bothering you, the stupid pissed bitch?' Mel asked.
'Naw,' said Trev, 'It's that slag Donna. I've already given ‘er one, would you believe.'
Mel chuckled. 'You mean, she gave you one.' He took a deep swig of a whisky and soda. 'Miss Donna, the good time girl ‘oo's been 'ad by all. They're a pair, them two.'
'Wot two?' Trev asked, 'I didn't think she was with no-one. She wanted me to go back with 'er, and when I said 'no way' she started all that noise.'
'Donna and Leanne, 'er mate, the bird in the orange leather fanny-pelmet - looks like two monkeys fighting in a sack when she moves.'
Trev spluttered. 'That's the crumpet I've been fancying all night, but I could never get 'er away from that Naked Ape type that was all over her. She's gone off with 'im now.'
'Darren Miles?' scoffed Mel, ‘'Is arse is anybody’s for twenty quid. 'E's a rent boy – queer as a fish - does security for me down the arcades when 'e's not on the game. 'Im and Donna and Leanne all share a flat. 'E's their minder like, only ‘e's more woman than either of 'em.'
'But...' Trev's mouth gaped in half-comprehended horror, 'That Donna made out 'e was the other chick's bloke, so I couldn't make no move, could I? ... I mean...'e's a big geezer.’
Mel crowed delightedly. 'She was ‘aving you on to ‘ave you off, you dumb pratt,' he cried, 'You should have gone ‘ome with ‘er – ‘er and Leanne always share their tricks.’ He puffed his cigarette, rocking with mirth at Trev’s crumbled expression. ‘You missed your chance, you prize pillock. If you’d gone with Donna you could have been shagging Leanne right now!’
Copyright © James Scott 1989 and 2008
|
