Paradiso, Amsterdam

©2007 by: Jackie

Chapter Five

And then Sunday came around. I had slept a little, but only a little. The promise had buzzed through my head and Russell’s note had been under my pillow. Tomorrow. That was today. What would today have in store for me? The mind boggled. Or rather, it would begin to boggle like mad soon as it had had its necessary shot of caffeine.

Russell’s rose stood in a long-drink glass on my bedside table, overseeing the process of a foggy Tish getting up and ready to go. This process consisted mainly of me standing at the foot of my bed, gazing down pensively. On my bed were several sets of clothes, and I was trying to figure out what to hang on my body. Durable and comfy? Fuckin’ A, yes sir! Yesterday’s high heels had been uncomfortable going on outright torture and when the night ended, the audience – punters, Russ had called them – had left and the bands’ after party in the dressing rooms had wound down, I had taken them off with a groan of pleasure, to cycle home barefoot. It had taken all my self-control not to chuck them into a canal on my way home.

I stretched out a hand towards the camo pants and sighed, but then I thought of Russell’s reaction to my satin top, and my eye fell on the petrol coloured satin dress from the picture on my web site. I never wore it, never had much chance or reason (or so I told myself – I probably was too much of a coward to wear it, but wasn’t prepared to admit that to myself), but I never could bring myself to chuck it out either. It was such a lovely, lovely thing.

I felt the fabric. Soft and shiny, fluid like water, light as air. I grinned. Would I dare? Would I finally dare? Another gut-clenching thought hot on the heels of that one: did it still fit, after all the comfort food I’d gobbled these last stressful days?

I shimmied out of my pj’s and let the dress slip over my head. Cool, shimmering against my skin. It fit, hurrah! And suddenly I felt absurdly sexy and flustered, imagining Russell’s hands roaming over my body as they had done yesterday evening, and because of it, I nearly tripped over my own feet trying to get to a mirror. There I was, bed hair, no underwear, a mere ghost of a dress... I couldn’t be sure of course, after all, I’m not a bloke, but I reckoned I looked edible.

I dug around in my clothes until I found a black angora cardigan that could cover the spaghetti strap-supported, cleavage-flashing top. To the casual observer it would look like I was wearing a petrol skirt, and that, I could live with. After all, the cardie could always be dis- um-carded if the occasion called for it. I groaned at my own horrid, early morning sense of humour and decided to wear black leather Spanish riding boots with the dress. Not so hard on my poor feet, and a nice tough contrast with the femininity of the dress.

Obviously, I couldn’t leave home without my undies. That would just be too much. So I spent at least half an hour trying to find a bra and something lacy and not too much of a butt-flosser (hate those) that would be relatively invisible under the dress. It wasn’t easy. I ended up emptying the whole drawer on my bed and rooting around in it like a pig looking for truffles, but after trying on virtually everything that I owned in the undergarments department, I had to come to the conclusion that underwear and this dress just didn’t seem to go together.

Shit.

I took off the dress, about ready to give up, but then… I sighed. Clutched the dress to me. I had a chance of something really special happening to me tonight, so shouldn’t I at least… just… try…? I looked heavenward, moaned and threw the dress over my head.

Ten minutes later I was on my way to Paradiso, sans underwear, feeling very, very brave and very, very dangerous.

~*~

I worked my way through another frenzied morning of preparations, which luckily for me went smoother than the day before, and didn’t last as long. The doors opened at one in the afternoon.

There was a huge line outside right before we opened, and when I snuck out through the artists’ entrance to the side of the building and I took a peek at the people waiting to get in, I saw Russell, Dean and the boys walking up from their hotel, greeting a few people in the line cordially. Then, when Russell spotted me, they all walked towards me.

‘Did you bring fans?’ I asked, grinning, as several swooning females followed the band – and Russell most particularly – with their eyes.

‘They brought themselves, reckon,’ Russell muttered, a little shyly. He had been gracious to them, having a chat and signing a couple of CD’s, but wanted to get out from under their attention now. ‘Can we go inside?’ he said, ‘I just hate it when it turns into a bloody freak show. They’re not all like that, thank God, but some of ‘em…’ he sighed.

‘There’s this web site one of his fans is running,’ Deano confided in me, as we followed Russell inside, ‘and I let her know that we were gonna be here. She posted a message, the rest is history. Works every time. They’re all coming in from all over the place, and it’s mostly for Rusty, obviously, but still it’s fun, and you know, they enjoy themselves… He usually gets the irrits from all the devotion, but he’s beginning to learn how to deal with it, hey, Russ?’ this last bit shouted ahead to Russell’s back. ‘What’s her name again, the sheila with the web site?’

‘Darrin,’ said Russell over his shoulder. ‘Don’t fuck with me, mate, you know it as well as I do. You spent a whole afternoon in a bar with her.’

‘Aw, he’s embarrassed,’ Dean said to me softly. ‘Serves him right. Last time she came up to him after a gig, he didn’t recognize her. He only realized it later, but by then the damage was already done. He’s lucky though, having fans like her; she’s a good girl and she’s putting in a lot of work, with that web site and all.’

‘Is she here now?’ I asked, an idea forming in my mind.

‘Dunno, I didn’t see her, why?’

‘Oh, no, just thinking, if she’s here, maybe we should get her a backstage pass or something. I mean, it’s the least I can do if she’s bringing in folk like you say she is…’

‘Brilliant plan!’ Deano winked at me, then disappeared into the dressing room assigned to TOFOG.

I leaned against the doorjamb, looking on as they inspected their digs. Beer in the fridge, food on the table, big old couch, and of course walls full of scribbled messages from bands, fans and parties that had all passed through here. Colourful, to say the least.

It wasn’t entirely clear to me why I loitered the way I did, until I realized that what I was doing was waiting for a sign. A sign from Russell, an acknowledgement, hell, anything. At the moment he practically ignored me. I was beginning to think I had imagined it all, yesterday evening, and I lingered a dejected look at the dress swirling around my legs. Promises, promises, they all amount to nothing in the end. Maybe I should just shift my arse and get on with the next crisis.

When I looked up again, ready to turn and walk away, Russell was right in front of me. ‘...talk to you for a sec?’ he rumbled softly at me, motioning with his head to the empty corridor to the right.

I nodded. ‘’Kay... but I don’t have much time. I should go out front again when they’re starting.’ I nodded towards the stairs to the main stage where the first band of the day hung around nervously, waiting to get on.

We walked out of earshot and Russell lit a cigarette. He looked jittery, agitated; his eyes were all over the place.

‘You...hm.’ He started, then halted, wiping at his mouth, as if to wipe away a false start. Hand in his hair, he gave his head a scratch and looked at me from under his eyebrows. Then he laughed a rueful little laugh and said: ‘Shit. I guess I’m trying to say sorry for yesterday. And Friday, come to that. You must think I’m... well, you know… I mean, first I had a gutful, then I was doped out of my wits... Christ, brilliant impression I must be making.’ Big drag on his fag, then he blew out a concentrated, almost angry stream of smoke through tight lips.

I shrugged. ‘I don’t know... You were having a good time, weren’t you?’

‘Mm,’ he conceded, and a tiny smile played on his lips. ‘...loved that top you had on yesterday, felt so good it ought to be illegal.’

‘It probably was the dope, you know, heightened senses and all that...’

‘...no-o,’ he said, feigning pensiveness, then raising an eyebrow and cocking his head at me, ‘I think it was what was under the top. Actually.’

‘Oh,’ said I, blushing, looking down.

He was silent for a bit. Then he seemed to gather his wits, and he said matter-of-factly: ‘Look. What I wanted to say is this. I feel like a bloody drongo, slobbering all over you like that. I’m not that desperate, you know, dunno what you may have heard about me but I do not have the irrepressible urge to play tonsil hockey with every sheila that stands still long enough. Thought you should know that. Now, I know you’re a professional, and I respect that. You have to get on with it. So,’ he practically waved me away, ‘I’ll let you go now, OK?’

I froze. Knotted my eyebrows, gave him a perplexed stare and took a deep breath. I was stunned and felt totally, utterly, and unbearably painfully dismissed. It took me a couple of seconds to pick up my shattered ego off of the floor; then I gave him a curt nod, turned and walked away from him. It took another fifteen minutes and the gulping down of a glass of sticky sweet red port before the full meaning of what he had said sunk in.

He respected me as a professional (well that was something at least, I imagined), but he regretted everything else. He felt that it was a stupid mistake, because he had been drunk, or stoned; otherwise he wouldn’t have touched me with a ten-foot pole.

Shit. Double shit.

Not that I was thinking long-time commitment or anything, I mean honestly, but you know, I genuinely liked him. Apart from fancying him that is. I really thought we got along, thought we clicked, in a sense; we had even said as much to each other. Well, apparently I had been wrong. Monumentally so.

Lucky for me, I was in the middle of one of the biggest jobs I had done so far, so I didn’t really have any time to wallow in self-pity. And he could just go and get stuffed, if all he cared about was what other people said or thought about him. “Don’t know what you heard about me”, the man had said, I mean, Jesus. I found the self-inflatable ego he appeared to possess a sudden and violent turn-off, and I felt like a bloody fool, standing there with no knickers on, in a stupid petrol dress. He hadn’t even noticed. Bastard.

I sighed, went into the wardrobe area, borrowed a felt pen and wrote a note on the back of a techno party flyer:

Darrin please go to the ticket booth

I couldn’t imagine there’d be two female Darrins in the house, so if she was there, she should notice it at some point. I stuck the note to the door of the main venue and instructed the girl in the ticket booth to hand Darrin a backstage pass if she should make herself known. There. Promise kept.

Then, I went downstairs to the ladies’ and sat for a while with my head in my hands. On the way up, I met Pete, coming down.

‘Hey T-tish, what’s up? You look pale.’

‘Just tired,’ I reassured him, and trudged all the way upstairs, to see how things were going there.

The rest of the afternoon and early evening, everything ran smoothly. No more crises. But I couldn’t enjoy any of it, and apparently I walked around with a face so pale and long that folk had to take care not to trip over it. I’ve never been any good at hiding my moods, I know, but I was beginning to think I was scaring the people. The punters. Damn.

At a certain point in time, around eight in the evening, I bumped into Deano, who had been listening to the band upstairs. ‘Jaysus, Tish!’ he exclaimed. ‘You crook? Come here, sit down for a tick, you want me to get you something?’

We sat down in the tiny coffee bar in between ground floor and first level.

‘No, no, I’m fine, just... tired... Everything OK backstage?’ I said.

‘You mean Rusty?’

‘Among other things, yeah,’

Deano apparently didn’t hear that. ‘Well, good ole Russ is sayin’ nothing’s the matter, but he’s stuffed himself in a corner of the settee with some script he says he’s supposed to be reading and he looks like he’s seriously got the shits over somethin’. What did you say to him earlier on?’

‘Me? I didn’t say anything. He said loads of things, but I barely got my mouth open, so don’t look at me for his majesty’s mood swings, OK?’

‘Easy; fair crack!’ said Dean in response to my sudden vehemence, his hands up. ‘Maybe I’m asking the wrong question. What did he say to you?’

‘Well, I guess he told me to piss off.’

‘He did? Well fuck me drunk,’ Dean said softly, a surprised look on his face. Then, he slapped his knees with a sudden cheeriness. ‘Righty-right, time to go back to the back of backstage, eh? You want me to say hi to Russ from you, or...?’

‘Whatever you like,’ I muttered dejectedly.

Deano left. I hung in my chair a little while longer, eyeing the bread rolls that sat inside the glass counter. They had limp leaves of lettuce hanging out and looked decidedly unenticing. No noodles and Australian beer tonight, I thought, allowing just the tiniest bit of self-pity to take root. No roses, no notes. But maybe I should eat something, after all, that always helped. Maybe the sammies weren’t as bad as they looked.

Well, they were. They were awful and they tasted like cardboard slabs with a plastic sheet of cheese in between. The deceased lettuce, I removed with icky fingers. But it did feel good to have something inside me; it was a lot better when the sense of hollowness was only virtual.

And then it was time for TOFOG to get on stage. At first I had intended to just go and watch among the audience, but for some reason the room got packed so fast that I would have to fight my way in if I was going to see anything of them at all. I wasn’t in the mood for that, so I took the crew corridor that led to the backstage area, climbed out next to the guy who did the side-of-stage sound and peeked around the curtain.

The place was teeming with folk and the crew was running up and down to make ready for the band.

And then the lights got turned down. The crowd cheered. Russell stepped to the front, plopped down a hastily hand-scribbled set list by his microphone, and started talking to the people. I watched in silent astonishment as his energy changed completely now that he was on stage. He was born to perform. He was strong, secure, believable and impossible not to love. It nearly took my breath away.

He came out of his introduction chat and had a quick look at the list at his feet before they launched into the first song. I could just read it from where I was. The list said:

Wendy

Mem Day

Barry K

S E Princess

WHN

Forget

Afraid

David

White OO

Things HGTChng

Swept Away B

Nowhere

Circus 

OWOS

The Photog Kills

Swallow

Folsom

in a typical band-shorthand that I could only partly decipher, but as the gig progressed and I heard the actual songs being sung, I could make out what the full song title should be. I wished the CD’s I had ordered over the Internet had reached me in time so I could have had a listen and sing along, like a large part of the audience was doing. I felt a little left out, felt like I hadn’t done my homework, but still I enjoyed the performance immensely.

The band was really, really good, and Russell, well he was just in a class all his own. What he lacked in the way of vocal range he made up for in pure charm, dripping off him like sweat, raw sexiness that had the ladies in the first couple of rows going completely mental - especially when he started lighting cigarettes and sharing them round, and his natural gift of gab. He kept the whole room, all of the roughly fifteen hundred people that were crammed in there, balcony included, hanging on his every word.

Me, as well. Damn him.

I watched him closely from my little corner in the wings - truth be told I couldn’t take my eyes off him even if I’d want to - and suddenly I noticed he seemed to surreptitiously scan the audience. His energy never slipped, but underneath his performance, I was sure he was looking over the crowd as if he was trying to find a familiar face. I felt a twinge and for an instant I almost gave in to silly daydreaming about who he might be looking for. But no, I had been severely mistaken about Russell Crowe, and that was that. I sighed and wrapped my arms around myself, feeling the lovely, sensuous, utterly pointless satiny feel of the dress beneath my fingers.

‘Cold, hon?’ the sound guy asked. He looked worried, bless him, and he offered me his fleece hoody.

‘No, just tired,’ I said for the umpteenth time, shaking my head at his gentlemanly, though slightly crusty offer. I gave him my best smile though, for being such a sweetie.

I think the headshake did it. Maybe the light reflected off my red curls. Or maybe the mere movement caught his attention, I don’t know. But suddenly Russell looked in my direction, spotted me, and to my surprise and wonder I saw his eyes light up. A smile dashed over his face, followed by a definite air of relief. And all the way through the rest of the show he threw glances at me at regular intervals, as if to make sure I was still there.

I didn’t know what to do. First, I got hot, then cold again, shivering and holding myself. Then hot again, unbuttoning the cardie until fear of showing too much freckly décolleté had me do it up again. Had he been looking for me, after all? I could scarcely believe it.

And then the last song of the set wound itself to an end, Russell going:

‘…ragged up and ready to grift, swallow… my… gift…’

Thunderous applause followed; whistles, calls, feet stamping, in short, the audience demanded an encore. Russell milked it for all it was worth and had everybody howl with laughter, then finally they started into the Johnny Cash song. He adjusted the strap of his black Gibson, took a stance, eyed the audience with a menacing stare and started singing, low and dangerous:

‘I hear the train a comin'

rolling round the bend…’

The crowd went wild. And then he did something unexpected. He swivelled until he faced me, locked eyes with me and delivered the next lines right into my soul:

‘and I ain't seen the sunshine since I don't know when

I'm stuck in Folsom prison, and time keeps draggin' on

but that train keeps a rollin' on down to San Antone…’

I had goose bumps all over. Beneath all that menacing manhood was something else, something questioning and slightly plaintive, and it was only there for me to see. Had he changed his mind about me? I didn’t know what to think, and was shivering again in confusion.

He turned back to the audience and finished the song, to another roar of appreciation, and I clapped my hands red. TOFOG bowed, waved and jogged off the stage, and did not reappear no matter the racket the audience was making. When finally the music came on and the lights were turned up a notch, a collective groan went through the mob and it reluctantly started to disperse.

EMIGRATIONS had been a huge success, and I immediately felt a burden being lifted now that it was finally over. Of course I would have a lot of shitty administrative work waiting for me afterwards, but it would be worth it; my brain was already clicking, thinking about the possibility of making this thing annual.

I knew I was deliberately stalling, not dealing with the Russell situation, trying to think of something else, anything…

My eye fell on a small group of people, mostly girls, debating with one of the big, sturdy security guys that guarded the backstage entry. There were about fifteen of them, girls that is, but the argument seemed focused mostly around a slim, stylish little thing in a low-cut black miniskirt dress, baby pink tights, long, lacy black OTK stockings, Lolita buckle-up shoes and one strategically added black bangle. Shiny long black tresses in a perky pony tail, a black bow with pink hearts finishing it off. She waved a piece of paper in the air that looked decidedly like the note I had stuck on the door for Darrin.

I made my way over and asked: ‘’scuse me, what’s the problem?’

They all started talking at once and I couldn’t make sense of what was being said, so I looked at the security guy. He shrugged and told me, in a terribly thick Amsterdam accent: ‘Weer zo’n moppie dat zo nodig naar achter moet, maar zajje altijd zien, is ze d’r kaart kwijt!’

I turned to the raven-haired girl and asked her: ‘You happen to be Darrin, by any chance?’

She nodded and stuck the note in my face. ‘This hung on the door. So I go to the ticket booth. They give me a backstage pass, and then I go and lose the fucker in the mêlée here. Now someone else is tossing back the drinks with Rusty and I’m standing here pleading my case. Whose idea was it anyway?’ Another wave of the note.

‘Well, I was the one who hung the note on the door, and Dean was the one who told me about you.’ I said with a grin at her feistiness, and then, turning to the security guy: ‘She can go in, pal, no problem.’

Another shrug of the massive shoulders and then he let her pass. She went with a happy squeal, fist in the air in a mix of toughness and elegance, and as she bounded towards the stairs that lead down to the dressing room she yelled at me: ‘Cheers mate, and I’m gonna plant one on Deano for this!’

The rest of the small group kept nagging at the bulky security guy, but I turned away and surveyed the now empty floor. Well, empty apart from the enormous amount of trampled plastic beer glasses, that is. Apparently, TOFOG makes thirsty.

I knew it was expected of me to go backstage at some point and join the party that was no doubt germinating, but the whole chain of events had me so rattled that I desperately tried to think of something that I could do. Something that would buy me some time so that I could get my cool rebooted, because it had crashed with a resounding crunch. And if not rebooted, then at least jury-rigged; no way was I going in with knees this wobbly.

I got out a broom and started sweeping.

Before I knew it, an hour had passed, and even the most hard-headed naggers had left the security guy alone. He hadn’t budged, obviously, but now there were no more people to turn away, he came over to me, gently took the broom from my hands and thumbed back to the backstage entry.

‘Shouldn’t you go back there for a bit? It sounds like they’re having a good time,’ he grinned, as music and laughter began to drift upwards. ‘Go on, you’ve worked hard enough, you deserve to wind down as well.’

I mused on that. I had worked hard, very hard in fact, and he was right: I had every right to celebrate my success. And no whimsical Russell was going to deny me my well-deserved after-party! That was just the jury-rig my cool needed, and with my head held high I waltzed into a steaming, beer-soaked gathering backstage. A couple of guys were jamming on acoustic guitars, murdering No Woman No Cry and having a laugh; girls were swaying, clutching beer bottles and/or sweaty band members. I saw Darrin in deep talks with Deano and worked my way sideways through a tight pack of bodies that were either going in or coming out this room or that.

I looked around. Where could he be? I could fool myself for only so long; I was really only looking for Russell. In the mean time, I reckoned, I might as well get myself a cold one, and so I sidled up to a fridge. Opened it, extracted a beer bottle and opened that with the help of another bottle (a useful trick in case no opener is handy). It tasted divine and I closed my eyes as the cold beer slid down my throat.

When I opened my eyes again, I suddenly saw him, at the end of the room, swamped with female attention. Apparently he was telling some hilarious story. He had a girl under each arm and they all squealed with laughter. He looked quite drunk already and I saw him down a beer in practically one go, then burping outrageously, making a ridiculous face and going, innocently: ‘Oh… Sorry!’ More peals of laughter.

I sighed. Should I go and join them, should I vie for his attention with those girls? Christ, no, not on your bloody life. So, I unbuttoned my cardie, let it slip from my shoulders and engaged in a lively conversation with the lead singer of a Dutch band. A very handsome lead singer, with a tousled mop of black hair, green eyes and a crooked smile. There; if Russell wanted to talk to me at all, he would have to make a move, and he’d better be quick about it too. I deliberately turned my back on Russ and focused on the crooked smile.

The smile was just about to slip an arm around my shoulders and get a little more intimate when I felt a sharp tug on my hand. I lost my balance and I ended up, rather inelegantly, with my cheek against Russell’s chest, his arm snaking around my waist and pinning me against him. A stupid little girly shriek leapt out of my mouth.

‘Mate,’ I heard Russell say, his deep voice vibrating in his chest, ‘didn’t mean to interrupt your convo like that, but I need to have a word with Tish.’

The crooked smile hesitated for a tick, weighed his chances, then morphed into a watery grin and retreated. Russell rumbled into my ear: ‘Sorry for the caveman tactics, but I didn’t want to risk you marching off again with a look on your face like I was something nasty.’

‘Uh?’ I managed, then I was pressed into his chest all the harder as a couple of people tried to squeeze past. I clung to him out of sheer fear of being run over, but didn’t let go when the pressure eased up. Damn, he felt good.

‘Come on then,’ he softly said to me, and he took me to a relatively quiet spot down the corridor, his arm still around me. ‘Now,’ he went on, lifting my chin with a warm hand, ‘before I get too pissed and I can’t think straight any more, will you tell me what I said this afternoon, for you to run off like you did?’

‘Um…’ I said, having trouble meeting his eyes, ‘I thought you, um… you blew me off… didn’t you?’

‘Fuck, I thought Deano was takin’ the piss when he told me that you were walking around looking like a fuckin’ ghost because I’d supposedly dumped you,’ he erupted. ‘I sat all afternoon, thinkin’ about what I’d done to make you bolt like that, and then he comes in and tells me that you... Fuck, Tish, I thought he was havin’ me on, but then you never showed your face the whole arvo, and then I didn’t see you anywhere when we were on stage…’ he shook his head.

‘I was in the corner with the sound guy, the floor was too packed,’ I interrupted, softly, apologetically.

‘Yeah,’ he said, a smile emerging, ‘I noticed just in time.’  He looked into my eyes warmly and went on: ‘All I wanted to say was that I don’t normally go around doin’ this either, you know; don’t want you to get the wrong impression of me. I mean, I’ve had the occasional one-nighter in the past, but it’s not like… well you know…’ He seemed to lose his train of thought as I felt his hand softly stroking my petrol coloured, satin covered back. ‘You know you look fantastic in this, luv, and bloody hell, you feel great too, can’t keep my hands off you…’ he mumbled, low and very sexy, and he pulled me into his embrace.

I leaned against him as his hands travelled over my back and down over my buttocks, and I heard a soft growl escape him when he realised that it was just me under the satin, and nothing else. ‘Christ…’ he muttered, ‘you want to kill me, sweetheart?’ Then he dipped his head and let his lips do the talking, so to speak.

It was just as good as I hoped, perhaps even a little better. I melted against him like warm butter as our tongues did their little slippery tango; I was drowning again, moaning softly against his lips. I could feel that aroused him; his arms wound around me tighter and his kiss became more demanding, more fiery. We breathed in sync, fast and shallow, until we almost gasped and I felt a need blossom inside me that I could not remember being there ever before.

Finally, we detached and lingered, noses rubbing, nipping at each other gently.

‘So you’re not blowing me off then?’ I whispered with a smile.

‘Tish…’ he said in answer, his deep, gravelly voice so low that it was almost a whisper, ‘take me home with you?’

‘What?’ I thought I’d heard wrong.

‘I wanna go home with you,’ he whispered intently, his warm breath tickling my ear. ‘Let me sleep in your arms?’

I looked into his eyes, pinched my lips, nodded once and said: ‘OK. Just wait here,’ and in a sudden flurry of activity I wormed my way back into the dressing room to fish his coat off a hook, retrieve my cardigan from atop the fridge and ask Deano if he would take care of Russell’s guitars. Deano gave me rather a juicy grin and Darrin, who was still firmly rooted next to him, beer in hand, lifted a well-plucked brow.

‘Don’t worry,’ I whispered to her, ‘I don’t think I get to keep him.’

That earned me a grin, and an equally soft reply of ‘…whatever, as long as you take good care of him.’

I nodded and mouthed, ‘I will!’ then dashed off to retrieve Russell.

It was a bit of a hassle to load him onto the luggage carrier of my bike; I had to explain to him the trick of running along as I took off, giving me an extra push, then jumping on sideways. At the first try we fishtailed dangerously, and he came off again, his arms flying in a bid for balance. He giggled wildly and ran after me as I cycled away from him.

‘Oi, wait up, Tish, bloody hell!’

I slowed until he caught up, grabbed hold of my waist and hopped on.

‘Don’t wriggle!’ I ordered, speeding up again and feeling around back with first the one arm, then the other.

His arms slid around my waist and he grinned, ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m here, you can cop a feel any time.’

‘Just a dimensions check, Russ, I need to know how far you’re sticking out. I wouldn’t want to accidentally scrape you off and leave you dangling on a lamp post or something…’

He giggled again and encircled my waist even tighter. ‘I’m not letting go,’ he said with a hint of deeper meaning, his breath hot on the back of my neck.

I struggled to get up the bridge on the way to my flat, slowing down to a crawl, and Russ got off to give me a push. Then, on the way down, he plopped back on, having gotten the hang of basic bicycle acrobatics very quickly. ‘Woo hoo!’ he yelled happily when we gained speed and thundered down the road together.

‘Shouldn’t I be riding this thing, luv?’ he asked when I started pedalling again.

‘Do you know where we’re going?’ I returned the question over my shoulder.

‘No?’

‘Well, there you are then. Listen, I’m a tough Dutchie, I can transport a Russell if I want to,’ I grinned.

‘So… how many Russells have you carted around the city before me?’ he asked me, voice dripping with jealousy.

‘Well… let me see, there was… um…’

He growled in my ear, I squealed, and we giggled like idiots.

Then, as we reached my flat, we both quieted. Soon as we were inside and I had pushed the door shut, he had his arms around me and his mouth on mine, and immediately a mind-numbing heat washed over us.

‘God, I want you,’ Russell ground out, grabbing a handful of satin and hitching up my dress.

I fumbled at his belt as his mouth ravished mine, his hand on my naked bum, moving its way down to where I was wet and aching for him.

I managed to undo the damn fly and he did a quick shimmy while grabbing my leg and wrapping it around him. His jeans slid down his legs and immediately, I felt his hot tip throb at my core.

‘…you’re not wearing any either,’ I whispered hazily, which got a little giggle out of him. But then he was inside me, searing, pumping, banging me against the door as he banged me against the door, and we didn’t have any time to spare for laughing.

It was hot and it was fast, and we both came hard. Russell shuddered against me.

‘Wow,’ I said, soon as I could speak again, ‘That was intense…’

‘Yeah…’ he sighed, a satisfied grin on his face. ‘It was. And I wanna do it again, within a reasonable time frame. But listen, sweetheart, I could do with a shower first. Have you got a bathroom in here somewhere?’ He disentangled himself slowly, picked up the jeans puddled around his ankles and hoisted them up again so that he could walk.

I opened the bathroom door. ‘In here.’

‘Aw, beaut! You coming in?’

Well I couldn’t say no to that, now could I? I needed a shower as well, and I just loved the hot water pounding down on us, washing away the tiredness of the last couple of days.

Russell was unbelievably gentle; he washed my back and sponged down my breasts with an intense focus, whispering an almost inaudible ‘…so lovely…’. Then, we cuddled, softly stroking each other’s backs and humming in each other’s ears. What a sweety he was! I couldn’t believe it, and hid my face in his neck.

After the shower we dried off until we glowed and we rolled straight into bed, all warm and clean and rosy. He made a couple of moves toward a second shag, drowsy as he was, but halfway through the preliminaries his breath slowed and his head sagged against me. I wrapped my arms around him, kissed his cheek and mumbled in his ear: ‘Sleep, Russ…’

And that’s what he did. 

THE END

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