A Summer Fling

by Milly Johnson

  Oona had snatched another champagne flute and was hanging around Vladimir now and trying not to sway. She appeared to be trying to monopolize his attention and he rather expertly wasn’t allowing that to happen. Her lower lip was petulantly pouting out five inches in front of her cleavage because he clearly wasn’t one of the ‘isn’t-Oona-amaaazing’ brigade. That explained a few things, Anna thought with a wry smile.

  By the time Dawn alighted from the minibus at Blegthorpe in her ‘Last chance to shag me – I’m the Bride’ T-shirt which she was pressured into putting on over her new dress, she was the only one of the thirteen sober. Demi, Denise and their group of friends were all in various stages between half-blasted and completely blotto. It was the wedding rehearsal tomorrow at 1 p.m. She dreaded to see the state of her future sisters-in-law then.

  Demi’s best mate, Sherideen, was the worst hit so far and had already vomited on her ‘Little Hen Seeks Big Cock’ T-shirt. Luckily, there were some spares on the bus that Demi had brought just in case anyone was sick on themselves – how well she knew her crowd. Sherideen slurringly explained to Dawn that she’d been drinking on an empty stomach and went straight off the bus to the nearest chip shop to put a lining on her tum before hitting the bars of Blegthorpe. Dawn checked her watch. Given the choice between this evening and root canal surgery without anaesthetic and a blind dentist, the latter would have won easily.

  They weren’t the only hen or stag party there. The town was heaving with groups of women bearing L plates and veils seemingly made out of net curtains. Dawn tried to look jolly only because she didn’t want Denise or Demi scoffing at her for being miserable, but she could think of better ways of enjoying herself than carrying a giant inflatable knob around with her in a place she didn’t like, with people she didn’t know.

  Bette and Muriel were wearing big summer frocks that showed off their bingo wings to best effect. Apparently Empty Head didn’t have T-shirts large enough for them. Dawn didn’t even want to think what Bette would look like in a white T-shirt. There would have been avalanche warnings as she walked down the hill to the pubs. Bette couldn’t stand up for very long, given her bulk, so she and Muriel found a cosy corner to sit in with their pints of lager and lime. Luckily, most of the party were too far gone to even remember Dawn’s existence, something at least for which she was grateful. Dawn pushed herself into the background and watched her ‘hens’ dancing on tables and flirting with ‘cocks’. She pressed her fingernail hard into the inflatable willy and heard the air sigh out of it. There was a cheer to the side of her and she turned to see that Demi had taken her T-shirt off and was jumping up and down with her bare breasts bobbling. The bouncer came over and told her to put her top back on, but he was very slow in pushing through the crowd, considering what a huge, flabby bloke he was.

  Two of the women were virtually unconscious by 2.30 a.m. and Denise asked Dawn if she would mind ringing for the bus driver to pick them up now instead of 5 a.m. Dawn didn’t mind at all; in fact she was ecstatic, but she made a lot of ‘Aw!’ sounds for effect. She clambered on the bus with them all and did a convincing job of saying what a fantastic night she’d had and feigned being well tipsy. Even Bette and Muriel were too drunk to notice that Dawn was stone cold sober and playacting her little heart out.

  Demi fell asleep halfway through her kebab on the bus. The meat hung from her lips, giving the impression that she had just ripped it from the back of an animal. Dawn was scared of Demi, if the truth be told. She thought of the years to come pussy-footing around her, fearful to upset her at family gatherings. Then Al Holly and his proposal pushed through to the front of her thoughts. But how could she just up and leave her whole life to chase a dream? What if it all soured? She could never come home because she would always be looking over her shoulder for a scary Crooke sister. It would be something always to keep in the treasure box section of her head, but people like her didn’t up and cross the Atlantic with just a guitar and a few pairs of clean pants with a man they barely knew on the strength of a few conversations about Gibsons and Stratocasters. They did nine-to-five jobs and married men who never put their dirty washing in the laundry bin and worried about the bills and had a perfunctory bonk on Saturday nights and dreamed of lives they weren’t ever brave enough to chase.

  Dawn wished she had got drunk after all. Madly and totally drunk, so that a hangover drove all thoughts of guitars and weddings and dresses and old hallucinating ladies from her head. She was so tired, so very, very tired.

  Anna also was stone-cold sober. A few times she had seen Vladimir about to come over to her, only to be snatched back by someone. He was a victim of his own success, tonight more than ever. At least she had the big dog, Luno, for company. He had wandered over when she flashed a miniature Yorkshire pudding canapé at him. Surprisingly, he had stayed hanging around her when he had eaten it, settling at her side with his big head on his shaggy paws.

  Anna’s portrait seemed to be attracting attention, but she herself was superfluous. She was a mere extension of Vladimir and the man himself was in this room, so why would anyone want her – the mere clothes horse?

  ‘You’re the girl on the poster, aren’t you?’ boomed a raucous voice in her ear. She turned around to see a presenter from the Morning Coffee breakfast show. Someone they used as a stand-in when Drusilla Durham and her husband, Gerald ‘The Man’ Mandelton, were off gallivanting. What the hell was his name again?

  ‘Tony Barrett,’ he offered, right on cue, holding out a big meaty hand. Of course: Tony. How could she forget? ‘I had to come over. I think you look absolutely fantastic.’

  ‘Oh, thank you,’ said Anna, relieved to be talking to someone, even for a few minutes.

  ‘And you’re even nicer in the flesh!’

  He was sniffing a lot. And his eyes looked glassy, she noticed on closer inspection.

  ‘I don’t think Vlad could have picked anyone more perfect,’ said Tony, leaning in a bit too close and looking down her top. It seemed he had the same charm offensive as the other Tony. He’d probably cut to the chase and ask her for a shag with his next breath.

  ‘Well, that’s very kind of you to say so,’ said Anna, pulling back to give herself some personal space.

  ‘I’d like to have you on the show. Are you up for that?’

  ‘Sounds great!’ smiled Anna, as he fell forwards onto her and knocked the remainder of her drink down her dress. Luckily there wasn’t much in her glass and it was stain-free champagne, but it gave Tony the excuse to wipe his hand down her front apologetically. It felt like the unadulterated grope it was. Anna stepped away from his hand politely.

  ‘It’s fine,’ she said. ‘Don’t worry.’

  ‘Come and have a dance,’ said Tony, gripping her arm.

  ‘Maybe later,’ said Anna, her smile tighter now.

  ‘No, come on, we can talk about the show. I’ve got a lot of power, you know. I can get you a big slot.’ She didn’t like the way he said ‘big slot’ – he gave it a very sexual tone.

  ‘Anna, come, I need you,’ said a welcome voice at her side. Leonid. ‘Tony, go away. She has no time to dance, she has to come with me.’

  Tony shrugged his shoulders and moved off, knocking into the lady with the canapé tray and sending a couple of miniquiches Luno’s way.

  ‘He’s been on the sniffy-sniffy stuff,’ said Leonid. ‘I had to rescue you. He’s a horrible man. He tries to get anything into bed.’

  ‘Flattering!’ tutted Anna.

  ‘Vladimir sent me to say he’s so sorry you are on your own so much. You are such a great success.’

  ‘No, he’s the success,’ said Anna. ‘I’m just the shop-floor dummy.’

  ‘He will be with you shortly,’ said Leonid, tutting at her self-denigration and giving her a gentle slap on the bottom. ‘Don’t move.’

  He replaced the empty glass in her hand with a full one, deftly swept from the tray of a passing waiter, and then he moved off himself.

  She looked at her
watch. It was eleven o’clock. Tony would be at her house in an hour. She thought of how much she had wanted him back, but now she felt nothing at the prospect of his return. Was that because she was anaesthetized by the shock that it was actually going to happen at last?

  She looked across at Vladimir in his gorgeous suit and starched white shirt again and something definitely happened to her heart that wasn’t supposed to happen. It seemed to flood with warmth and smiles and sighs. He was engaged in conversation with a rotund older actress from Emmerdale. He was so charming and at ease with his crowd. But this was his world, after all, and not hers. He was glitz and glamour and chauffeur-driven Mercs. She was a Barnsley woman whose idea of exciting fashion before she met Vladimir Darq had been a sale on in Dorothy Perkins. She was his fait accompli. The words of that vermicelli-thin Oona woman thumped back into her head. Bitchy, but true. Yes, Vladimir had made her feel beautiful, as he swore he would. He delivered to her a corset covered in tiny beads that her body was so proud to wear for him. She, Anna Brightside, aged forty from Courtyard Lane, was worth the effort, worth the time, worth the trouble. And women all over the world would soon be in touch with their own Darq sides because this inspiring man thought they should be valued as much, if not more, than his A-list clients.

  Her work here was done. She belonged in Ordinary World and she needed to get back to it sooner rather than later because complications were already setting in. She was in mortal danger of falling in love with his tender ways and reverence for her, and could only get hurt. Yes, he had awoken her inner siren. The trouble was, that siren wanted him. He had lifted her so high she wasn’t sure if normal life was possible any more.

  It was time to go home and face Tony. She would listen to what he had to say and then decide what she wanted. What she wanted.

  She took a last look at the beautiful room decorated with giant moons and stars against black velvet drapes and buzzing with music, chatter and stunning people. She raised her glass in Vladimir Darq’s direction and took a long sip of champagne.

  Good luck, Vladimir. I wish you everything that makes you happy.

  Anna patted Luno’s big head, then slid out through the front door where the complimentary taxis were waiting. She thought no one noticed she had gone.

  The taxi driver took a wrong turning. He tapped his Satnav fiercely and gave the excuse that he had only been doing the job a week. He didn’t take much of a detour but, as they rounded the corner for Courtyard Lane, Anna saw that Vladimir Darq was standing by her front door, so pale in the moonlight that he looked like a visitor from another world.

  ‘How . . . how did you get here so fast?’ was her first breathless question to him when she had got out of the taxi and waved goodbye to the driver, followed by the second: ‘Why are you holding a blue stiletto?’

  He held the shoe out to her.

  ‘You dropped this, running away from my ball, Cinderella. Didn’t you?’

  Anna lifted her dress up so Vladimir could see her feet, both with a shoe on them.

  ‘No, I didn’t,’ she said.

  ‘Oh goodness,’ he said, rubbing his forehead. ‘I found it outside by the cars. I presumed . . . Someone is going to be rather angry with me then.’

  ‘Hopping mad,’ said Anna with a smile. ‘Plus it’s massive!’

  It wouldn’t have looked out of place on the Norfolk Broads.

  ‘Why did you go, Anna?’ He pronounced her name as always, more Ah-na, than Anna. Like a sigh.

  ‘Oh Vladimir, why do you think?’ said Anna, with a loaded sigh of her own. ‘Look at me. Look at where I live!’ She pointed backwards at the small house. ‘It’s a terrace in the middle of Barnsley. I work in an office. I don’t jet off to Milan. I don’t have friends who are pop stars. You’ve made me feel wonderful. Now I have to be wonderful in my own world.’ If I can, after the way you’ve rocked my world so much that I don’t know where the hell I belong any more, you vampire swine.

  ‘You could go to Milan and mix with pop stars.’

  ‘Yeah, course I cou— Mw!’

  She had no chance to finish her sentence because Vladimir Darq cleared the distance between them in a nano-second, seized her roughly in his arms and stifled her words with his lips.

  Good God, her brain said on behalf of her mouth, which was otherwise engaged. His arm was around her waist, his other pulling her hair back and stretching out her throat to him. They looked like a Mills and Boon cover. One entitled: Yours to Devour.

  Chuff, he’s going to kill me! she thought. Quickly followed by, And I don’t care! His lips smudged along her jugular, setting off dormant fireworks on her nerve endings. Those big ones with multi-heads that kept firing into the sky and made whole towns go, ‘Wow!’

  She could see his black hair, taste him on her lips, smell the wonderful alpha-male cologne he wore, hear him breathe, feel his strong body pressing against hers . . . She only wished she had a load more senses that could experience him because five didn’t seem enough. She had wondered, more often than she cared to admit, what kissing him would be like, but never in her wildest dreams did she imagine it would be as good as this. It was an experience bettered only by his voice vibrating against her neck and saying, ‘Anna, you drove me crazy when I first met you and you drive me crazy now for very different reasons. I want you so much. You do belong to my world. You belong to me.’

  This couldn’t be happening, of course. She’d had too much champagne and was hallucinating. Could you hallucinate on two glasses though? Maybe someone had spiked her drink with ‘sniffy-sniffy’? In reality, Vladimir was back at Darq House, chatting up that long, skinny, bitchy bird and she was here alone in the moonlight, having the best daydream of her life. But she wasn’t hallucinating, this was happening, Vladimir was saying those things and she was making gaspy noises because his mouth was moving up and down her throat as if he was playing slow blues on a harmonica.

  Then he straightened her up and held her in front of him and looked deep into her eyes.

  ‘I have guests. I have to go back. Tomorrow, at eleven in the morning, I will come for you. I will show you the true world of Vladimir Darq.’ He lifted her hand and kissed the back of it, then once again he planted a long, sensuous kiss on her lips. He drew apart from her slowly, torturously, leaving Anna bathing in the aftershock, afraid to open her eyes and see him go.

  When she opened them, he was no longer there. She felt as if she had just done ten rounds with an amorous Rocky Marciano. She was so light-headed she was sure she would have risen up to that big full moon like a helium balloon, if she had let go of her weighty clutch bag.

  She leaned against the door for support, stretching out her neck and presenting it to an imaginary Vladimir for more of the same. What did he mean by ‘his true world’? she mused. Was he going to show off the his-and-hers coffins in the basement? The bottles of maidens’ blood in his cellars? The moon beamed down on her with its soft, silver light. Stars studded the sky. They were like tiny beads stitched on velvet cloth.

  She stood there sighing like something out of a Hollywood musical, thinking she would never sleep tonight, not in a million years, when she heard the low rumble of an approaching car which, within the minute, swung into the lane. Tony. She’d forgotten about him. She’d actually forgotten about him. Half an hour ago, she’d been ready to listen to his excuses, but after that kiss there was no way on this planet that was going to happen. He was grinning assuredly at her as he pulled up, then his brow furrowed in confusion, then that smile came back wider than ever.

  ‘Anna! Wow! I didn’t recognize you for a minute there. I thought you must be someone else. You look amazing – like a model. Is it really you? Wow!’

  He jumped out of the car and she immediately noticed the suitcases on the back seat.

  ‘I’m early, babe,’ he said. ‘And so are you. Couldn’t wait, huh? Me neither. That dress is fantastic on you. I can’t wait to see it on the bedroom floor. Come here, I have missed you so much.’ He came forwa
rd, arms open wide to enclose her, but she held up an arresting palm and said his name firmly.

  ‘Tony.’ She couldn’t think of anything else to say then but, ‘No.’

  He froze, arms still open. ‘No?’ he said eventually. ‘What do you mean – no?’

  ‘I’ve been thinking. I don’t want you back.’

  ‘Oh, come on,’ he said, still hanging on to that smile. ‘You know you do. That’s why you told me to come back at midnight.’

  ‘I didn’t tell you. You volunteered,’ Anna corrected him.

  ‘Same difference.’

  ‘Tony, about earlier . . . you caught me on the hop. I was mixed up. But I’m not now.’

  ‘You’re kidding me,’ he said. Still smiling and now, apparently, enlightened. ‘Ah – I see. You’re playing hard to ge-et!’

  ‘No, I’m not. You’ll have to go back to Lynette.’

  ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I mean, I don’t want to. I want you, not her.’

  ‘Tony, I don’t want you.’

  ‘You do. How many times have you passed my shop to look at me?’

  The cheeky chuff, thought Anna. He’d seen her. No doubt it had thrilled him, made him believe that her door was open to him whenever he deigned to return.

  ‘Let’s go in and talk about it,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ said Anna, holding up that palm again. ‘I don’t want you to come inside. I don’t want you, Tony. It’s over.’