musssht not worry, my friend, I have shhooo many shhhhares here, I practically OWN THIS PLACE!’
Poppy was just wondering whether hiding under the table or doing a runner would be the better option, when Eleanor leapt to her feet.
‘Omigod! Lars!’
The enormous blond man took a moment or so to register, then swept Poppy’s boss’s wife off her feet in a huge bear hug.
‘ELLIE!’
Once the Viking had put her down, Eleanor turned to Marty, eyes shining, cheeks flushed, and said, ‘Hey, honey, remember Lars, who used to work with me at Merrill Lynch?’
Marty stood up and held out his hand. ‘I believe we did have the pleasure once.’
‘Oh, Lars, all those hours you kept us going on the trading floor with your smorgasbord and schnapps!’ Eleanor’s mouth was running away with her. ‘Such fun times!’
Damian took advantage of this fortuitous new development to sneak up behind Poppy and kiss the back of her neck. She turned round, glaring at him, and whispered,
‘You are pissed as a fucking fart.’
‘I know. Sorry. I’ll do anything to make it up to you.’
Poppy turned her back on him, only to see that Marco and Chase (who clearly was not made of wood after all) were pissing themselves laughing, giving her the thumbs-up and pulling up a chair for Damian.
Eleanor, Lars and Marty were still standing up, talking, when Lars boomed, in his enormous voice, ‘ASH IT ISH MY BIRTHDAY, I WANT TO BUY SCHNAPPS! FOR ALL!’ He turned to Damian and gave him an almost imperceptible wink. Damian, sitting in a chair between Poppy and Marco, smiled nervously.
‘Oh, honey, don’t you think that sounds grand?’ Eleanor said to her husband. Lars’s arrival seemed to have relaxed her attitude to poisons somewhat. ‘It is his birthday, after all! And – oh, jeez, you cannot be Poppy’s husband? My, what a coincidence. So how did you meet my old friend and colleague Lars then?’
Poppy pinched the tiny bit of flesh on the back of Damian’s ribcage to tell him to think of something cool. To her relief, he came up trumps.
‘Hello. Eleanor, isn’t it? I’m so sorry, we haven’t been introduced properly. Yes, I am Poppy’s husband. Damian …’ He gave a repulsively insincere grin and stood up, holding out his hand. ‘I’m a journalist. I was interviewing Lars about the Scandinavian markets earlier. What a wonderful coincidence.’
Chase said to Poppy, with the first proper bit of animation she’d seen all evening, ‘Man, your husband is hot.’
‘My bloody husband is a useless bloody drunk,’ she started, quietly, only to be hushed by the gay couple.
‘Babe, he is hot,’ they said in unison.
And despite herself, Poppy started to giggle. Who was she actually trying to impress anyway? Marty was an unreconstructed sexist that she could wrap around her little finger, and the rest of them seemed quite fun now.
The waiter brought the bottle of schnapps to the table and they all drank their shots as one.
‘SKOL!’
Eleanor was dancing on the table, singing ‘All That Jazz’ from Chicago. Everybody else cheered her on, and joined in with all the words they knew (basically, the song’s title!). The food, which nobody had touched, had been taken away about half an hour ago by the waiting staff after Lars had thrust several more hundred-dollar bills into their hands.
Now, Eleanor was getting quite raunchy as she sang about ‘rouging her knees and pulling her stockings down’ – raising her skirt and giving a little shimmy as she twirled inexpertly amongst the glasses and bottles.
Poppy, sitting next to Marty, was feeling a tad uncomfortable despite the neat liquor. Her boss had said earlier that mommies shouldn’t be ingesting poisons, after all. She turned to him and saw that he was roaring with laughter and applauding.
‘Sorry about Lars ordering the schnapps,’ she whispered to him.
‘Are you kidding? This is great! THIS is the woman I married.’ And, stumbling slightly, Marty got up to join his wife on the table. Alas, his greater weight was too much and the table collapsed beneath them. Husband and wife lay, roaring with happy laughter, amongst the absolute chaos of broken glass and no-longer starched linen.
‘I love you, Martypoos!’
‘Oh, Elliekins, I love you too!’
And they had a very unseemly public smooch. Poppy thanked God that neither of them seemed to be hurt by the scary-looking green shards of ex-wine bottles that surrounded them.
Poppy was dreaming that Ben was going down on her, his tongue expertly flicking her clitoris, his long-lashed blue eyes looking up at her mischievously. Even in her dream, she hated him, so she bashed his head, hard.
‘Owww,’ said Damian, who was the actual cunnilinguist. ‘I thought I was doing quite well.’
Awake now, Poppy said, ‘Sorry, darling. Bad dream. Please, don’t stop.’
Damian didn’t stop. He continued to lick Poppy’s waxed cunt until he could taste her arousal. She moaned, and Damian opened her up with his fingers, feasting his eyes and keeping her waiting for a couple of seconds, before sliding the first two fingers of his other hand inside her. He bent his head again and resumed sucking, licking, nibbling. Poppy bucked against him, moaning more and more loudly until, with a sharp cry, she came.
He waited a second or two, then started moving his fingers in and out again, ever so slowly, sucking again to milk the very last drops of pleasure from her. Only when he felt her throbbing finally begin to subside did he withdraw his hand, then move up the bed to kiss her on the lips. Poppy kissed him back, liking the taste of herself on him.
‘Mmmm, thank you, darling,’ she said dreamily. ‘That was soooo good.’
Damian leapt to his feet.
‘And now for the second course!’
He walked to the kitchen of their apartment, which was pretty much the interior brickwork urban cool ex-warehouse in the Meatpacking District that Andy had envisaged. He returned bearing a tray heaped with eggs, bacon and mushrooms, waffles and maple syrup, freshly squeezed orange juice, bagels and smoked salmon.
‘Blimey,’ said Poppy, laughing. ‘Are we having guests or something?’
‘Just wanted to say sorry for last night.’ Damian looked up at her from underneath his lashes and she laughed even more. ‘Am I forgiven?’
‘Oh, you totally lovable thing. Thank you – it all looks completely yummy. Yes, of course you’re forgiven – this time. But you’re bloody lucky that Lars and Eleanor go way back. It could have been a fucking disaster.’ She tried to look stern but Damian looked so contrite, and she was feeling so blissfully post-orgasmic, that it was impossible.
‘Right, let’s dig in. Hmmm, waffles or bagels to start
