by Lisa Young
“Where is she?” she wondered briefly, before her mind wandered again and she grabbed her phone to hammer out a quick text message to Virginia and Mel:
Bought a ring. Proposing in Paris! #meant to be! Xx
Awaiting a reply, Lottie pondered on how she would propose, quickly deciding that going down on one knee would leave no opportunity for misinterpretation. She thought she would allow the words to flow naturally as she gave a small speech to Alice and the adoring crowd about how much she meant to her, and how she wanted to spend the rest of her life loving her and burning her dinner! Laughing to herself, Lottie threw on an old pair of jeans and T-shirt and made her way downstairs to contemplate the food situation before she would no doubt resort to her fall-back position of a Chinese takeaway.
While they were eating, Archie eyed Lottie and Alice with an equal measure of suspicion as he steadily munched his sweet and sour chicken. Alice had just delivered the news that his tuition was on hold for the time being, but he was obviously suspicious about this sudden change of plan. Lottie winked at Alice who grinned in return, oblivious for a moment to the suspicions of Archie. Feeding the remains of his food to the waiting Odie he retired to his bedroom, seemingly happy about a study-free summer.
Two go to Paris
IN ORDER TO combat Lottie’s terror of flying, Alice was braving a phobia of her own, the inevitable queue at the coffee shop as she went to get Lottie her favourite vanilla latte. Meanwhile, Lottie paced anxiously outside the Aberdeen Airport departures gate. She knew her inevitable flying phobia would need to be dealt with, but this time she was also battling the nervous anticipation of proposing. Despite numerous reassurances from her friends that Lottie was onto a sure thing, that Alice would join her on her knees with love and gratitude when the big moment arrived, Lottie still had residual anxiety about possible rejection.
Their flight for Paris was leaving in two hours and, earlier in the day she’d waved off her two boys to their dad’s house. Much to her surprise, both had made relatively little fuss about her disappearing for a few days with Alice, in fact Robbie had given her what could only be described as a lingering hug. She had noticed as they’d left, that the boys were both clutching a crisp twenty-pound note, which she could only assume had been given to them by Alice as a sweetener for being sent to their father’s for a few days. She smiled. My future fiancée, child friendly and totally gorgeous as well!
Her smile turned quickly to a frown as she clutched at her case anxiously. She had debated and agonised long and hard about whether to keep the ring on her person or to hide it in the case, but as she knew that there would be the inevitable x-ray machines and she didn’t want to risk being asked to empty her pockets in front of Alice.
Despite her trepidation, Lottie felt a fresh thrill of delicious excitement as she visualised, for the umpteenth time, her plan for the big proposal at the foot of the Eiffel Tower. The weather was set to be divine and she was sure that it would not be too busy because they were well out of the school holiday season. Before they left, she had triple checked with the tour company with whom they had booked the day trip to the Tower, who offered her assurances that she would have plenty of time at the site. Although her schoolgirl French had its limitations, she was pretty sure she understood that they would have a good hour at the Tower for lunch and so she planned to surprise Alice with the picnic she had pre-ordered. She was going to make her proposal underneath the Tower itself before they queued to go up to the viewing floors. Lottie had never been to Paris before but she imagined the Eiffel Tower site was quite large and so she hoped that she could find a quiet spot to propose to Alice and steal a romantic kiss with her new fiancée under the famous landmark.
Eager to get the journey underway, Lottie smiled gratefully at Alice, as she returned with her drink mumbling about franchised over-priced coffee and child labour. Lottie tickled her neck, playfully aware that Alice was ready for a break and also seemed stressed compared to her normally calm self.
“Come on, Ms. Stress Head, let’s get this romantic mini-break underway!” She gulped her coffee quickly and immediately felt the beneficial effect of the caffeine.
Alice smiled gratefully as Lottie took charge. Hand in hand they made their way through to the baggage check-in with their luggage. Alice had been a little bemused by Lottie’s insistence that she had her own luggage, after all, they were only going for two nights. After some discussion Lottie had convinced Alice that she needed her own bag as they might be bringing back some souvenirs and would need extra space.
“Let’s get them on,” Alice said, chivalrously lifting Lottie’s hand luggage onto the conveyor belt, closely followed by her own. Alice and Lottie stood side by side as they watched their bags disappear into the black tunnel where they were studiously examined by the middle-aged, overweight customs officer, who looked like he needed a good wash and a few nights off the red wine.
Suddenly the conveyor belt ground to a noisy halt. Lottie swallowed nervously. Bloody hell!
Alice looked bemused as the worker eyed them both suspiciously, and nodding towards them, he shouted loudly towards them. “Can you tell me which of you this case belongs to?”
Lottie cleared her throat nervously, painfully aware that Alice was standing at her shoulder and was peering at the frozen screen outlining the contents of Lottie’s bag.
Lottie answered meekly, “Yes, that’s my case,” She hoped her pleading look would be understood by the odious little man whom she was loathing more and more by the second.
Lottie squirmed uncomfortably as she focused on the very obvious outline of the box containing the beautiful ring which she thought she had stashed cunningly into the zip pocket of her case. The bright glare of the x-ray machine made the case look naked and the contents vulnerable. She anxiously waited, aware of the queue behind her which was rapidly becoming longer with disgruntled travellers. The elderly couple immediately behind tutted loudly and muttered about people over-packing their hand luggage.
Farther back in the queue, Lottie noticed a group of boisterous males, pushing and jostling one another clearly already worse for drink despite the fact they hadn’t yet hit the duty-free shop. Unintentionally, she caught the eye of one of the men who was quick to wink salaciously at her, nodding at his mates and pointing at the screen where the magnified contents of her bag were still on display.
“Shit!” Lottie thought, “They can see the bloody ring, they’re bound to say something. Alice will hear!”
Riddled with anxiety, she nervously cleared her throat hoping to cover the ever-increasing racket coming from the noisy group of men as they guffawed and pointed in the direction of her bag. Casually, she tried to follow the gaze of the airport worker, and quickly confirmed he was very definitely focused on the zip pocket area of the bag. His faced was furrowed in concentration as he hunched with difficulty due to his barrelshaped belly, towards the keyboard where he thumped at a few more buttons with unnecessary ferocity. He glanced furtively around in an attempt to see who was witnessing his importance, and smirked with satisfaction at the lengthening queue, before looking back towards Lottie, silently shaking his head.
Eventually he succeeded in further magnifying the image to provide a clear view of the contents of the zip pocket and the very definitely identifiable ring that Lottie had worked so hard to conceal.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck! Lottie was now frozen with fear. She felt that everything was happening in slow motion and she wished fervently that she had taken Alice up on her offer of something stronger than the swiftly consumed vanilla latte.
Suddenly, Alice gave an involuntary gasp as she dragged Lottie ferociously towards her and leaning in to Lottie’s ear she whispered urgently. “Oh my God, babe. Is that what I think it is?”
Lottie swallowed hard, disappointment struck her like a thunderbolt. All that work, all that planning, and it was ruined before they had even left the country! Accepting defeat, she turned to Alice with barely conta
ined disappointment, “Yup!” she mumbled, “I thought it might make Paris a bit more exciting!”
Alice chuckled, and smiled knowingly at her. “Well, baby, you certainly know how to spring a surprise!”
Blind with panic, the moment now undoubtedly ruined in her mind, and without further thought, Lottie dropped to her knees in front of Alice. In her head the fog cleared. I need to do it now, it’ll be okay. Go on, Lottie, speak. The thought pounded in her brain as she cleared her throat once again in preparation.
As she looked up, she discovered that Alice had already turned away from her, and back to the officious little man who had now zoomed in on triple magnification. Following Alice’s gaze, to her utter horror, Lottie noticed that he was not looking at the engagement ring but rather the strap-on which she had also stowed away in the zipped pocket.
“Bloody hell!”
He wasn’t looking at the ring. It was worse! The odious little man, and for that matter, the entire queue including the boisterous football crowd, the elderly couple, and her future fiancée were all staring at the stowaway sex toy! Through the volcanic heat surging through her cheeks and the peripheral view of tittering fellow travellers, Lottie was at a total loss for words and had momentarily forgotten she was still on her knees in the middle of the queue.
The next few moments passed in hideous slow motion as she heard Alice tell the airport official, “Look mate, it’s a strap-on, I’m sure you’ve seen one before, there’s no need to make such a meal of it, you’ve made your point!”
Lottie couldn’t bring herself to look up.
“Lottie, what on earth are you doing?” Alice asked.
Fumbling at her trainers, Lottie replied quietly. “Tying my lace, Alice, tying my lace. Come on then, the plane won’t wait for us!”
Moving hastily onward towards the passport queue, Lottie
silently berated herself for packing the strap-on, but she couldn’t help but see the funny side when Alice showed her the picture she’d taken of the enhanced x-ray image on her mobile phone.
“Put that on Facebook, I dare you!” she said, giggling and taking Lottie firmly by the hand and moving towards the passport booths.
Walking away, Lottie felt a tap on her shoulder, and thinking that she was about to be dragged back to the x-ray area, she blustered with protest.
“Look, this is enough now, we’ve got a flight to catch...” Trailing at the end as she realised that the tapper was in fact one of the football fans who was getting nods and smiles from his group.
“How can you tell a lesbian is butch?” he whispered, leaning towards her, but still with half an eye on his gang of sniggering mates. Without waiting for a reply, he continued. “She can kick start her own vibrator and roll her own tampons!” Delivering his punchline with some gusto he could barely contain his mirth as his crew fell about laughing, oblivious to the stares of other more conservative passengers. The wide smirk covered the lower half of his face as he clutched his pot-belly which wobbled slightly with his deep throated chuckle.
Lottie was horrified.
Did this ignorant oaf actually think he’d said something funny?
Turning to Alice she saw, to her horror, that Alice was wearing a look of steely determination. She took an involuntary step backward as Alice menacingly leaned in to the lout and whispered in a low voice. “Are you always this stupid or is today an exception?”
Without waiting for a response, she took a startled step backward waving her arms around as if in panic but giving a subtle wink to the confused Lottie. Alice said with exaggerated terror in a loud and authoritative voice. “Did you say you were pleased to see me or is that a gun in your pocket?”
The thug laughed, not realising at first the gravity of Alice’s words, but a few short seconds later he was face down on the ground surrounded by airport security. Alice took Lottie once again firmly by the hand, and they melted into the expanding crowd. The man gestured wildly in their direction, but his arms were restrained as he was handcuffed and led away.
A FEW HOURS later the girls toasted the unknown male bigot with a glass of complimentary fizzy nectar as they adjusted to being in the air. After the short flight, they successfully negotiated Charles De Gaulle airport and joined the waiting coach, which would take them to their hotel in the Montmartre region of Paris.
Neither Lottie nor Alice had been to Paris before, and the short ride from the airport gave them a taste of what they could expect during the next few days. The tour they had booked included a river cruise on the Seine, and the weather forecast was promising. Lottie wondered at the brightly lit streets of Paris and enjoyed watching Alice marvel at the spectacular sight of the Champs-Élysées as dusk fell and the sun set behind the Arc de Triomphe.
Alice slipped her arm around Lottie’s neck and gently caressed her ear.
“Alice, this was such a great birthday present,” Lottie murmured. “If I forget to tell you later, I’m loving it!” Leaning in to Alice, she kissed her, and felt a tingle of anticipation shoot down her spine.
“You’re welcome, my beautiful girl,” Alice responded huskily. “I hope it will be trip we remember for years to come.”
Lottie smiled back. “So do I,” An involuntary shudder went through her in anticipation of the next day’s secret proposal. Looking upward, she silently pleaded with an unfamiliar God, Please, please let it go according to plan, for once in my life.
The coach driver was enjoying giving his riders a preview of the full Paris tour, and didn’t hurry to reach their destination. Alice settled back in her window seat, soaking up the sights through the diminishing light. Lottie was becoming increasingly uncomfortable as the familiar dull ache in her stomach signalled the onset of the dreaded irritable bowel syndrome that plagued her. She cursed silently, knowing it would only be a matter of time before she had to empty her bowels, despite being careful about what she had eaten on the plane. She decided she would be glad when the stress of proposing was past, as anxiety always ended up in an unpleasant trip to the toilet.
Wishing she hadn’t been quite so free and easy with the complimentary fizz, she excused herself and swayed down the narrow aisle of the coach towards the toilet at the rear. Holding onto the headrests, she tried to counterbalance without success and managed to bounce her bottom and her breasts alternately into the faces of her unsuspecting travel companions. Turning sideways, she swayed back and forth as the coach took the roundabouts of Paris as only an experienced Parisian lunatic driver could. She smiled apologetically at the other seated couples as she passed, aware that despite her frantic clenching, gas was beginning to escape her in readiness for the inevitable spasm of bowel action before she would need to evacuate her bowels. Families and older couples were the main passengers and she tried to distract herself by guessing how many of the younger loved up couples would be returning to the bus the following evening wearing engagement rings.
Eventually she made it to the toilet and struggled to hook the latch to secure the door. The faint aroma of urine hit her nostrils, and she tried to breathe through her mouth as she struggled to unzip her jeans in the confined space. Just as she’d managed to sit down, the bus took another roundabout violently slinging her sideways she noted the slopping sounds coming from underneath her in the sewerage outlet below her. Trying not to think about the contents of the tank she hurried to relive herself. Suddenly her stomach gave a large gurgle and the inevitable spasm hit her with force.
Bloody irritable bowel! She rubbed her stomach willing it not to give into a full-blown attack of the nuisance illness. Another spasm hit her. Oh hell, there was no holding this back! Leaning forward to ease the cramping, she faced the inevitable fact as the faecal matter left her bowels at lightning speed, and Lottie inwardly groaned at the inevitable smell and loud gas noises that escaped her to pebbledash the toilet bowl. Wiping vigorously, thankful for the plentiful supply of toilet roll, she leaned in to flush the disgusting contents away.
&nbs
p; While she was still recovering her equilibrium, there was a rapping noise on the door, “Excuse me. Are you okay? There is a bit of a queue out here.”
Emptying the contents of the soap dispenser onto her hands she rubbed herself vigorously with paper towels and flicked the catch to open the door. Unaware—having been trapped in the cubicle for some time—of the smell she had trapped with her, she noticed the rapping man took a step backward and wrinkled his nose in disgust. He allowed Lottie to pass, her face glowing red and she made no eye contact as she hastily made her way down the bus to resume her seat next to Alice.
On her return Alice gave her a curious glance. “You okay, sweetie? Irritable bowel?” Lottie could not speak, but nodded. To show her sympathy, Alice firmly grasped Lottie’s hand.
Secrets and Proposals
THE NEXT MORNING, Lottie and Alice awoke to the bright sunshine of Paris. Rolling together lazily, they mirrored one another’s smiles as they anticipated the day of exploring that lay ahead.
Alice had booked them onto an all-day coach tour which she had been assured would give them a taste of everything Parisian. Arriving at the breakfast room, Lottie noticed with amusement the nervous glances and anxious looks of the young male bucks in the party all of whom she had bet would be dropping to one knee at some point through the day. After her phenomenally botched proposal of the day before, Lottie had consoled herself with the certainty that any proposal made in the romantic city of Paris could not fail.
The passion she had shared with Alice the night before, despite the earlier onset of her irritable bowel symptoms—now settled, thanks to her ever-ready medication—had left her in little doubt that she was right to propose to her life-long lover and soul mate. They munched heartily on warmed croissants and freshlymade cream-topped hot chocolate. They chattered happily about their plans for the day and came up with a wish list of the top places they wanted to visit.