Come Di(n)e With Me, page 17
After Joshua, there was Julian, a one-night stand that was awful in bed, but sex was sex… then there was Jerome. A three-week fling whilst he was working on a small touring performance of Rent in town.
Anton’s first serious extra-marital relationship was with a carpenter called Daniel. Although they hadn’t seen much of each other, Anton was smitten with him. He was incredibly handsome, incredibly chiselled and Anton was even open to letting Daniel take the lead. Not usually a bottom, Daniel insisted on topping when they fucked, and with his talents, Anton could barely refuse. Daniel was the first guy that Anton had seriously considered leaving Sandy for. He had everything; the good job, the looks, but unfortunately, he had his own baggage too, so it wasn’t to be.
Since Daniel, Anton had tried to keep his extra-marital antics light and emotionless. Forcing himself to remember this, Anton realised that he didn’t actually have feelings for Duncan. He just wanted to get laid.
So, in a slightly better mood after being rejected, he pulled out his phone to see if he could arrange a hook-up for this evening before he even returned to Patrick’s house.
***
“Faye… Faye, are you awake?” a voice whispered gently from outside.
Faye stirred. She must have drifted off at least half an hour ago.
“Moanie? Is that you?”
The door quietly swept open and in came Moanie.
Faye didn’t mind being woken up. In fact, she was glad.
“Thought I’d come and see if you were up. Maybe if you wanted a chat or something?”
Faye had experienced some strange new feelings since staying at Sandy’s house a couple of days ago. Strange, unfamiliar feelings, most of which were towards her new friend Moanie. At first, she wasn’t sure what they meant, but as the week went on and her nights with the guys became more tedious, she realised. Feeling bolder than she ever had, Faye knew it was time to put her instincts to the test.
Moanie was crouched down, close enough so Faye could smell her sweet, delicate perfume. Rather than getting out of bed, Faye peeled back the bedsheets, desperately hoping they were on the same page.
Moanie took this as the opportunity she’d been waiting for.
Removing her clothes, she climbed in next to Faye. With their arms wrapped around each other, they shared their first kiss.
Taking the lead, Moanie’s hand came up, gently teasing Faye’s nipple.
“Ahh,” Faye murmured, all the while her heart was racing like it never had with Chris.
With a little guidance from her more experienced friend, Faye trailed her hand down Moanie’s chest, over her breasts and down the smooth, feminine skin of her stomach. Reaching the heat of Moanie’s most intimate area, both women let out a groan of pleasure.
It was going to be a long, interesting night for them both.
Saturday
Day Four
Sixteen
“Why d’you think she wanted us all to arrive together?” Sam asked. He had no idea what was going down, but he was totally up for a bit of fun tonight, especially as it was back to normal tomorrow, thank God. He was particularly looking forward to breaking the news about his engagement and finally getting back into bed with Peters.
“Dunno. I know you all think that I’m over the top, but Faye can be quite the drama queen herself when she wants to be,” said Chris. “Oh, here are the others now.”
Sam and Chris waited on the doorstep with a bottle of wine in hand. They’d bought a really cheap bottle on purpose, just to see the look on Sandy’s face. Peters and Stewart, and Patrick and Anton walked up to greet them. Presumably they’d met halfway, both coming from town.
“Oh my God, what’s this, Anton? New threads?” Sam laughed, tugging on Anton’s jacket. “And where are your trademarked glasses? I barely recognise you.”
For the first time in years, Anton had swapped his glasses for contacts. He was wearing jeans that were way too baggy for him. Definitely not the on-trend style he was presumably going for. Tucked into them was a tightly fit pale grey t-shirt that clung to all the wrong places. But the absolute pièce de résistance of the whole ensemble was his brand-new leather bomber jacket. It was fucking awful and reminded Sam of his dad during the eighties.
“You like it?” he asked, twirling around, holding his jacket wide open.
“Honestly?” Sam winced.
“Oh, forget it! This is what everyone’s wearing these days. I look great.”
“Everyone over eighty, I’m sure,” Sam coughed, thinking Anton looked at least ten years older.
“Hey guys, why do you think we have to wait outside?” Peters asked. He wore the same look of confusion that a Labrador puppy might have if you’d just hidden a tennis ball.
Chris ginned. “Just waiting for us all to arrive. I can’t wait to see what they’ve got planned for us in there.”
Peters smiled. “Oh yeah. Duh, I totally forgot. Do you think Davina McCall will be in there, ready to announce the winner, and interview us all at the end of the might?”
“Davina McCall? Wrong show, luv. I can’t remember that guy's name from Come Dine With Me? Graham something or other, wasn’t it?” Anton replied.
“Nah, you’re thinking of Blind Date. It’s Dave Lamb that does Come Dine.” Chris expertly corrected him. It was a shame tonight’s entertainment wasn’t a quiz about TV shows. He would have mopped the floor with them all.
“So, is he coming, then?” Peters asked, struggling to keep up.
“I doubt we’ll have Dave Lamb over for dinner, no,” Anton said, making his way between the crowd. “Well, what are we waiting for, lets open the door, then, shall we?”
As Sandy usually used the back door, Anton was half expecting the front to be locked. However, it swung open freely when he went to try it.
“It’s all very quiet in there. We have got the right night, haven’t we?” Sam asked as they all followed Anton in.
“Of course it’s the right night. It’s the last one.” Anton tutted as he called out, “Sandy? Faye?”
All of a sudden, from the foot of the stairs, Anton heard an ear-piercing scream. It was coming from somewhere downstairs, from the kitchen, maybe? Yes, the house was full of gay men, but this actually sounded serious. It certainly wasn’t a ‘have you heard the new Ariana song’, or ‘my best mate’s just got onto Drag Race’ show of emotion. Someone was either really scared or really hurt. Or both.
“What the…” Anton mumbled, taking his foot off the bottom step and turning to find out who or what it was.
“Call 999, quick!” Sam shouted. “Oh, hang on, Peters, you’re a paramedic.”
At that, Peters’ face dropped and he nearly turned white. Obviously, no longer being a paramedic, or even a first aider for that matter, he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. From the little bit of training he’d done, he hadn’t even come close to someone with an actual injury, let alone a crime scene like this before. He screamed again, before adding, “it’s too late. Look, he’s dead!”
All of the guests squeezed into the doorway of the kitchen. Too afraid to get any closer. Being the man of the house, Anton barged past them. “Don’t be daft. Who’s dead?”
Pushing on into the kitchen, he stopped in his tracks. It was Sandy, laid out on the floor. There was blood. A lot of it coming out of the back of his head and one of Anton’s huge Le Creuset frying pans on the floor next to him.
“Sandy!” Anton screamed, before racing over to his dead husband. “Oh my God, Sandy, my darling!”
As Chris pulled out his phone to call for help, Anton bent down to see his husband. “Oh, Sandy,” he whispered.
Sandy opened his eyes. He somehow managed to roll them, say, “I’m not really dead,” and close them again in all of two seconds.
Just then, Faye arrived out of nowhere and said, “If you’d like to retire to the reception room, our evening can begin.”
“Umm, yes, sorry about that. Wrong number,” Chris admitted to the emergency services operator, rather embarrassed.
As he got up, Sandy couldn’t help but tell his husband how ridiculous he looked in his new gear. “Go change. All of your clothes are upstairs.”
“Shut up, Sandy, I like it,” he hissed back, still a little shaken.
“Oh my God, guys!” Patrick said, playfully slapping Faye’s shoulder as she led the way. “You really had us going there for a moment. Fat lot of good you were, though, Peters. Call yourself a paramedic?”
“Umm, err… I am still training!” Peters said, rather red in the face and a little green in the tummy. He was still shaking by the time they’d congregated in the front room. Stewart and Chris were laughing at it, with Chris impressed that Sandy and his ‘wife’ had gone to so much effort in the first place for something neither of them were keen to partake in from the outset.
“So, gents,” Faye began. “Whilst our victim goes to clean himself up, it’s our job to start the game. We’ll have a little drink in here, thanks to our special guest, and then continue our lines of enquiry throughout the evening.”
As if by magic, the door opened and Moanie entered, armed with a tray of sparkling Champagne flutes. “Drink, anyone?”
“Hey, that’s not fair. Having an extra pair of hands is cheating!”
“Oh my God, Chris. Give it a rest. It’s just a bit of fun. No one actually cares about the rules, got it?” Faye snapped, rolled her eyes. She had actually been rather enjoying herself up until now. She’d been hiding in the utility room with Moanie for the better part of half an hour, waiting for them, ready to jump out as soon as the ‘murder’ had been discovered. Although she’d admit to being excited about the evening, her good mood might have been more to do with her company and what they’d been up to in the last twelve hours.
“To be fair, Chris,” said Sam, “I don’t think anyone is keeping track, anyway.”
“Thank you!” Peters said, taking the last of the drinks. “I need this to calm my nerves.”
“Err, I think someone’s miscounted. There are two glasses left,” Chris noted, as if they should have a couple of points docked for the blunder.
“Sandy will be down in a moment,” Faye advised, “and the other one is for Moanie, who’s going to join us for dinner tonight.”
“Moanie?” Peters asked, a little confused.
“Yes, Moanie. Sandy’s daughter.” Faye smiled, gesturing to the waitress.
“Sandy has a DAUGHTER?” Chris, Sam, Patrick and Stewart all blurted out at once. There may even have been some wine spilt over it, but Faye didn’t care, as it wasn’t her house.
It’s fair to say they were all rather shocked. Both at the fact she was joining them for dinner this evening, but predominantly due to the fact that Sandy had been a father all along.
But for Faye, it felt so good to have some more female energy around for the evening, especially as Moanie was her friend and completely unknown to the others.
Anton grinned, dabbed the side of his mouth with a tissue. “Yes, Sandy has a daughter, Monalisa. It’s hardly a big deal.” He said the last bit with a slight giggle, suggesting that it was, in fact, a big deal.
God, he’d held that secret in for so long… but why? Why was Sandy so against people finding out about her?
“She’s staying at the house and I’ve just loved her being around,” Faye said, noticing Anton’s face almost wincing. “She’s super interesting. And has a lot to say.”
“So, she’ll really be joining us for dinner?” Chris asked. “Tonight?”
“Yes, of course she will,” Faye replied firmly.
“Oh My God!” Chris said again, rather shocked, before adding to Moanie direct: “Sorry, I’m just a little surprised.”
“Yeah, we all thought he was a platinum level gay,” Sam piped up, not really caring about the non-drama of it all.
“Sandy being a dad, shocker, I know.” Moanie grinned, clinking glasses with Faye. “Nice to meet you all, by the way.”
They all got to work greeting her and telling her a little bit about who they were and who they were married to, both in real life and for the remainder of the ‘competition’.
Within fifteen minutes, the man of the hour had joined them, all scrubbed up after his little performance.
“Whoop whoop! You dirty old dog!” Peters joked, expecting the rest of them to join in with him. Unfortunately, his comments fell flat, with Sandy completely ignoring him. Peters blushed immediately. There was definitely an age difference between them, but now it seemed that Peters was standing out far more than the older couple was.
“So, now we’re all here, can you please finally explain what’s up with all these different colours?” Chris asked Sandy.
“Mmm, this Veuve Clicquot is delicious,” he replied. “Sorry Patrick, I poured your bottle of wine down the sink on account of it smelling terrible.”
“Oh, was it off?” he asked, surprised.
“No, it was just bad wine.”
Gobsmacked, Sam wondered what he’d do with the really cheap bottle that he and Chris had brought.
Sandy turned to answer Chris. “You’ll have to ask your wife about the finer details. It’s all Faye’s idea. I had very little control over tonight’s ‘entertainment’ but did my best to go along.”
To be fair to him, he had tried. That was a lot more than they were expecting of him, to be honest.
“Right, colours, I’m glad you asked. Looking around, I can see you’ve all done what I asked for, apart from Anton, that is.”
“Well, I’m staging a dirty protest. You sabotaged our evening last night with tonight’s entertainment announcement. It was an absolute disaster.”
Faye rolled her eyes. “Hardly a disaster, was it? Anyway, do you even know what a dirty protest is? Just count yourself lucky I didn’t assign you the colour brown.”
“Actually, I didn’t have any pink, but I’ve got a peach pocket square, if that counts?” he said, pulling it an inch out of his jacket’s side pocket.
“Fine. That’ll do. But for this evening, let's call it Pink, okay, because I’ve already written your name cards.”
“Ahh, is it like Cluedo?” Sam said, finally clicking. “I can’t believe I didn’t realise it was going to be a murder mystery evening.”
“Not an evening. Just a bit of fun. I don’t want it spoiling the meal,” Faye stressed, “but yes, I guess it is a bit like that.”
“I thought you wanted to recreate a United Colours of Benneton ad.” Peters shrugged, looking down at his green cravat. He was going to wear a green shirt too, but thought he’d look too much like he was ‘working’. It was a good thing he didn’t actually, as he didn’t want to draw any more attention to his lack of medical training after what had happened in the kitchen earlier. He was just relieved there were no more questions on the matter.
Glancing at his watch, Sandy finished his glass and then proclaimed, “the hors d'oeuvre should be just about ready if you’d like to make your way through to the dining room.”
“Trust him to try and sound posh. What’s wrong with starters?” whispered Patrick to Stewart.
Stewart grumbled something in response. As he’d been rather quiet this evening again, Patrick was extra keen to get him back home after dinner this evening. He was sure he could cheer his husband up in the comfort of their own bed.
The guests made their way through to the impressive dining room. It was a rather dark space. With original parquet flooring, it also had wood panelling up to shoulder height. The walls were topped off with a tasteful green and magnolia patterned wall paper the rest of the way up. There was matching dark mahogany furniture and a lot of silverware, candlesticks, plates, etc. It was a little stuffier than most people’s taste, but it was sophisticated none the less.
The dinner table was laid out for a banquet. More silverware, napkins, decanters, the lot. Peters hadn’t a clue why each setting needed five forks, four knifes and two spoons, but he was sure he’d find out soon enough. As they approached, they could see each place setting also had its own name tag propped up on the plate chargers.
The first seat was for Mr Pink, aka Anton, and then, Mr Red for Sam, Faye was Ms Purple, then Peters was Mr Green, Stewart was next to him as Mr White. ‘The deceased’; Sandy next, then Mr Black (Patrick), then Miss Lewis, which was obviously Moanie. Finally, between her and Anton, was Mr Blue, aka Chris.
Shuffling amongst one another to find their seats, they slowly took their places one by one.
“Thank you all for coming,” Sandy announced, trying to get into the spirit of the evening, before he then handed over to Faye.
“There will be three things written on the underside of your name placard. One; a fact about your relationship with the deceased, two; something you can give away freely to anyone that asks, and finally something you will only give away to the person listed, if you are asked for it specifically,” she explained.
“This all sounds awfully complicated, Faye,” Anton said, knocking back the final dregs of his champagne. “Any more booze to go around? Gosh, the service in here is terrible!”
Clutching his chest in shock, Peters snorted. They had gone through a lot together over the last few nights, but he was still the newest member of the group, and therefore surprised at such a rude comment. Particularly considering it was Anton’s husband in charge of dinner. But then, thinking back to Sam’s birthday meal, maybe Sandy had it coming all along. Tonight was supposed to be payback, wasn’t it? Wasn’t that how Chris had originally propositioned it?
“Alright, alright, I’m coming,” Sandy replied, standing back up.
“Not so easy, is it?” Patrick laughed, enjoying Sandy getting a little hot under the collar.
Instantly forgetting the game, the rest of the room turned their attention back to Moanie whilst Faye and Sandy busied themselves with the drinks and starters. Moanie seemed to quite like being the centre of attention in front of so many new people.
