Champagne Secrets

by Amanda Brunker

  As a smile rippled across his face, his cheeky manner returned. ‘Half an hour, you say? Well, we have several options to choose from tonight. Would you like the Rory Baxter special, aka “The Works”, which takes a full half-hour? Or could I tempt you to a “Mini Special”? That includes everything contained in “The Works” but takes place over the course of a supersonic fifteen minutes. Or lastly, there’s “The Quickie”.’

  ‘Really, what’s that?’

  ‘Well, it’s probably the most practical option in this particular situation.’

  Trying to control my giggles, I asked, ‘Why’s that now?’

  ‘Because it involves me doing this …’ Wasting no time, he quickly lowered his mouth towards my neck and began caressing it with powerful kisses. I let out a little moan of passion. Clearly liking what he heard, he temporarily lifted his head back to smile and say, ‘But that’s just for starters. Then I get to do this …’ and returned to his work, where he performed some expert caressing down from my neck and across my chest, which he had already exposed by gently popping my breasts out of my bra.

  With my senses alive again, every touch of his hands and mouth felt like they were breathing new life into me. By now Rory had full control over my body and I no longer wanted to fight him. I groaned with pleasure as he slid down towards my stomach, the gentle bristles of his beard reminding me of our naughty encounter at the nightclub, and he continued his descent southwards without any further commentary. Massaging his hands across my hips and slowly around to my bum, he was in the middle of pulling my pyjama bottoms down with the tips of his fingers when I heard a knocking sound outside the front door that sounded like the kids. I grabbed his hands – ‘Hang on!’ – and at that moment the front door opened to an almighty ruckus of kids screaming and parents barking orders.

  Thankfully, in the extended time it took the gang to disrobe their wet coats and place their winter wellies up the stairs in their usual formation, Rory had quickly helped me to cover up and we had repositioned ourselves on the couch with just seconds to spare. We made a valiant attempt to look comfortable, but the truth was obvious – at least to Maura and John anyway. If only I’d had a camera to capture their surprised faces. But after collectively welcoming the group with a ‘Hi guys!’, a wave of panic enveloped me as I realized one of the kids might call me Eva. I didn’t have to worry, though, as the sight of a large bearded man in their living room was enough to turn them all mute. After their initial charge into the place, all three of them abruptly backed up into their parents’ groins for safety, with little Jack doing some obvious damage to John in the process.

  Taking charge of the situation, Maura ordered, ‘All little people upstairs and into their PJs,’ while John turned on his cool-parent charm and stuck out his hand.

  Showing respect for the man of the house, Rory stood up and nervously shook it. ‘I’ve kept your seat warm,’ he joked, signalling to John to sit down. ‘I was just on my way off now.’

  Though John said there was no rush, I decided to seal the deal. ‘No, it’s fine. Rory was just going. Weren’t you?’ A confused look shot across his face again, but I knew if I didn’t act fast, there would be no getting rid of him for the night. ‘Look, I promised I would help Maura get the kids down. You don’t mind, do you?’

  Not prepared to make a scene, Rory graciously backed down and agreed, ‘That’s a good idea. Sure, like I said, I was heading off now anyway. Good to see you again, John.’ Gathering his crumpled coat off the floor, Rory dragged his feet out to the hall where he started pulling grumpy but playful faces. ‘Has anyone ever told you before that you drive them crazy?’ he asked me.

  Lifting up his jumper to quickly kiss his belly I teased, ‘A few.’

  Anxiously, he pushed me away, laughing. ‘Stop it. Don’t be starting something that you can’t finish. I’m already frustrated enough as it is. You’re killing me here, girl.’

  So I reached up to kiss him on the lips and promised him, ‘It’ll all be worth the wait. You just have to have some patience, unfortunately.’

  And, surprisingly, he agreed. ‘You’re right, mystery lady. I’m loving the danger and the intrigue that’s been going on. But when it’s the right time we’ll know. Now go on and help Maura, and don’t forget to tell that little lad how lucky he is having such a sexy woman putting him to bed – I’d steal his spot any night.’ As I leaned in to kiss him one last time, Rory looked around before swiftly lifting me up, pushing my legs around him for balance, and through my haze of giddiness told me, ‘I’m going to Rio next Monday for a week. When I’m back can you make a window to see me?’

  ‘A week?’

  ‘Yeah, sorry. I’m there to film some prostitution ring. It’s meant to be pretty grim. So when I get back, I’ll be needing me some good lovin’. Hopefully, if you’re up for it, you’ll be the woman to give it to me?’ Before I got an opportunity to speak, he pinched my leg, making me squeal with laughter.

  Of course, that only alerted the children to the strange activity, causing both the girls to appear at the top of the stairs, asking, ‘What’s going on?’

  Sensing that I was sailing too close to the wind, I immediately shouted back, ‘I’ll be up in five minutes to read you a story,’ and wriggled for Rory to put me down. Pushing him out the door I waited till he was halfway down the drive before quickly flashing him my boobs from under my sweatshirt. ‘I’ll call you, OK?’

  To which he gave me the thumbs up and mused, ‘I hope so, as you are now my mysterious Irish colleen. There’s a lot I need to find out about you.’ Turning at the gate, he continued, ‘Well, there’s a lot I need to uncover, anyhow.’ Happy in himself, he blew me one last kiss and then disappeared off into the cold sleeting rain. As happy as a cat with nine lives, I returned inside, grinning from ear to ear.

  Feeling like I had a noose around my neck, I arrived into Sir Charlie’s on Saturday night determined to complete my mission in one final eight-hour shift. From the point of view of the bouncers outside the club, I was just walking up the streets towards them, chatting into my phone. But of course my filming had begun, and I was talking about them and had them on camera as I approached. As luck would have it, they were the particularly dodgy-looking ones that had been on the door the evening I overheard the two guys in the toilet complaining about Craig withholding their drugs. If there was some way I could catch them acting inappropriately again, my job here would be done. Distracted by the already long queue of scantily clad women behind their red ropes, neither of them took much notice of me hanging around possibly longer than I should have, ensuring that I was able to capture their faces and voices on camera.

  Once inside, I could see Craig holding court, and got a devil’s glare from him as I walked past his post at the manager’s station. Determined not to show any weakness, I smiled back at him and kept on walking, all the while thinking to myself, I’m going to get you tonight. With my hidden camera safely in place and fully charged, I stepped out on to a floor which was heaving with Saturday-night partygoers. I felt ready to take on the world as I hummed along to the tune ‘Bulletproof’, and prayed that I myself wouldn’t have to be. I was doing this to secure my future – Daisy’s future – and when I was finished we would go back to Dublin with a fat cheque and return to our old life.

  Deciding to be proactive and see if I could make friends with the doormen, I prepared them some of their favourite ‘special coffees’ and trotted out to get acquainted. Despite the fact that I was brandishing hot toddies I didn’t exactly receive the warm welcome I was hoping for. After a few grunts of acknowledgement they turned their backs on me and I was left with nothing else to do but return inside. Once there, I was cornered by Craig. After a barrage of questions – including, ‘What were you doing outside?’ and, ‘What weight are you now?’ – I managed to fob him off with some generic answers. Knowing that I wouldn’t get anywhere being his hate-figure, I chose to ignore his grumpiness and tried to turn on the old Valentine charm. Did it wo
rk? No. He barely showed a smile, not to mention his dental work; instead he informed me that a large party from a fashion show would be in around midnight, and that I needed to be on top of my game.

  Cursing him, and creeped out by his nasty obsession with his female employees’ weight, I went through the motions of serving my tables, and after asking one of the other girls if they could babysit my station, I went for a ramble out the back to see if I could locate any dodgy dealings. Although a couple of the chefs were playing cards, smoking roll-ups and drinking shots of what looked like whiskey in one of the storerooms, I kept moving with a wink and a smile, as I was in pursuit of much bigger wrong-doers.

  Not knowing what I was looking for, I began to walk in the direction of Craig’s office and was astonished, yet quietly thrilled, to find it open. Of course I didn’t know what I might find or where to look now that I was in, but I felt a good place to start might be his filing cabinets. Right enough, between the sheets of invoices was a half-empty bottle of vodka and a large Bank of England bag of coins and rolled-up notes. Lifting them both up for the camera in my hair to properly view them, I made a little joke that if we had been living in Chicago during the Prohibition era I might just have bagged me a crime, but I quickly replaced them both and continued with my search.

  With nothing else in the cabinets, I tried his desk, but all of the drawers were locked. Rummaging around in coin boxes and on shelves for keys, I was out of luck. Nothing was going to be found on this search – except, it turned out, me. Hearing a noise from behind, I turned to find a small, extremely camp-looking young twenty-something standing in the doorway.

  ‘What are you looking for?’ he asked, his pencilled eyebrows arched.

  The truth slipped out before I had even consciously processed it: ‘Coke.’

  ‘Excellent!’ He grinned. ‘Did you find any?’

  10

  My snooping had been discovered by none other than Craig’s ex-boyfriend. Luckily for me, the split had been acrimonious. I played along with Matti’s desire to bitch about what a shit Craig was, and how, ‘He should know better than to dump the best shag he ever had!’ We bonded briefly over hating men and needing coke, and returned downstairs to a now even-busier floor, where Matti blended into the crowd, yet thankfully kept well away from Craig or any other staff members.

  Assuming that Matti was the one that the guys I’d overheard in the toilet had described as Craig’s ‘bitch’, I wondered if Matti could have been dumped by Craig in an effort to protect him? If that was the case, Matti sure as hell wasn’t doing himself any favours by hanging around. Unfortunately, I already had too many unanswered questions buzzing around my head, and there was no room to add my worries about Matti to the list just yet. So, although I kept one wandering eye on his whereabouts, I got on with the job at hand.

  By 1 a.m. the place had begun to resemble a tin of sardines, with the room full of skinny models draping their long, lean limbs all over the furniture. Instead of delighting in Saturday night fever, all the faces looked sullen and miserable – and intent on getting wasted. Everywhere you looked people were sucking on straws as they drank vodkas or glasses of white wine. Thinking back to my own underage drinking, I figured they were using the straws in a clear attempt to get the alcohol into their systems quicker, and like a concerned mammy I just wondered: with their zero-sized waists and zero body-fat, where the hell was the booze going to go?

  Needing once again to focus my worries, I decided that if they didn’t care what state they were getting into, neither should I. I concentrated instead on feeling slim and fabulous, and being on the ball when it came to my tables. ‘Welcome to Sir Charlie’s. I’m Alice, let me know if I can be of service.’ It was only as these words slid off my tongue for about the fifth time that evening that I realized I was saying them to an oddly familiar-looking face. The one and only Ed Black had slipped on to one of my tables, and was looking even more gorgeous in the flesh. Famed in the tabloids for his one-night stands with actresses, pop-stars, TV presenters – but never models – he was the biggest fashion designer to emerge out of London since McQueen and McCartney, with a profile akin to that of the art world’s bad boy, Damien Hirst.

  There was a short exchange of words between himself and another male friend before the boys ordered two pints of Jack Daniels and full-fat Coca-Cola. And within seconds of me turning to the bar to get their order I heard the words, ‘Nice arse,’ coming from behind.

  Doing my best to sound sassy, I swiftly turned back and joked, ‘Thank you. Such a shame it couldn’t fit into any of your designs, though,’ before continuing off to the bar.

  As the night grew on, so did the banter between Ed and his pal Joshua, and it was becoming increasingly obvious why Ed never shagged any of the lacklustre models in his entourage, as all they seemed to do was complain about not having enough drugs. They were unrelentingly sickly and grumpy. Meanwhile, I couldn’t help being a little starstruck by the celebrity designer and his mate. So I began slagging Ed off, and saying things like: ‘You’re the black hole that sucked talent up and spat it back out again.’

  Suddenly, after one too many of his models had asked me for coke, I found my moment of clarity. At first I’d batted off their interruptions as much as I could, feeling they were getting in the way of my socializing, but now I finally copped the opportunity they were giving me to incriminate the bouncers. Slipping outside, I politely asked one of the hard guys standing next to the head of security, Jake Lewis. ‘Listen, I’m really sorry, but Ed Black is at my table with a load of models, and they keep asking me for coke. They’re saying they’re gonna leave soon if they don’t get sorted. I’m not sure what the story is, but I just thought I’d pass it on.’

  Staring at me without any sort of reaction at first, the hard guy finally said, ‘Leave it with me. Tell them there’s been a delay and we have some on the way.’

  Fighting the urge to kiss him or scream with joy, I calmly replied, ‘Sure.’ Then I skipped back off towards my monstrous models and told them, ‘Good news, girls. There are some supplies on the way.’

  Overhearing me, Ed’s pal Joshua let out a cry of ‘Hallelujah’, and gaiety was once again restored to the beautiful people. By 3 a.m., though, the posse of half-collapsed models had nearly met their limit, with only their normal-looking mates, most probably make-up artists and hairdressers, keeping them animated. Watching his flock disintegrate before him, Ed leaned over to me and asked, ‘What’s the story on the coke? I can’t stand the stuff, but unless I get something into these bitches, I’ll be celebrating the launch of my new collection on my own.’

  Telling him I’d make some more enquiries, I headed back outside, and this time called Jake over to speak with me. Apologizing for interrupting him, I told him about the situation inside and asked if he could help, hoping that he would use the words ‘cocaine’ and ‘I will supply’ in the same sentence. But he just asked me to send Ed or Joshua out to him so he could deal directly with them. Back at the table I did what I was told, and, without missing a beat, Joshua jumped up and declared that he was going to sort this out. Within minutes he had returned. ‘Stand up, everyone, and grab your coats, you’ve pulled. We’re going back to mine now.’

  As if they were just puppets on a string, the dead models awoke and rose up tall, pulling themselves and their matching grungy duffle coats together. Ed asked for the bill, and on my return with it had another order for me. ‘You’re to get your coat, too. You’re too much fun to leave behind.’

  ‘You’d never be able to handle me. My chunky ass is too juicy even for your black hole. And I’ve to hang on here, anyway. I won’t finish my shift for another hour, at least.’

  Not accepting this, Ed summonsed Craig to tell him, ‘We need to kidnap this woman. My sanity depends on it.’

  Thankfully, Craig was still avoiding Matti, who, remaining at the bar in a rage of jealousy, had quite blatantly started snogging another young man. So I knew Craig wouldn’t have heard about me search
ing his office. In fact, he was actually pleased that I had made an impact on an important VIP like Black. He showed the broadest smile I’d ever seen and cheerily said, ‘Take her. She’s all yours.’

  Curious, I asked, ‘But what about my station?’

  Craig just shook his head and answered, ‘Go and enjoy yourself. Don’t worry about a thing.’

  As Craig dismissed himself to go and check on the transport, Black told me to put £250 on the bill for my ‘excellent service’ – and hurry up, as they’d be waiting outside in a car for me.

  I was putting on my coat when I suddenly questioned why the hell I was going to this house party. Sure, it would make for a great salacious story to tell Parker and Lisa over a couple of glasses of vino tomorrow evening, as by then I would be nursing my hangover with a cure. But hadn’t I captured enough footage on my camera this evening without needing to frame more people for drugs? Or had I? Still wondering whether to stay or go, leave the camera in or take my headpiece off, I was in the middle of checking myself out in the mirror to see how all the electronics were holding up when Heidi, one of the other waitresses, popped her head around the corner and bellowed, ‘Your chariot awaits you. Ed Black says to hurry the fuck up!’

  Making the decision to go and enjoy myself, but leave the camera in just in case, I grabbed my stuff, waved goodbye to the staff – hopefully for the final time – and rushed out the front door to be ushered into a black Hummer limo. The two boys cheered as I arrived, though the models groaned with disapproval, and I realized that this wasn’t going to be an easy crowd to win over. I was just beginning to curse my judgement when one of the girls at the other end of the car asked, ‘What’s the story with the charlie, Joshua? Did you fucking get sorted or what?’

  Sitting in beside him, I remained silent as he replied, ‘Jake has sorted it, babe. He’s personally delivering it to my gaff. Said something like there was too much heat around the club tonight, so they couldn’t hand it over. So talk yourself down from that ledge, babe, you’ll get your snow very soon.’