The Confessions Collection. Timothy Lea
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waiter looks from Sid’s cheque to the bill.
‘Service is not included,’ he says reproachfully.
‘Oh dear,’ says Sid. ‘What a pity. I can never work it out in this new decimal money. Have you got a couple of bob on you, Timmo?’
When we get outside I have a nasty feeling that Sid is going to be bankrupted by having to pay for a taxi but fortunately the home of Fantastic Unbelievable Pictures is just round the corner. It is no more exciting than the studios at Sheppertree and once you get past the blurred and bleeding coloured photographs of some of FUP’s latest epics: Revenge of the Creeping Horror, They Came in Outer Space, Orgy and Bess, it is like any office building.
Sam leads the way down a long, dark corridor and sticks her head round the door of a small office.
‘Hello, Trevor,’ she says. ‘I rang through about that new Arty Spangler movie. Can you put it up for us?’
Would that she would ask me the same question but I can wait. The next door leads into the projection room which is about twenty foot square with thick pile carpets and three tiers of armchair-type seats. There is a small panel of glass behind the seats through which the film can be shown and, of course, a screen.
‘Cosy,’ says Sidney, winking at me again. ‘Very cosy. Right-O, darling? Let’s grab a slice of the back row.’ He leads Sadie up underneath the projection box and they sink into the armchairs like a couple of pebbles into warm toffee.
‘Oh dear,’ sighs Sam. ‘I just don’t seem to be able to control myself.’
‘I know exactly how you feel,’ I murmur, drawing her down into the front row as the lights dim.
I do not remember very much about the film except the first few minutes which seem to be taking place in a junk yard with a lot of naked chicks and fellows rolling about starkers in the rubbish. There is a good deal of moaning and groaning but I am not certain whether this is coming from the screen or the back row. I look round once and all I can see is one of Sadie’s feet hooked over the seat. Sid does not waste much time at the flicks as any of the usherettes at the Odeon, Balham will tell you. When you have seen him in action it comes as no surprise that he can hardly remember a thing about any of the pictures he has paid to see. He saw Gigi three times and still came out thinking it was about horse-racing.
Not that I am concentrating on Sidney’s performance. Oh dear me, no! Once Samantha Toots’s squeaks of remorse have been silenced by my eager mouth she becomes a different person. Everything I touch seems to send her into another fit of shuddering passion and when I greedily pull up her cotton sweater and turn my mitts loose on her bristols, the reaction is, to put it mildly, electrifying. The whole row of seats threatens to work itself free of its moorings and, like a packet of fags left on the dashboard of a clapped out banger we are shaken onto the floor.
Recently, life has presented me with a few disappointments nooky-wise and I am keen that there should be no repetition of those thrust-quenching incidents which have left me with no more than a disappointed ruckle of the Y-fronts to remember the what-might-have-been. For this reason I move with more than my usual speed and quickly wriggle free from the tacky embrace of my coffee-stained jeans. Beneath her long skirt Sam wears – absolutely nothing! The discovery fills me with a certain disquiet because it does not seem quite nice really. I may be old-fashioned but I do expect birds to wear a pair of knicks! I mean, it’s more refined, isn’t it?
Luckily Toots’s tornado tactics help overcome my temporary distaste and I am soon rolling back her long skirt like you might fold down the neck of a sack. Her mouth is seldom an inch from mine and only leaves the sanctuary of my lips in order to plunder another part of my body. ‘Oh yes,’ she breathes, caressing Percy from P to Y, ‘yes, yes, yes.’
I am in no mood to argue with her and with the smooth action of a twenty-five pounder shell sliding into the breech I close the distance between us to a number of hair breadths. Her mouth is open and her eyes are closed and I can see that one of her bottom teeth is a bit crooked. Funny that I should notice a thing like that at the moment like this.
Sam is one of those birds who is terrified of her own sensuality. Like an alcoholic circling a bottle of gin she knows that it only needs a taste for everything to go off the rails. Once she gives in – pow! Sex with Samantha is like trying to stay on a bucking bronco. After three minutes of being churned around on her hips I feel like an egg that has been whisked into a bowl of cake mix. Even when the lights go on I am not certain whether I am seeing it or feeling it. It is only when I recognise Justin’s horrified mug staring down at me that I know I am seeing it.
‘What the devil!?’ says the short, fat geezer with him.
‘O-o-o-o-o-o-o-h!!’ The sounds from the back row suggest that something very beautiful has just come to an end, or, that an end has just come too – something beautiful. You pays your money and you takes your choice.
‘Turn that bleeding light off!’ snarls Sid as his face appears above the row of seats shortly followed by that of Sadie.
‘Beryl!’
‘Daddy!’
‘Excuse me.’ The last words are mine and accompanied by a hurried fumbling for my jeans. Reunions between father and daughter can often become very emotional affairs and I am not particularly big on sentiment myself. It would be better if I crept quietly –
‘You swine!’
‘Daddy, don’t. Remember your heart.’
‘Mr Guttman, please!’
‘Get out of my way! Let me get at him! You know what they do to tom cats!’ I can see by the way Sidney moves that he knows all right.
‘Mr Guttman, Mr Guttman, calm yourself,’ shouts Justin. ‘This gentleman is making a considerable investment in our next production. Right, Mr Noggett?’
Sidney looks at the expression on Guttman’s face and then begins to nod slowly.
‘We need money from creatures like that?’ sobs Guttman. ‘Seducing my little girl. Look, she’s been drugged. It’s obvious.’
Sadie, or Beryl as I know her, is one of those birds you can never imagine ever having been a little girl and the thought of her being seduced does not fit easily into the mind. She does look drugged, though. It must be the booze.
‘I assure you, Mr Guttman. We were just having a bit of fun,’ stammers Sid.
‘“Fun!!” Seducing my little girl, “fun”? Where’s this contract you were talking about? I’m going to tear it limb from limb.’
It occurs to me that nobody has mentioned a contract but Justin is swift to produce a folded sheet of paper which Guttman snatches from his hands.
‘Mr Guttman! I beg you to reconsider,’ sobs Justin. ‘What has happened here is highly reprehensible and I can appreciate your feelings of outrage at seeing your first-born in the process of despoliation but think of the longer view. Is it not right that this man should make good the wrong he has done? His signature on that contract can be a step towards financial reimbursement at least.’
‘I feely dizzy. My throat is dry,’ croaks Sadie.
‘Drugged. He’s drugged her. What did I tell you?’ howls Guttman. ‘Fetch the police! I will not rest until that twisted pervert is behind bars!’
‘Relax! Relax!’ shrieks Sid. ‘I didn’t drug anyone. I swear it. It was the girls’ idea. Look, I’ll sign it. Give me that piece of paper. Let’s not get hysterical about this.’
He grabs the piece of paper and dashes off a signature so fast that his trousers fall down again.
Guttman extends his arms. ‘What is the world coming to when I have to do business with rapists and perverts, drug peddlers and sexual maniacs. Come, Rachel –’
‘Beryl!’ hisses Justin.
‘–