Confessions from a Luxury Liner

‘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.

‘Don’t turn it off,’ says Sid. ‘I like a bit of music.’ He starts dancing round, stark bollock naked. ‘Oh, a life on the ocean wave, a life on the ocean wave—!!’

I look across to the window and see that there is a gap where the curtains have not been drawn properly. ‘Weigh, hey, up she rises! Weigh, hey, up she rises. How do you fancy a hornpipe, darling?’ Sid starts giggling and climbs on to the settee.

I have never seen him so Chopin. The banging from next door starts again and Sid leans forward to turn up the record player. He pitches forward and knocks a pile of records on the floor. I help him up on my way to the window and glance out before pulling the curtains closed. What I see makes my blood run colder than a penguin’s chuff. Two blokes are coming up the garden path carrying suitcases.

‘Sid!’ I scream, diving for my pants. ‘There’s someone coming.’

Sid starts to bounce up and down on the settee like a chimp on a trampoline. ‘It’s not me,’ he says. ‘I couldn’t. I’m knackered. Rule Britannia! Britannia rules the waves. Britains never, never will be – good evening.’

The two men framed in the doorway do not answer Sid. They are breathing heavily and certainly, when I glimpsed them, they were hurrying towards the front door. You can almost hear their eyeballs clicking as they take in the scene. I manage to get my second leg into my Y-fronts and pull them up round my waist. The girls snatch at whatever lies handy and hold it in front of them.

‘Welcome ashore, maties,’ says Sid. ‘You have a good trip, did you? I’m glad you’ve shown up because there are a few things my friend wants to ask you. I’ve got to—’

‘You bastard!’

‘No need to get excited,’ squeaks Sid. ‘We were only playing charades – ooh!’ He stops talking when one of the herberts belts him in the Newingtons. The girls start screaming, Mrs Burgess is still trying to bash the wall down and the record player packs it in with a shriek of agony second only to that of the geezer who cops both Sid’s plates in his mug as our hero swings from the light fitting and lashes out with his tootsies. It is very Errol Flynn, with the subtle difference that the light fitting stayed in the ceiling when Errol swung from it. This one comes down with a blinding flash and a cloud of plaster. The room is plunged into darkness and all that can be heard are screams and thuds as Sid and I try to avoid copping an Irish face-lift.

In fact, we do rather better than that and by the time the police car arrives (Mrs Burgess must have rung for it) both the homecoming mariners are stretched out on the floor taking forty blinks and Natalie is having hysterics.

‘Oh, Henry! Henry!’ she screams. ‘Why did you have to hit him with the coal scuttle?’

‘Because he was trying to rearrange my cluster with a poker!’ shouts Sid. ‘Control yourself, woman! A few stitches can only improve that Jem Mace. Get out there and stall those bules.’

At the same instant there is a banging on the side door and both Sid and I put a foot in the same trouser leg.

‘We’ve got to get out of here!’ says Sid unnecessarily. ‘Grab your clobber and follow me.’

‘Supposing there’s someone waiting at the back?’ I say.

‘There won’t be,’ says Sid. ‘Ta ta, Gloria. Thanks for everything.’

Gloria is cradling the nut of one of the blokes who is groaning on the ground. ‘You bastard!’ she says. ‘What am I going to tell him?’

‘Tell him you love him,’ says Sid.

CHAPTER TWO (#u92e6961a-778b-543d-a9dc-076a7316dd32)

Sid is right. There is no one waiting outside the back door. We are over the wall, through the cucumber frame and two streets away before I realise that I have taken the wrong jacket.

‘That’s marvellous,’ I say. ‘They’ll get me for thieving now. What a wonderful end to an evening. We must do this more often.’