As we rolled off the couch and she went down on me on the carpet, all I could do was giggle like a clown. As she straddled me all I could think of was that she was a fucking lunatic, but right at that moment I didn’t care because I was loving what I was getting. It was so good that a little light kept flashing before my eyes, every few seconds or so.
‘It was the duck, you know,’ I chuckled into her ear. ‘Now, it’s so fucking obvious that you put that duck in Martha’s bathroom, then made sure I went for a slash.’ I laughed louder. ‘You even drank all that fucking root beer so I wouldn’t think anything of it. I fell for it too. I bought it all,’ I giggled, ‘right up till this afternoon.’
She arched her back, with me deep inside her, rolled her eyes, and then laughed back at me. ‘None of us are quite as clever as we think we are, Oz, especially you. Now shut your eyes, shut your mouth and enjoy, because this is the most expensive shag you will ever have in your life. Indecent Proposal was cheap stuff compared to this.’
Even that obvious clue would not have begun to untangle the slithering mass of snakes that had engulfed my brain. I hadn’t a bloody clue what she was talking about. As I looked up at her I felt that I didn’t even care what she was talking about. Okay, it had been a set-up all along, an ingenious outrageous set-up, with me as the set-ee. . I laughed even more manically at that. . but so fucking what? This was great, Prim and me the way it used to be, the way it might have been, the way it could be again, and all I wanted to do was sleep off this one then have another, whatever the price-tag. All of it, the real meaning of it, would have passed me by, but for one thing.
It was just then, with the last small piece of my brain that was still functioning, that I realised that we were not alone. There was someone else in the room, a faint hazy figure, and either he was a waiter come in to clear away the ice-bucket. . no way, Jose, that’s good stuff and it’s not finished … or he was someone else, doing something else. As I peered at him over Prim’s shoulder, another of those funny lights went off in a flash. This was no waiter.
Under any condition, if there’s one thing I hate it’s a fucking sneaking peeping Tom … an ironic label in the circumstances.
There is a dangerous moment in intoxication: it comes when a happy drunk becomes an unhappy drunk, and if one is in the wrong place at the wrong time, it can have serious consequences.
For Prim, these manifested themselves in me heaving her off me, and tossing her clean over the back of the couch, in a single action. For the guy with the camera, they took the form of me surging to my feet, instantly detumescent, and lurching, snarling, after him. Fortunately for him, my legs weren’t working too well. He had a further lucky break when Prim rose like a dragon from behind the upholstery and went for me, in an entirely different way from before. She didn’t delay me for long, only for the amount of time it took me to clip her on the chin and knock her on her arse again. . You’re shocked that Oz hit a woman? You can’t believe that Oz hit Primavera? Well, get over it!. . but it was crucial.
By the time I reached the door it was open, and he was through it, and heading for the nearest escape route, in this case an open lift door. Nothing was holding me back, though: I was going to catch the bastard, I was going to tear him into the smallest pieces I could manage, and then I was going to eat them. I set off after him; I thought I was sprinting, but I think I was really doing a slow-motion jog through candyfloss.
Life’s small coincidences can make so much difference. By sheer chance, as I passed the nearest elevator, it opened and Liam Matthews stepped out, with Erin behind him. He took one look, and grabbed hold of me. ‘What the hell are you doing?’ he asked, not unreasonably.
I struggled against him, pointing along the hallway: ‘I’m going to kill that bastard,’ I shouted. ‘The fucker with the camera.’ Liam glanced over his shoulder, just in time to see the man. . He was wearing shades and a tan jacket, but he was clean-shaven. Isn’t it funny how tiny details stick in your mind?. . disappear into the lift.
‘Not in that state you’re not, Oz,’ he said, then he slapped a half-nelson on me, wrestled me back to my room, and forced me inside. Someone else might have had trouble doing that, but not him. ‘Liam,’ I pleaded, almost coherently, ‘you’ve got to get him. Don’t let him leave the hotel.’
‘I won’t,’ he promised. ‘At least I’ll try. Now you get control of yourself, and cover that monster up.’ He slammed the door in my face.
Prim was still on the floor when I went back into the living area. She was groggy, but I picked her up, slung her over my shoulder and staggered off towards her room, grabbing the discarded sarong as I went. The door was open; even in my confused state I remembered that it had been closed earlier, and guessed that she had hidden her partner there.
As I threw her on to the bed I was still dazed from whatever it was that had happened to me. It must still have been working on me, for part of me. . the part with a forked tail and horns … wanted her again.
Thankfully, the side of me with the white gown, the wings and the halo won the internal battle. It was pretty close, but he just nicked it on a split points decision.
I dragged her across to the big wardrobe, slung open the door and used her slinky garment to lash her wrists to the hanging rail. She didn’t like it, but she had the sense not to resist. Okay, it might not have been a very angelic thing to do, but I hope you’ll agree that, all things considered, it was understandable.
Chapter 28
I wove my way back to my own room. My vision was still a bit fuzzy and my mind was all over the place. I tried to pull all the strands of what had happened together, but couldn’t hold them in place for more than a couple of seconds at a time. I stared around me for a while, at nothing at all, until I caught sight of a large naked figure looking at me. I focused on him, and that was when I realised that the mirrored doors of the wardrobe were closed. I realised also that I looked totally out of my skull.
I went into ‘His’ bathroom and stood under the shower. After a couple of minutes, it occurred to me to switch it on, full blast.
I put my palms flat against the wall and let the needle-sharp spray pound into my head for quite a while … for more than five minutes, to be a little more accurate. (I wasn’t completely naked; I still had on my Rolex.) My ear stung, but I didn’t care as I felt my other senses return along with the pain.
I towelled myself more or less dry as quickly as I could, slipped on a pair of jeans and a seriously loud Paul Smith shirt that I’d bought on the Strip the night before, and went back out to the scene of the crime. I was picking up my discarded clothes when I heard Prim yell my name.
I went through to her room. Even in my bamboozled state I’d made a good job of tying her up. The knots were tight and the rail was strong; she was just where I’d left her, as I’d left her. There must have been some of the goofy juice left in my bloodstream, for I grinned at her, licked my lips and started to unzip my fly. She looked at me in something like horror, until I winked at her, zipped it up again and untied her.
Just then there was a thump on the door. I went through to open it, to find Liam there, with Daze, blocking out the light as usual. ‘Did you catch him?’ I asked, but I could read the answer in their eyes, even before the big man shook his head.
‘We looked all over the place,’ said Liam. ‘Eventually I found a bellboy who said that he saw a man in a tan jacket running out of the door and across the bridge.’
I took them into the living area. ‘If you want a drink, use the bar,’ I told them. ‘Don’t touch the Chablis or those glasses.’ They were both still on the table; mine was empty, but the other was untouched. ‘I’ll be back in a minute.’