Champagne Kisses

by Amanda Brunker

‘You’re free to go now. Is there anything you’d like to ask me before we release you?’

  ‘I thought we weren’t under arrest?’

  ‘You weren’t, but you could have been.’

  ‘Emmm, by any chance are you related to a good-looking brunette named Lucy?’

  ‘She’s my younger sister.’

  ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘How do you know my skin and blister?’

  ‘She’s … just a friend of mine. She’s a good girl.’

  ‘Oh I better look after you, so. Otherwise I’ll never hear the end of it.’

  Fifteen minutes later Parker, Maddie and myself were sitting in the back of a scruffy white minivan being driven to Marbella.

  It wasn’t exactly Parker’s style, but the detectives insisted they get us to our villa, and since thankfully we had too much luggage to fit in the back of one of their Policia cars, we were ushered into a rattling unmarked tin can instead.

  The driver didn’t seem to have a word of English, so the three of us sat in silence during the fifty-minute journey to Parker’s villa. All that could be heard over the noisy Moroccan music in the front was the beeping of texts from our mobiles.

  Parker of course was bombarding Jeff with his tale of injustice, while Maddie filled Lisa in on her ordeal of being accused of being a liar, slapper and criminal. I plucked up the courage to send Luscious Lucy a message to say, ‘Today I’m very glad I met you. For once you delivered me out of trouble instead of leaving me in it xxx.’ Understandably she was probably a little confused by my text. ‘Are U drunk?’ she replied. Far too exhausted to give her a full explanation, I texted back ‘YES’.

  ‘It’s definitely a first for me, ha, being arrested,’ chuckled Parker as he sipped his second glass of white Faustino.

  We had finally made our way to our favourite restaurant, Fernando’s, and were awaiting our usual order of lobster au gratin, crispy pork belly and sweet BBQ ribs. It was the same order every visit and the same randy waiter Amancio who served us, which meant the same harassment every time I visited the Señoritas. Of course we called him Armani the lean mean pestering machine, as he was the image of the ultra-stylish flamenco dancer Joaquín Cortés – long hair, attitude and all.

  Although I pretended to tire of his advances, which came in the form of drawings on napkins, red roses and decorated desserts, Amancio – who every year would tell me that his name meant love or loving – always made me feel the sexiest woman alive.

  ‘You are so beautiful – be my woman – can I make loff to you?’ He was your typical intense Spanish gigolo. I just had to forget that he fed the same passionate bullshit to at least six or seven other women a night.

  ‘We weren’t arrested,’ I retorted as I watched Amancio’s tight ass glide across the room. ‘Stop saying that. That’s how we get ourselves into trouble.’ I also warned him to stop going on about the fact that we’d been held by the Gardaí.

  ‘Just like the time we discovered those remote control mini vibrating eggs,’ chuckled Parker.

  Maddie and I looked at each other, ‘Ohmigod,’ squealed Maddie, ‘do you remember?’

  Raising my glass of wine, I toasted the air and answered, ‘How could we ever forget?’

  Several years back we’d been enjoying a posh meal at Shannon’s restaurant in Dublin when a friend of Maddie’s called in with presents for her. He owned a sex shop on South William Street called Miss Naughty, and he had a bag full of goodies for her as a thank-you for a modelling job she’d done wearing some of his kinky lingerie.

  In the bag there were jingle balls, gloves with vibrating fingers, bizarre clips for places that didn’t need clipping, DVDs, lube gels, lipsticks, a five-gear Rampant Rabbit, nipple tassels, edible undies and two remote control mini vibrating eggs.

  It was adult game heaven. And of course we weren’t going to wait till we got home to enjoy the goodies.

  After receiving filthy looks from the neighbouring table for swinging the blue rabbit in the air and revving the speed control like we were at the starting grid at Mondello, we decided we needed to be more discreet with our fun. So Maddie and I nipped to the loo to try out our hard-boiled eggs, leaving Parker at the table doing rotten impersonations of Wacko Jacko with his buzzing glove.

  The two toilet cubicles were free so we raced in and cracked open our presents, with the excitability of one of those MTV Sweet Sixteeners when they run to find out what expensive car their daddy has bought them.

  Thinking we had the place to ourselves we continued a dialogue through the walls, along the lines of, ‘Which way up do you slip it in?’ And ‘What if it gets lost in there? Will you fish it out for me?’

  Feeling secure that we had adjusted our sex toys adequately, we threw open our doors to find two horrified middle-aged women standing waiting for us to vacate.

  Respectfully we made apologies for being so loud, then ran out of the Ladies in hysterics.

  Resisting the lure to try out our new gizmos till we returned to the formality of the table, we exercised our pelvic floors on the way back up the stairs, which, for me anyway, was extremely satisfying in itself. Giggling, we sat down to the sound of the gloved one as MJ singing to the next table about how bad he was.

  Although they were trying their best to ignore him, he persisted. When he managed to get the daughter at the table to smile, he felt he’d achieved a small victory and abandoned his harassment.

  ‘So what have you two brassers been doing?’

  ‘We’re practising to become chickens,’ explained Maddie.

  ‘Yeah, don’t make us laugh, we might just lay an egg,’ I chirped.

  ‘Don’t tell me you stuck those stupid things inside you?’

  ‘Yep,’ we replied in unison.

  ‘What’s it feel like?’ Parker asked with usual perverse interest.

  ‘Like I’ve been impaled on a plastic egg,’ said Maddie. Parker was unimpressed. ‘Not exactly erotic stuff,’ he grumbled. ‘I thought it was meant to vibrate like this glove?’

  ‘We haven’t switched them on yet,’ I told him. ‘Would you like to turn me on?’

  ‘Ha, there’d be a first,’ cackled Maddie.

  ‘I wasn’t always a poof, you know,’ said Parker, pushing his hair across his forehead in a very gay fashion. ‘I have had sex with two women, you know.’

  ‘Ewww, doing depraved things with your Barbie dolls doesn’t count as having straight sex,’ tutted Maddie.

  ‘I’ll have you know I fought the good fight against finding the female form repulsive till well into my late teens. And during that time I went to great lengths to satisfy two lovers.’

  Both Maddie and myself sat silently in shock.

  ‘Honestly. I lost my virginity to a 47-year-old friend of my mother’s, Doreen. We had a sexual relationship for two years. And then my second liaison into uncharted territory was with a butch young thing by the name of Christina. She’s since shaved off all her hair, shortened her name to Chris and was last heard of living with another skinhead, by the name of Bernie, in Christchurch.’

  ‘So are you tellin’ me you’d know how to tickle my fancy, Mr Pink?’ I waved the small remote under his nose.

  ‘Clearly I’d have no interest in doing that manually, but technologically speaking, I’d love to.’ Without delay he’d grabbed the device and turned the button to HIGH.

  ‘Jes-us!’ My yelp from the power surge between my legs could be heard around the dining room. ‘Easy does it, Parker. You don’t want to electrocute me.’

  ‘Death by two-second orgasm,’ he chuckled.

  ‘Is it that good?’ questioned a now eager Maddie, experiencing her own tingling sensation.

  ‘Just switch it on.’

  ‘I can’t, I’m scared,’ said Maddie.

  ‘Then give it here,’ ordered Parker like the play master. ‘I’ll give you manners.’

  ‘May the force be with you,’ smiled Maddie as she handed over her remote.

  Removing his glove,
he took the two remotes and placed one in each of his jacket pockets, then struck a pose like John Wayne.

  ‘Now I finally have the power to control you two witches. Whenever you’re disobedient, I must punish you. You have been warned.’

  ‘I’ve been a very naughty girl,’ cooed Maddie. And like a coiled-up elastic band he snapped back ‘Take that,’ all the while keeping his hands hidden in his pockets.

  ‘Ahhhh – switch it off,’ squealed Maddie, ‘stop it, stop it now!’

  ‘OK, OK, but I can’t forget you, my pretty.’

  And with that Parker switched off Maddie’s vibrator and asserted his power over mine.

  Just as Maddie ceased screaming I took over, and he persisted in playing this tag tennis screaming game until the maître-d came over to the table and asked us to keep the noise down.

  Recalling our wild days always helped to cheer us up, but despite having finally unwound from the day’s events, I was definite that I didn’t want people to think that I had been arrested in Malaga.

  I had been fired, dumped, evicted, fired again and now this. Detained under suspicion of having dodgy mates was too much to comprehend, but I didn’t think I could cope if Anna caught wind of us three being hauled over by the Gardaí.

  She might have been back in Dublin, but that didn’t stop her soaking up gossip from the Costa.

  ‘You have had one toxic year, Eva Valentine. You and Britney Spears should hook up and compare notes. You know, you could give her a run for her money in the car crash stakes. All you need to do is cut off that fabulous hair of yours and replace it with some cheap hair extensions and you’re matched.’

  Now in familiar territory Parker was back to his old self and thankfully not moaning about missing Jeff.

  ‘Actually I was thinking of adopting some peasant children from some impoverished country, and then allowing a tabloid journalist to witness me locking them up with a couple of pitbull terriers just to outdo her.’

  ‘Don’t talk about babies like that. It freaks me out.’ Maddie’s little face looked bruised. Even though she knew we were messing, her hormones lately seemed to react badly to news of neglected children.

  ‘You know Britney went to get her spray tan done the day she handed her kids over to K-Fed,’ explained an animated Maddie.

  ‘Who fucking told you that?’ demanded an unimpressed Parker.

  ‘I heard it on TV3. Lorraine Keane said it so it must be true.’

  ‘Mmmm, I wonder will our brush with the law make it into their Daily Dish?’ Parker winked at me as he spoke.

  ‘Jesus Christ, you don’t think? Really? Fuck … no … ah, God … fuck … no!’ Maddie went into a near hypo.

  ‘Calm down, hon, don’t mind him, he’s only winding you up. Aren’t you, Parker? I said: aren’t you, Parker?’

  ‘Of course I am, little Miss Up-the-duff. But I think you have to be more careful who you talk to in the future.’

  ‘Excuse me?’

  ‘I’m serious. I think you need to concentrate on yourself and forget about flirting with randoms.’

  ‘Get her,’ squealed Maddie indignantly, ‘that’s a bit rich considering you’re all loved-up. How easily you seem to forget what it’s like to be lonely.’

  ‘Trust me, pet, you won’t be lonely for long. When the invisible junior here pops out, you’ll never be lonely again. Stressed, exhausted and possibly frumpy – but not lonely.’

  Maddie was just about to face up to Parker when Amancio arrived at our table bearing delicious-smelling food. ‘Exquisite ladies and da beautiful Parker –’ he winked at me while placing our meals in front of us – ‘dinner is served.’

  Half starved, Maddie couldn’t stay angry at Parker as she tucked into her ribs with the ferociousness of a wild animal.

  ‘Ea-zy, tiger,’ smiled Amancio in his warm Spanish accent. ‘Watch the threads, I’ve a lady I need to impress tonight, huh?’ He kissed my hair and then disappeared as quickly as he had arrived.

  ‘I know I can’t talk, but you’d never know where that fella’s been. You could catch rabies or anything.’ Parker for once was talking a little sense.

  ‘I know, but he’s very cute and an amazing kisser. He’s one of my most steady boyfriends. Five years, sorry six years we’ve been coming here …’

  ‘Yeah – and – every visit – you let him – molest you. It’s disgusting,’ Maddie somehow managed to say in between sucking the life out of her spare ribs.

  ‘Now girls, handbags please. Just because he fancies Eva instead of you doesn’t mean you have the right to totally diss him. He’s a fine figure of a man. If a little riddled.’

  ‘I’m eating.’ The word ‘riddled’ didn’t sit well when I had food in my hands.

  ‘Sorry. OK, I think we need a toast.’ Parker composed himself with his freshly filled glass.

  ‘Here’s to—’

  ‘Escaping jail,’ I interrupted.

  ‘Yes … But hang on, raise your glasses, girls. Let’s toast all the positives.’

  ‘Which are?’ Maddie’s back was still up.

  ‘Well, friendship. Unless some sugar daddy steps up and offers to pay for dinner I’ll be forking up the lettuce tonight, so that must mean something.’

  ‘Thank you Parker’ – ‘Yes, thanks Parker.’ We dipped our heads in appreciation and embarrassment. Without him, this whole trip would not have been feasible.

  ‘OK,’ I took it upon myself to make a speech, and stood up.

  ‘I’d like to make a proper toast, to dear friends, also known as partners in crime.’ Both Parker and Maddie squeezed out a giggle. ‘Parker, under that sarcastic venomous tongue of yours lies a good heart …’

  ‘You’ve just got to dig deep …’

  ‘Yes, thank you, Maddie. As I was saying, Parker you are my hero, without you these last few months I would have sunk, and I want to formally thank you now. So cheers to you.’ Together we clinked our glasses.

  ‘And to new friends we haven’t met yet.’ Parker and Maddie looked at each other with puzzled faces.

  ‘Maddie’s baby,’ I whispered.

  ‘Oh thank God,’ gasped Parker, holding his hand to his chest for dramatic effect, ‘I thought you wanted to go cruising for more felonious fellas. I don’t think my heart could take any more excitement for one day.’

  Just then Amancio caught my eye and waved at me to follow him outside.

  ‘Oh, sorry guys, I’ll be back in a minute,’ I put my glass on the table and tousled my hair for a fuller look. ‘I’ve gotta go see a man about a dog.’

  ‘Watch out for the rabies,’ laughed Parker as I stepped past him on a mission.

  I didn’t care about the other women, I needed some Amancio lovin’.

  If you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, I thought. What goes on tour, stays on tour – let’s hope!

  ‘Por favor, can I have dos well-done burgers, uno club sandwich, but hold the bacon – no bacon, emmm, tres grande agua sin gas, and tres grande Coke Light … Gracias.’

  It was 5p.m. Parker and myself had only managed to make it down to the pool, and this was breakfast. Maddie was none too impressed. Possibly thinking she was German, she had placed our towels on the sunbeds closest to the bar and beside the shower unit at 8a.m. She said she couldn’t sleep with the loud drunken snores from Parker and me.

  Although we had our own extremely fabulous private pool at Parker’s family villa, we always gate-crashed the neighbouring five-star hotel as we didn’t have a live-in chef and the only passing tits were crested or blue ones!

  Great for parties when you had a gang but quite lonely if you’re hungover and in the mood for people-watching.

  ‘So? Have fun last night?’ Maddie was trying to hide her jealousy. She had felt sleepy after the meal and had had to retire early so we dropped her back to the house before hitting a few pubs and clubs.

  ‘I couldn’t tell you,’ groaned Parker, as he carefully lathered Factor 25 on his face, making sure not to coat his rectangle
-rimmed black Prada shades.

  ‘Ask the disco diva here beside me. I felt like an irresponsible parent going off and leaving you on your own, but the energizer bunny here was a woman possessed, and there was no way she was going home till she’d wiggled her wobbly bits in everyone’s face.’

  ‘Well, neither of you would have noticed if I’d gone missing in Fernando’s after those footballers came over to the table,’ complained Maddie.

  ‘They were new in town,’ I pleaded, ‘and needed some guidance. They’d only been given the names of a few dingy bars, so I decided to take them under my wing.’

  ‘You mean your bingo wings,’ chuckled Parker.

  ‘Listen here, Mr Universe, I’d had a stressful day and needed to forget about my worries. You were hardly an unwilling participant.’ One of my final memories of Parker was of him balancing on a brick wall singing Mika’s ‘Grace Kelly’ at the top of his lungs, while I was screaming at the barman I had earlier snogged, because he wanted me to get into his tiny car and wouldn’t take no for an answer.

  Eventually he had driven off in a huff, and Parker had dismounted with a few screams of his own when he looked at his scuffed shoes.

  ‘So did either of you girls get lucky?’ enquired a now inquisitorial Maddie, hungry for gossip.

  ‘Well, I got lucky with everyone from the waiter to the barman …’ I was still technically drunk, so in my mind this revelation was hilarious.

  ‘Yeah, and probably the toilet cleaner in between,’ said Parker.

  ‘Ha, there were no loo attendants that I can remember. There was some other fella I kissed on the stairs of the Maroon Bar, but I think he wanted to buy me for the night so we did a legger.’

  ‘So you had a laugh anyway?’ Maddie’s voice mellowed as she saw the waitress return with our drinks.

  ‘I think Eva may have got us barred from Sinatra’s, but yeah, it was a pretty fun night – how you feeling today bella mama?’

  ‘Bored!’

  ‘Well, we can’t have that, ma chica. How can Sue Ellen here and myself make it up to you? Can we take you down to that hotel on the strip beside the cosmetic surgery hospital and look at all the Bridies in bandages? That’s always worth a giggle.’