We both laugh.
‘Right, Elektra’ I emphasize her name, we’d already covered the piss taking when we met, ‘I’ve bought tickets for both of the film openings tonight. Sleepy Hollow or The World is Not Enough. Ghosts or Bond?’
‘Oh Robbie, you really know how to treat a girl’ she says smiling, flashing her perfect bright white teeth and holding my gaze, eyes sparkling. She’s taking the piss back, and I love it. We both know that we could go to an insurance convention tonight and we’d still have a great night.
‘Bond, babe. Bond’ she chuckles, breathily. We’d also already covered the fact that I love Bond films, so this was obviously what I was hoping. We had only just met and we knew enough about each other already. Enough to say the right things, at least.
‘Man, you really are perfect,’ I say, sincerely. She is, and it overwhelms me. My heart is hammering as I look at this girl who is looking at me this way, and the connection is making me light headed. I reach over, and hold the side of her beautiful face. This is the kiss moment. We both know it.
But I still want to prolong the delicious agony. Delay the gratification. So I don’t do it.
She growls when I don’t kiss her, and I chuckle and wink. I tell her to stay there, climb out of the car and bounce round to her side. I open her door grandly, and gesture her out flamboyantly.
At that, it feels like her smile lights up the car park and she eases one long leg out and places her pink high heel on the tarmac. My eyes dart to between her legs. The car’s interior light illuminates her bright pink tiny knickers. In a split second I take in her mound, the cleft of her lips underneath and the obviously lack of hair pushing against the so tight fabric. I immediately salivate. My cock is rigid. My head spins.
She is watching me taking it all in and is fine with that, and then she slowly brings the other leg over, hiding the delicious area between her toned thighs and climbs out, slowly standing up with her face centimetres from mine.
She leans forward, pushing her body against mine, her pudenda and my cock meeting through her tight black flimsy dress and tiny underwear, my jeans and boxers. We are face to face, shakey breath in each other’s faces and our eyes are locked. She moves forward a tiny amount, lips only just brush mine and then bites my bottom lip, oh-so gently.
I want to kiss her, ravish her, right here, right now; but I also know how nuclear the sex will be later if I continue to prolong the first kiss. So I reach under her jacket, place my hands on her sides just under the swell of her beautiful and braless breasts and slowly slide them down until I reach her hips. I move my thumbs over her hipbones and feel the elastic of that tiny underwear guarding what I want to taste so badly, and then take a firm hold of her hips and gently push her away.
‘Bastard’ she breathes out, grinning, pupils hugely dilated.
‘I know’ I respond shakily, my face is flushed and my jeans bulging.
‘Robbie’, she says this teasingly, ‘I think we can both feel what’s going on’
‘Fuck yes’
‘I just wanted you to know that I am so fucking wet right now’
Good god. This girl is incredible. The world around us has paused, and my pulse is thunder, I am giddy like you wouldn’t believe. I can see how flushed she is too, and I’m tempted to just jump in the car and go home with her.
But no. Delayed gratification. It will make it all incredible later.
‘Elektra’
‘Yes Robbie’ she whispers back.
‘I am going to feast on you later’
‘Aaaw gaaawd’ she growls, and holds my gaze with eyes full of meaning.
‘Like a fat kid in a cake shop’ I smile.
‘WHAT?!’
We crack up into laughter, I turn her around and force her away to walk in front of me, and we meander messily towards the cinema entrance, both finding excuses to touch each other, both feeling the static electric of the monumental fucking to come. And come. And come.
The delicious teasing continues as we queue for drinks and popcorn, managing to stand ridiculously close to each other at all times, fitting the shapes of our bodies into each other’s curves and concaves. I can feel the damp trails in my shorts, and I know she is still turned on as she is shaking each time I brush a hand against her hand, or an arm against her arm. Any excuse is being used.
Anyone with eyes can see we are turned on and that we will be fucking soon. We are in a mating dance and this cinema is the stage upon which we perform it. It is the entrée before the main course and it could be happening anywhere for all we care.
Once food and drink is bought, the touching continues, straws slid slowly into holes and eyes locked when sucked upon; that kind of thing. I find myself feeling a feeling that is rare to me. There is a part to me that is quite superficial, and that’s the part that loves beauty. I am very attracted to the very attractive, I suppose we all are. I strive for the best in all areas, and so I tend to sleep with some pretty gorgeous women. Funny, intelligent, successful to varying degrees; but with a common denominator. All beautiful.
However, no matter how hot they are, I would find myself out and about with them, and still on the hunt. I’d be looking around seeing what else was out there, another target, another potential conquest. I’d got numbers from other girls while in the presence of a beautiful partner. Sometimes under their nose, depending on how honest the parameters were with that person at that time.
But tonight; tonight felt different. I hadn’t even kissed this girl yet, but I felt a new feeling. Or at least new in recent years. I hadn’t even looked. Not once. Not one look to see if there were other pretty targets.
This was momentous. This was huge. This was something I realised right there that I wanted to make work. I felt ready. Yes.
We hand over our tickets; we gravitate towards the darkened back rows of the cinema. It is still mostly empty as we are there in plenty of time, so we manage to locate vacant seats on the back row. We stand in our bubble of lust, the world outside still rolling on, but we are impervious to it.
‘After you’ I say breathily, gesturing her into the row in front of me.
‘What a gent’, she says, staring at me through passionate, hooded eyes.
I laugh, ‘Maybe. Or maybe I want to watch that perfect arse for a bit longer’.
She mock hits me, another excuse for more touching, and eases in front of me. And yes, it is spectacular, that arse, and she is amazing. There is lust, but my god is there a connection. I have never felt so much chemistry so quickly with someone. She is funny, she is sweet, she is very intelligent and my god is she stunning.
She’s got baggage, yes. Haven’t we all in some way or another, but the fact that she was in such an abusive relationship appeals to me. I realise that not only am I ready to take all of that on and make her happy; I feel that I need to.
I surprise myself as the thoughts scuttle across my mind that maybe I’ll enter the new millennium with an actual girlfriend. A girlfriend! As I watch her taking off her jacket, teasing me further and showing me the incredibly lithe and toned body being hugged by the quite flimsy mini dress; I toy with the idea. I turn the idea round in my head, as if it is a rare object to be scrutinised and assessed.
A girlfriend.
A partner.
A co-pilot.
I hardly know this girl, but I feel like she could be exactly that. Someone I feel good with, someone I won’t get bored of looking at. A girl that keeps my short attention span at attention. That and everything else to attention. I can’t help but stare at her, smiling. Yes, I think this could be a turning point for old Robbie Manners. In just over a month it will be the year 2000, I will have a shedload of commission and I’ll do my damndest to have this perfect person as my partner.
My amorous thoughts are dashed by the physical presence, common voices and coarse language of a group of people coming up the stairs behind me, obviously all aiming for the back of the cinema too. All being purposely loud, all craving the attent
ion that those type of people do. More at home on a street corner, or hanging around outside an off license or at a bus stop. Anyone passing will be sneered at, commented upon audibly or verbally abused as they are safe in their numbers. Singly they’d say nothing, but as a unit you know they will hunt the weak. Essentially, they are not the type you want at a cinema.
I quickly assess them, two young men and a girl and make the quick assumption that their reasons for being at the back are very different to ours.
I bet money they’re fucking talkers. Rustlers. Crunchers. The flat loud talking-level whisperers. The ones you want to shout at to shut the fuck up, but know that their pack mentality will only give them the confidence and bile to escalate things with whoever dares to challenge them. And that’s all they want, they want the challenge.
Why do these people pay the increasingly ridiculous price for a cinema ticket and then talk all the way through it? I realise I’m getting wound up before they’ve even done anything. Who knows, they may be boisterous fans of Bond films that will actually shut the hell up when the credits roll. Maybe.
I look at Elektra watching me watch them. I smile, dreamily at her. Fuck me, she is fucking perfect. I don’t care who sits in front of us…
‘Mind out mate!’ I hear in a gruff female voice, getting pushed to the side so that the three new arrivals can bundle down the aisle of seats directly in front of us, the entrance to which I had been standing in front of, ready to enter behind and join the object of my attentions a few rows down.
It was the girl who had pushed me aside. There was the distinct smell of booze as she did so, but there’s no excuse for that, ‘Bloody hell, watch ou..’
The last of the three, a wiry and scruffy lad no older than 20 appears in my face.
‘Sorry about Nicky, mate. She’s a bit pissed’ he slurs at me, seeming genuine. He then starts down their row and shouts ‘Fucks’ sake, Nicky, be careful, man. Don’t get us in another fight.’ She hits him on the arms and they start planting rough play punches on each other’s limbs, all three shouting at once but at least keeping it contained to their own little maelstrom and leaving us alone.
I appreciate the third of the three doing that. It diffuses my rising indignation. I look over and Elektra is watching me with an unreadable look on her face as the three slump down into their seats, seemingly directly in front of where we had chosen.
Remembering her ex was violent, and realising the look I couldn’t read was probably her assessing my reaction, I grin, and beckon her away from the three rowdy new arrivals. Elektra smiles her perfect smile, and I feel my heart leap once more as she joins me and we begin to make sure we touch as much as possible as you can with an armrest separating your seats.
The seats are filling up throughout the cinema and the noise is gradually rising more and more from Nicky and her two male friends. There is cackling and overly loud bursts of talking in that ‘look at me’ way. Popcorn is thrown and I notice some heads already turning and people tutting in their typically impotent British way.
I see that we can no longer move further away from their wall of noise without being too close to the next couple along, who have purposely left a suitable gap of seats for privacy. Then all I notice are the deep dark eyes watching me, and all focus is on her as the lights start to dim to signal the adverts and trailers preceding when James Bond will start kicking arse.
As it darkens, Elektra leans in further to me and whispers in my ear, ‘It’s weird how much I already like you Robbie Manners’.
I melt, turn round, and whisper back directly into her ear so that no one can hear, ‘I know, I feel the same’.
She smiles, turns her face round, tilts her head and our lips meet. Time seems to slow and noise seems to fade and my heart feels like it will explode as lips turn to lips and tongues. Her mouth is sweet, her tongue soft, gentle and at the perfect level of insistence. I go hard again, she is moaning gently, I am stroking her face, her ears and neck as I explore her mouth with my tongue, and she is doing the same.
That’s when we feel the handful of popcorn hit us, and hear a male voice shout ‘Nicky, bloody stop it!’. There is a slurry female ‘Oh fack off!’ as another load of popcorn hits us.
We extricate ourselves from each other and I can see the three have kicked off again. The popcorn seemingly wasn’t meant for us, but it did reach us.
‘Guys, can you please calm down, there are other people here’ I shout over, trying to sound more reasoning with my tone than the anger that is building.
Again, it’s the girl, Nicky who stands up to seeing who said that and responds drunkenly, ‘Oh fack off mate and do one. We’ve paid to be ‘ere, too!’ One of the males with her are shushing her and trying to pull her back down into her chair and nest of casually slung chavvy puffa jackets; while the other man is just shrinking into his chair, looking like he wished he wasn’t there, with this girl.
I stand up, I feel my pulse gain speed due to my inherent fear of confrontation and start to reason with the unreasonable rabble. It proves to be a mistake. They very obviously want a confrontation, it doesn’t matter who it’s with. All hell kicks off.
That’s the last I remember. It happened again.
Chapter 40
The Pub. Deserving of a capital ‘P’. That quintessentially British institution for which we are famed throughout the world and within which generation after generation of Brits have spent both their time and their fortunes.
A well run Pub is a joy to attend, and Landlords and bartenders within them are the foundations upon which their reputations and ongoing successes are built. There seem to be fewer and fewer ones as we approach the turn of the century.
The Good One likes this one little pub, slightly off the beaten track in Soho. He likes it so much that he will often come alone at the end of a night, or the start of a night. Sometimes he’ll attend when a conquest has been successful or on his way to rut. Rarely will he bring anyone, as he sees this lower case ‘p’ pub as his bolthole.
It is set in a little cobbled mews, with a few independent establishments clustered around it, that offer small rooms of food, drinks or combinations of both for the less touristy. Small rooms that almost guarantee a crowd, and a needy one normally, with them being mostly Brits with a thirst to slake. The Brits like to drink. They also like to queue. However, mixing the two for too long does not go down too well.
A busy bar can be a symphony of efficiency, intelligence and above all, fairness. A baying and boozey crowd, three deep at a bar can be systematically served in a way that tempers never fray, for the good barkeeper is always aware of who should be served next, tipping a nod to those next in line and even explaining to the ones further down the fairness chain when they will be getting served. Communication is key, and a keen eye, too. That, combined with the very British rule of the bar etiquette applied by those waiting for their beers, spirits, wines and shots. It is a beautiful and fluid thing, a well-run Pub.
Which brings me to Jo Smithers and her little pub, ‘The Actress & The Bishop’ on this little mews. The closed sign is in the window now, and the room is darkened. I had to hang back a long time after she had pushed me slightly too far, pushing the boundaries of manners and what is right. I applied patience and tenacity and I waited.
Yes, several hours elapsed and some very long waits to be served my drinks. This, the very catalyst that lead to her lying now a few feet away, blood still pooling around her as the voices of a few late revellers still echo around the walls of the enclosed mews.
Had it not been for her nonchalance in serving people in the right order, the people she preferred at times being served twice to my once, she may still be alive and closing up to go home to wherever she chose to dwell. Perhaps if The Good One hadn’t spurned her advances and phone calls, he would in fact have been a favoured recipient of promptly proffered drinks to quaff. Had it not been for her insistent checking of her phone for the text messages that technologically turned on people were enamoure
d by, when the Good One wanted another drink; she would have lived to serve another day. Had those drinks been served regularly, and possibly in glasses that held more than two mouthfuls of a JD and Coke; she may have flirted with someone else when she ran her shoddy little establishment tomorrow.
But no.
Her indifference, her favouritism, conscious or otherwise, and her sloppy serving style; her lack of manners and adherence to bar etiquette had all lead to this.
So here she lies, the six wine glasses that she never cleared from my table all with the base broken off, the remaining spike used to punch into various parts of her body and left there. The dim lights glint dully off the bowls of the glasses, all remaining upright and attached to the short spikes of the stems. Too short to kill quickly, but long enough to puncture the flesh, stay put and allow the blood to flow.
She was close to death from lack of blood now, her insistent pleading having faded to pain stricken moans, and an occasional sob when she had a brief peak of energy.
The cries of agony when I poured the JD over her punctured body would probably have been heard were the bar not in such a noisy part of the City. I was fair, I only poured as much of the American whiskey as I felt I would have been served had she had a decent fucking sense of impartiality when dishing out her hospitality. It was enough to cause sufficient pain, at least.
Manners Cost Everything (Manners Trilogy Book 1) Page 12