Timothy Lea - Confessions from a Luxury Liner

‘Nothing,’ I say.

‘Nothing! That’s not very nice.’ Natalie looks down at her bristols with a hurt expression on her face.

‘On the contrary,’ I say. ‘That’s very nice.’

‘Oh,’ she says, her voice perking up. ‘You’re a bit forward, aren’t you?’

‘Some of me is,’ I say glancing down to where Percy is beginning to play Snakes and Ladders up the inside of my Y-fronts. From the feel of him, he has just thrown a double.

‘Cheeky boy.’ Natalie takes a sip of her champagne and ruffles the hair at the back of my neck. I turn my head and kiss the inside of her arm. ‘It’s nice, isn’t it?’

She is talking about the champagne and I nod. ‘We earned it, didn’t we? I’m sorry I dumped you on your fife. It’s all right, is it?’ I don’t wait for an answer but pull Natalie closer to me and start massaging her sit feature. Sid and Gloria have now disappeared behind the settee and I don’t think they are looking for a missing caster.

‘It’s getting better,’ says Natalie. She tilts back my chin with her forefinger and settles on my north and south like she is frightened that she might bruise my lips. Very gentle, it is. I squeeze her tighter and pull her on to my lap, parking my champagne glass beside the armchair. From now on I am going to need two hands. Natalie dips her fingers in her glass and pushes them inside my shirt so that they lie cold and damp against my chest. I shiver because I know that I am expected to and feed a couple of inches of brewer’s bung into her cakehole. This has all the makings of a cosy evening before they discovered television and I begin to feel more kindly disposed towards Sid and his quest for nautical information. They way things are going I am going to get my two pounds thirty pence back with interest. Natalie prises her lips off mine long enough to take a swig of champagne and then thoughtfully pours the rest of the glass over my trousers.

‘Oh dear,’ I say. ‘I’ll have to take them off, won’t I?’

‘You can hang them on top of his,’ says Natalie. ‘My dress is a bit damp, too.’

Sid’s clobber is building up on the back of the settee like the vicar’s wife’s counter at a jumble sale and I strip down to my Y-fronts before you can say Roger Carpenter.

‘You’re losing your inhibitions, I see,’ says Natalie, stepping out of her dress and looking round for somewhere to put it – there is hardly a spare surface left.

‘I was thinking of keeping them on,’ I say. OK it’s a daft mumble but it gives her a natural opening to put her wicked fingers to work in the ferret fondling department.

‘No chance,’ she husks, pushing me back against the settee and pursing her lips. ‘Let’s see what you’re made of.’

‘Sugar and spice, and all things nice,’ I say.

‘That’s little girls,’ she says. ‘You’re a puppy dog’s tail.’ She leans forward to chew my lower lip and the tips of her boobs brush my chest. It is a very sexy feeling and that is what I am soon getting at crutch level as Natalie’s banana peelers get to work.

‘That’s not a puppy dog’s tail,’ she says.

‘I just traded it in for a pink mamba,’ I tell her. I slip my hand into her panties and she tightens her grip on my prod rod as I set my pinkies typing ‘Now is the time for all good men to come’ on the inside of her jive hive. A few more hits or misses and it is clear that we are both ready for the main feature. What she is doing to my underpants clearly threatens the tensility of the material and with clothes the price they are these days, no man can afford to destitute himself in the cause of love. I prise my sit feature off the settee long enough to whip my Y-fronts down to my knees and allow Natalie to conduct them on the rest of their journey to the floor. I am now lying naked on the settee with a hard like the Eddystone lighthouse flashing a warning to low flying aircraft and Natalie is straining forward as she reaches behind her for her bra strap: It is a pretty sight – well, she is – and only capped by that magic moment when she skips out of her knicks and attempts to snuff out my doughnut duffer. One knee on either side of my thighs and she grabs my hard handful and tickles her fuzz with its glowing tip.

‘What a lot I slot,’ she breathes, easing herself down with a sigh.

‘All right, are you?’ Trust Sid to have a horn in – not literally, thank goodness – at such a moment of private ecstasy. I have been sparing sensitive readers a description of the noises wafting up from behind the settee but it is as clear as the sweat pouring off Sid’s boat race that sexual intercourse of a very energetic kind has just come to an end.

‘Piss off, Sid!’ I say. ‘Go and read the TV Times.’

‘Fancy a drink?’ says Sid. ‘There’s a lot of this champagne left.’ He takes a swig from the bottle and pours some over my belly. I jump about six inches into the air and Natalie cops the benefit.

‘Ooh! That’s cold.’

‘Stop messing about, Sid!’

‘I can’t help it. I always feel chirpy after a bit of the other. Where’s that record player?’

‘Don’t worry about me, will you?’ says Gloria, rising up from behind the sofa and picking some carpet fluff off her generous knockers – ‘Oh no! You’re lying on my dress! Do you mind!’ She leans across the back of the settee to get at her dress and I can’t resist giving one of her pink Manchesters a nibble.

‘Dirty sod!’ says Natalie.

‘Let’s get on the floor,’ I say. ‘The springs are cutting into my bum.’ I give Gloria’s grumble a tickle and by the time that Sid has put on the Confessions LP – available from all high-class record shops, folks – I have sunk to the carpet with both our new friends. This time, I am on top and I drive into Natalie like she is the last berth on a crowded car ferry. Gloria is doing something very naughty to me from behind and Sid turns up the volume on the record player and takes another hefty swig from the champagne bottle.

‘Ride ’er cowboy!’ he shouts. ‘Up the blues!’

‘Do give over!’ says Gloria. ‘You’ll wake all the neighbours.’

At that very instant, there is a loud thumping on the wall and Natalie groans. ‘That’s Mrs Burgess,’ she says.

‘Shut up, you old bag!’ Sid puts his mouth against the wall beside the fireplace and shouts at the top of his voice.

It is clear that he is pissed out of his mind. It is so inconsiderate. How can I be expected to perform in these circumstances? I grit my teeth and try and work up a measured rhythm. Thump! Thump! Thump! I am not certain whether it is me, Sid or Mrs Burgess. Everybody is dishing it out.

‘Come here!’ Sid pulls Gloria to her feet and starts having it off with her against the wall that separates us from Mrs Burgess’s front room. The noise is diabolical and a couple of bits of plaster fall down. The light is swinging backwards and forwards like a pendulum.

‘OOOH!’ Natalie has closed her eyes and her mouth is opening wider with every O. I am glad that she is coming because I have the feeling that the evening cannot go on like this much longer. I am all for a party atmosphere but this is getting ridiculous. Judging my moment like a surfer picking a wave I hug Natalie to me and roar in on the crest of a breaker.

‘AAAARGh!’ The white tip curls and I wipe out in a froth of honeyed warmth. Sid, too, is steaming up one of the china ducks with his knackered breath and I sense that he has just enjoyed a similar pleasure to myself.

‘That was lovely,’ says Natalie, giving me a squeeze. ‘Be a doll and turn the record player down.’

I stagger to my feet and kick over the champagne bottle. It does not matter because it is now empty.