Come Di(n)e With Me, page 4
“I love you,” he repeated, with their lips nearly touching.
Sam loved it when they were so intimate like this. Faces touching, or even better, nearly touching. He loved to feel Peters’ soft lips on the side of his cheek, or feel his breath run down the side of his neck. It was so different to the swathes of men he’d dated or just shagged before Peters came along.
Sam smiled back at him. He felt exactly the same way. “Ahhh. That feels… incredible.”
Although the sex was great, it just didn’t quite seem enough for Peters today, for some reason.
“I’m so close now,” Sam whispered, his voice quivering and his body tingling.
It hadn’t taken long… it never did for Sam when Peters was in his uniform like this.
Peters was close too, but there was something else, something more pressing on his mind…
“Marry me, Sam,” he asked, as if from nowhere.
“Ahhh yes!” he screamed out, releasing himself between their two bodies.
Moments later, deep inside of Sam, Peters came too. He felt euphoric. A fuzzy sensation had washed over him, with the orgasm being one of his best in weeks.
‘yes’, or ‘YES’?
Still inside, and still wrapped tightly around his lover, Peters repeated, “Will you marry me?”
Sam smiled again. “YES,” he whispered, pulling Peters in for a tighter hug.
“Yes!” He grinned, pulling away just enough to shower Sam in thousands of little kisses.
After a moment, he prised himself out of Sam’s embrace. Unfortunately, it was now time to get back to reality, no matter how happy he was. Shaking his head, his face was clearly ecstatic.
“Well, I guess I can’t wear these now,” he said, looking down to his messed-up scrubs. They were all sweaty with lube and other incriminating stains on them. Under different circumstances they’d be some guy’s wet dream, no doubt.
“Don’t worry about being late. I’ll drive you down if you give me a minute to get dressed.”
“Thanks, but I’m sure it’ll be okay if I run for it.” Peters beamed. “I know you have other plans.”
That was the reason he loved Sam so much. A great shag, easy on the eye, and he was kind, too.
Four
The following morning, Faye was on a mission. Running around the house, she was looking for her vintage plum leather shoes… the almond toed ones. She couldn’t bear the thought of going to work in a pair of boring black courts, but nothing else would match the purple dress she really wanted to wear if she couldn’t find her favourite plum ones.
They might just be under the bed, she hoped with her fingers crossed, as she headed back into the bedroom.
“Chris! Are you not up yet? You’re going to be late.”
“I’m not going in,” he said, rolling back over with a groan.
What a fucking Hypochondriac, she thought. It was surprising he managed to keep his job, the number of days he had off, or ‘worked from home’ over the last couple of years.
“What about tomorrow? You have that meeting.”
“Yeah. I’ll be okay for tomorrow. Will you please stop nagging me about it? I’m trying to sleep.”
She bent down and slid out a tray from under her side of the mattress.
“Bingo!”
She slipped her shoes on, then left him to it, not missing the opportunity to ‘accidentally’ slam the bedroom door as she made her way out.
Picking up her coat and handbag, she left the house rather frustrated.
Chris was such a lazy arse. If only he applied himself, he could have got much further at work than he had done so far. She was always encouraging, but it never helped.
He was bright enough… when he actually paid attention. He was likeable and he could have been promoted to a managerial position by now if he only just focused on himself and his career properly, but no. All Chris wanted to do was to spend his afternoons watching daytime TV and his evening playing video games and drinking with friends.
What a bloody waste of space.
Although she loved him, she was finding him increasingly annoying to live with. And the fact that he’d put on at least an extra stone and a half since they married didn’t help much either.
Faye always tried to look her best. She took pride in her appearance. From her quirky sense of fashion that always got her noticed to her regular hair appointments, she made the effort. Nearly six feet tall, she was slender, with cropped, bleached hair. She really stood out. She had to make an effort with her appearance, because as a one-woman-show, her livelihood depended on it. Chris, on the other hand, had really let himself go in every sense.
Today Faye was heading over to the Cedar Court Inn to host one of her seminars. Two hours speaking to an interesting mix of women ranging from eighteen to eighty, if she was lucky. She’d spend an hour presenting to them and then, after some Q and A and, of course, some coffee and biscuits, she would lead them through an interactive workshop. Those were the sessions that always had the best audience participation, and the best responses when she collected feedback at the end of each event.
She loved fighting the good fight when it came to women’s rights and feminism, and nothing beat a roomful of women all talking about making the world a better place in spite of the men that inevitably held them back.
Faye had been at the Cedar Court Inn a few times over the last couple of years. It meant she was a little more confident of the audio-visual setup, loos and stuff like that. Knowing her way around the hotel made the gig just a little easier. It certainly beat having to arrive super early just to learn the ropes on the job, only to find that her laptop was incompatible with the venue’s tech, or that the ladies' loos were all the way on the other side of the building.
She was keen to try to forget about their upcoming Come Dine evenings. It wasn’t really something she’d be into, but trying to be the supportive partner, she couldn’t really say no, especially seeing how excited Chris was about it all. It would have been funny, though, to put her foot down and decline after everyone else had agreed. Chris would never let her live it down.
Although Faye didn’t like Sandy any more than the others did, he was arguably the best of a bad bunch when it came to the gays and women. For some reason, the gays generally thought they could get away with whatever sexist remarks they liked. At least Sandy tried to have some decorum with his words. But why were the others so vulgar when it came to objectifying women?
Was it because they also slept with men?
Did they think that gave them equal footing?
Did that make them worse than the normal men?
The number of times she’d had to pull them up on such awful remarks, all made in jest of course, but still… Sam was bad, Patrick and Stewart were terrible and Anton could be downright offensive at times. It was like they were caught up in their own little homosexual bubble, which somehow meant that women didn’t exist. They clearly disliked the opposite sex as much as she disliked the chauvinistic pigs she often spoke about during her presentations.
She did love the gays, but it was getting increasingly difficult to hold her tongue around them, especially with the more progress and momentum she made with her charity ‘Women Matter’ and all the good it does to elevate downtrodden women’s self-esteem.
After her appointment today, she had another two this week, and then on Friday she had a big meeting with a potential donor.
The charity, her pride and joy, was going from strength to strength, but none of it would matter if she didn’t receive the charitable donations, i.e. private funds, to keep her going.
How else was she going to afford such expensive shoes or maintaining her Wednesdays off?
***
Sam quickly sent the message ‘running ten mins late’, to his friend just before heading into the shower.
In fact, he was at least twenty minutes behind, but everyone knew that Sam didn’t quite run to Greenwich Mean Time like everyone else did. It’d be fine.
He was meeting Duncan at the Steamy Beanz coffee shop for a catch up. He hadn’t seen him in weeks, and Duncan needed some advice about one thing or another. Probably more man trouble, as Duncan had a knack for hooking up with the wrong guys, bless him. It all sounded rather ominous, but juicy, nonetheless.
It was a crisp autumnal day, somewhere between the heat of late summer and the blustery winds of winter. Sam grabbed his new birthday jacket, a present to himself, and headed out of the door with a smile on his face. He was still on a high from having great sex with his twink of a boyfriend, and he was now going to meet his lovely friend Duncan. What could make him happier?
Fortunately, living in town had its perks. A five-minute walk and he’d be there. With his mind wandering, Sam thought about Peters’ shock proposal and their upcoming wedding. He couldn’t believe that Peters had just proposed to him, mid-shag of all times. But there they were, and just like that, Sam was engaged!
To be honest, the proposal was the best he could have asked for. Peters wouldn’t have been able to pull off a surprise like getting down on one knee in a posh restaurant. He wasn’t good at planning things or keeping a secret, for that matter. He would have inadvertently said the wrong thing and ruined the moment, no doubt.
Regardless, Sam was over the moon. He knew even before Peters had moved in that they were well-suited. With a grin, he thought about how best to break the news to everyone. It’s not like they’d notice a non-existent ring. And with Peters being in a hurry after their little sesh yesterday, they hadn’t had much time to talk about it. As Peters hadn’t finished his shift yet either, the pair hadn’t had time to regroup and discuss what they were going to say today yet, either.
Although he wanted to shout it from the rooftops, Sam was thinking it might be best to wait until the last night of their little game and celebrate properly. Go out with a bang, as it were.
Before he got chance to wonder what newbie-Peters would get up to with his friend, his concentration was broken.
“Oi! Sam. Over here!”
“Oh, hey.” He turned around and beamed. “Giz a hug, then.”
“I’ve been calling you all the way down the street,” Duncan admitted, slightly out of breath.
He wrapped his arms around Sam, who couldn’t help but take in a deep sniff of his friend’s aftershave. As always, it smelt amazing, and Sam almost didn’t want to let go.
“Sorry. I was away with the fairies. I thought you’d already be there, complaining of how late I was, to be honest.”
“I figured I had a little time to run to Boots first. I’ve got some work stuff to do after our catchup…” he said.
“Let’s get a coffee and you can tell me all about it,” Sam said, opening the door for his friend.
“You’re lucky I like you, Sam. I don’t usually come to this coffee shop.”
Although he didn’t say it, Sam would have met Duncan anywhere.
***
Sandy was really pissed off now, and Sandy never got pissed off. He was a reasonable man, but this time things had gone too far and there were going to be consequences if it was the last thing he did.
The newspaper delivery boy had done it again. He must have tied the paper to the back of his bike and dragged it all the way through puddles, dirt and everything else en route to the house.
The first thing he’d do after his breakfast was call up and switch paper lads, or better still, switch newsagents altogether. He wasn’t going to pay to read a sodden paper. He may as well go out and pick it up himself, for the amount it costs him to have it delivered.
“How difficult is it to get one job right?” he asked his dog, Pricilla. “You could do a better job, couldn’t you, my love?”
He swept his long wavy auburn-brown hair behind his ear. With a look of Laurence Llwelyn-Bowen about him, there was a striking resemblance between him and his aging King Charles Spaniel.
There were several concerns that Sandy had about their upcoming Come Dine With Me – Wife Swap event. It was silly, ridiculous really to arrange such a thing, and with entertainment to consider too, which was completely pointless. And Sandy knew it was going to end in tears one way or another. Burnt food, bad service, terrible ‘entertainment’… it was going to be a disaster.
There wasn’t a chance of him putting on a show like any old performing monkey. He’d leave that to Faye, if she absolutely insisted, otherwise, the others would just have to do without. He’d much prefer to spend four nights in four different Michelin starred restaurants, but this was the price he paid for being married to a wannabe thespian, as Anton had labelled himself decades ago.
At fifty, Sandy Lewis-Horner was too old to play these types of games, especially with people he barely liked.
In his finest silk dressing gown, a paisley pattern in burgundy, he threw the scrappy newspaper on his breakfast bar and went to make coffee.
“Faye, Pricilla… What are we going to do with Faye?”
Pricilla, sitting on her pouf near the back door, looked up. Once a show-winning dog, now her eyes couldn’t quite manage a stare. One always wandered off to the side. He still pictured her as though she was in the final at Crufts, and could tell she was with him on this one. She wouldn’t like someone new in the house. She didn’t even like it when Anton came home. He was too loud, too brash, banging cupboard doors, shouting up and down the stairs… it scared her more often than not.
Pricilla, like her owner, preferred the peace and quiet of an empty house.
***
“So, what’s the dilemma, then?”
“Well, not a dilemma as such, more of a life-choice decision point really...”
They had just finished their pastries and were staring into the dregs of their coffee cups. For a Tuesday morning, it was rather quiet and Sam should know because he was always in here whiling away the hours with some friend or acquaintance, trying to line up his next paid job.
“It’s Anton. He’s been pressuring me to get into acting,” Duncan said.
“I bet he has, the dirty old bugger.” Sam laughed.
“No, I’m being serious. He wants me to try out, thinks I’ve got ‘great potential’.”
“Potential for what?” Sam spluttered over his mug.
“Being a star? I know it sounds ridiculous, but he keeps telling me I should get up on the stage, instead of building it,” Duncan shrugged.
Sam considered it for a moment. There was no doubt that Duncan was attractive. Objectively so, in fact. In his early twenties, with a great figure, the black man was probably the hottest guy Sam knew in real life. Oh, if Sam was only a few years younger himself… but could Duncan really act? “Are you actually considering it?”
“Since I, err, left my apprenticeship a couple of years ago, I’ve not had anything solid to focus on. I’m only sub-contracting with Coopers, and that’s only when they’ve got enough work on for me. It’s not like I’m against it. I just don’t know how good I’d be… at acting, that is,” he added with a sly smile.
“Have you ever done any before? Have you been in anything?” Sam asked, keen to encourage his friend.
“Nope.”
“Then you’ll need lessons. You could find someone in the paper, or online? The best thing is probably joining a course. You’ve probably missed the autumn intake, but maybe there’ll be something in January?”
“I can’t wait that long. He wants me now.”
“I bet he does,” Sam scoffed. “Well, I suppose I could help. With a bit–”
“Would you?” Duncan interjected, completely lighting up. “That would be AMAZING.”
Sam was happy to help his friend. He didn’t quite know why he’d left his apprenticeship as it was before the two knew each other, but he had had the sense that Duncan had been coasting a little, wating for something to come along, even though he wasn’t necessarily being proactive about it himself.
“Sure, I can help. Why not?”
“So anyway, this thing you’ve got lined up. Tell me about that,” Duncan asked keenly.
“What, the audition for Flights of Fancy? I’m still waiting for Sandy to arrange it for me.”
“No, not that… the other thing you said.”
“What the Come Dine With Me meals?”
“No, didn’t you mention something about partner swapping? The only reason I asked is that I knew someone that did that a while ago and it didn’t end well at all,” Duncan said, shaking his head. “But you don’t have long to spill coz I’m meeting Anton in half an hour.”
“Oh shit, maybe I don’t want to tell you about it, then,” Sam laughed, knowing he absolutely would.
***
Shortly after leaving Sam in Steamy Beanz, Duncan jogged over to the Opera House. It wasn’t far, but because it was a quasi-business meeting, or at least a potential job lead, he didn’t want to be late.
“Hey, glad you could make it. Follow me up to my office,” Anton said, as he swept through the foyer with perfect timing. He had his wide Hollywood beam he saved for only his favourite protégés.
There was the slightest shine of perspiration on Duncan’s forehead. Fortunately, it made him glow with a radiance, rather than look all sweaty and disgusting. That was the unfair problem with really handsome guys. No matter what they did, they just ended up looking sexier.
From the theatre’s café-come-bar, Anton led Duncan up the stairs to the first floor where his office was situated.
“Take a seat. I’ll just grab some coffees. Won’t be a tick.”
Duncan wasted no time in making himself comfortable.
It was weird, being in Anton’s office like this. He’d known him for a while now, but in a setting like this he felt he had to be a little more formal. He needed to show he was being serious, if he wanted to be an actor, that was. And what was more serious than looking confident and at ease in his surroundings?
With one small window towards the top of the far wall, the office was a little drab. There was a picture of someone looking at least twenty years younger than Anton on his desk and a few pot plants. The walls were adorned with oversized posters of presumably Anton’s favourite shows. Chicago, Grease, and a couple of lesser-known plays too.
