Bread? She wipes her hands on a towel and comes over to the bed.
‘Now,’ she says gently, ‘let’s get him ready.’ She sits down on the edge of the bed and starts running her fingers gently along my hampton. My friend laps this up and I stretch out my finger to perform a similar service.
‘Later,’ she murmurs, crossing one leg over the other, ‘let me do this first.’ It occurs to me that her tone has changed a bit from the first moments of careless rapture–and near rupture, and that her efforts were directed towards achieving the fine specimen her fingers are now feasting on. I do not like being manipulated in this way, but on the other hand–or perhaps in the other hand–I do, if you know what I mean.
‘Like a sword, isn’t it?’ she observes cheerfully. ‘Now, just a little–’ Her mouth drops and I have to hold onto the edge of the bed. Oh, my goodness me! All part of life’s rich varied tapestry, as my old school master used to say–though not about what Mrs Brown is doing to me. There must be worse ways of spending Friday night.
‘Right,’ says Mrs B., climbing to her feet. ‘He’s ready.’ She can say that again. You could fire my hampton through the side of a Centurion tank without denting it. ‘No, don’t move.’
Before I can grab her she has nipped over to the washbasin and return with two handfuls of white gunge which she slaps on top of my throbbing J.T.! Talk about surprised! I am speechless.
‘Hey! What the–’
‘Plaster of paris, Lancelot. I’m taking a cast of your virility.’ She slaps some more gunk over puzzled Percy and smiles down at me. ‘It won’t take a second. This stuff dries very fast.’
‘But, why? What are you going to use it for?’
‘Just a souvenir. I’m not going to turn it into a dildo. Though that’s quite a good idea, isn’t it? Dildos of the famous. You could sign up all the sexiest showbiz personalities and even royalty. Comfort yourself with the Duke of–’
‘Hold on a minute,’ I croak. ‘Are you sure this isn’t going to damage my equipment?’
‘Darlingest, would I perform such a disservice to my baser interests?’ She squeezes the plaster of paris tightly round my hampton and kisses me lightly on the lips. ‘I’ll send you one if you like. You can use it as a paper weight.’
‘Thanks. My Mum would like that.’
‘You don’t have to show it to her. I keep my collection in the bureau.’
The bureau of missing persons, I think to myself. Blimey. What a carry on. There are a lot of funny people about, aren’t there?’
‘It’s hardened up nicely,’ she says. ‘Now, where’s my hammer?’
‘Good evening!’ Those of you who have ever tried to leap off a bed with half a pound of plaster of paris round your chopper will sympathise with my predicament.
‘Don’t be silly,’ she says. ‘It’s only a little tap.’
‘I know, but I’ve grown fond of it over the years.’
‘I mean it’s only a little tap with the hammer. You won’t feel a thing.’
‘That’s what my dentist used to say.’
She produces a small hammer, like the ones you get in a kid’s carpentry set and advances towards the bed,
‘You’d better know what you’re doing with that thing.’
‘Darling, it’s easy as breaking an egg.’ My balls don’t go for that much, I can tell you. Tap, tap. ‘There you are.’ I make a ‘let’s wait and see’ noise and watch my happy hampton burst out into the light again like a friendly moggy that has been locked up in a dark room. Mrs B. takes the two halves of the cast and puts them together carefully.
‘I’ll deal with these later,’ she says, popping them into the top drawers of the dressing table.
‘Yeah, now you can start dealing with this.’ I grab her by the arm and yank her onto the bed.
‘Darling, I really ought to put something on it first.’
‘I’ll tell you what to put on it!’ I am not interested in garnish. I am interested in action. I have waited a long time and my equipment has been sorely misused. ‘Come on top of me.’ Mrs B. straddles me on her knees and I plunge Percy into darkness again–this time in surroundings to which he is more accustomed. ‘Come here.’ I am not usually rough with ladies but at this moment I need a little agro to rekindle my lapsed enthusiasm. I pull Penny down so that her breasts rub against my chest and her hair tickles my cheeks. I brush it aside and feast on her mouth, stroking her cheeks as if coaxing out her tongue from a hiding place. Her body begins to rise and fall across my hips and I time the flexing of my muscles to coincide with hers. Beautiful! And such good exercise too. I am certain this must be better for you than all those bloody stupid exercises they print in women’s magazines.
‘Put your knees up,’ she says, ‘I want to lean back.’ I let her go and watch the expression on her face as she settles herself in the position to achieve maxiMum satisfaction. Her eyes are half-closed and she breathes in little pockets of air almost as if she is in pain. Slowly her tongue extends to be held gingerly between her teeth and her mouth broadens into the beginnings of a smile.
‘Go on,’ she whispers, ‘go on, go on!’ Pressing her hands down against the bed she pushes her body up and down in time with the flexing of my hips. ‘Oh, darling, that’s heaven.’ I read somewhere–I don’t think it was in the Women’s Institute Year Book–that birds have been known to faint with ecstasy in such a position. I don’t blame them. I am feeling a bit giddy myself.
‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ Is it her or me calling out? I close my eyes and open my mouth and what happens after that is Ike and Tina Turner destroying the volume control on the greatest stereo set on earth. That and some miserable old git banging on the ceiling with an artificial limb. You can’t please everybody, I suppose.
I don’t know what the time is when we eventually get to sleep but I feel as though I have been run through a combine harvester a couple of times. Talk about knackered! I close my eyes and when I open them the sunlight is streaming through the windows. Blimey! I should be somewhere else fast. I leap out of bed and land on something soft. Something soft that groans. It is a man stretched out on the bedside rug.
‘Sorry,’ says the creature, still half asleep but sounding genuinely apologetic. ‘I couldn’t stand the woman’s snoring.’ I presume he means the bird he was shacked up with. This must be Christopher. I don’t wait to introduce myself but pull on my trousers and leave him clambering wearily into bed to take my place beside Mrs B. who is still out for the count.
So endeth the first night that the Pendulum Society spend at the Cromby. It is a taste of things to come.
As luck would have it, Sidney is standing just inside the dining room as I try and sneak to my place and the expression on his face could not be interpreted as welcoming even by an Icelandic Trade Delegation.
‘Where have you been?’ he says.
‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you,’ I say, trying to swallow a yawn.
‘You look bloody awful.’
‘I got a bit plastered last night,’ I say wittily.
‘Well, you’d better get on with it. I’ll talk to you later.’
‘Yes, Sidney.’
I am hoping that Christopher and Penny will be too knackered to come down to breakfast but, of course, they are the first couple I see, staring at their packet of Rice Krispies as if it has the meaning of life scrawled on the back.
‘Morning!’