Prologue.
I was getting frustrated now. “No, it has to be a double amputee.” I repeated.
“We’ve nothing like that,” Lady Lydia said, “I can do a midget if that’s any good?” She asked.
“A midget, eh?” I thought aloud.
“Yes, a midget. She’s in her twenties, and very pretty” She said, “for a midget” she nonchalantly added.
“err, hang on” I instructed her. With that I put her on hold and fast dialled my best friend, Martin.
“Rich?” he answered.
“Hi Mate, just a quick one, the list says a double amputee. Can’t find one anywhere. I’ve tried about 20 agencies so far, but it’s like trying to find rocking horse shit.”
“Yes, that’s the idea.” Martin said, sighing with impatience. “You have to work for it.”
“But I did find a midget!” I exclaimed convincingly. I knew the answer before I heard it. “So, what about a midget, will that do?” I asked whilst nodding my head and crossing my fingers.
“No,” he answered and promptly disconnected our call.
“Well, fuck you very much” I muttered to myself whilst reverting the call back to Lydia. ” No, sorry Lydia, but thanks for trying.”
I put the phone down and placed my head in my hands.
My phone pinged with a text. “Rich, you know the rules, move on to the next one if you can’t complete a task” The text was from Martin.
I nodded in agreement and reached into my desk drawer. My wallet lay there. Inside my wallet, folded into four, was the list
I reviewed all 9 tasks on the list again.
My phone pinged again. “ffs Rich, you’ve only got 4 days left!!”
I sarcastically smirked, shrugged my shoulders and shook my head.
…
Let me start from the beginning. Every first Friday of the month, myself, Martin, and an ex house mate of mine, Carl, get together for a friendly game of poker. There can usually be up to seven of us at the start of a game, but it’s always the three of us that are left at the end of the game.
At every poker game we talk too much. If you ask me who actually won the game each month, I wouldn’t have a clue. I do know, however, that no matter much money I take to the poker night, I usually come home with empty pockets.
Last month’s game took a sinister twist. After being a little worse for wear, I happened to exclaim aloud after losing my third call in succession that I was a crap poker player and added that my sex life, or lack of it, was boring. I had been single for 2 years now and although I was having infrequent casual sex, the experimental side of things was non-existant. If I managed to slide a finger inside a girl’s bottom whilst I was fucking her in a missionary position, it would be a miracle. In my experience, couples only tend to try new things and experiment once they’re completely comfortable with one another.
Carl sat there nodding at the sentiment.
That’s when Martin, also worse for wear came up with the idea of a compiling list of things we should all do. Carl and I nodded in agreement like a couple of dolls you would see in the back window of a car.
We were each given a post-it note and told to write three unusual sexual activities on each. Each of us would then have to perform one of the acts on the list each month before the next game until all tasks had been completed. If any player does not manage to perform one of the tasks, then that player would have to put £1000.00 into the pot at the beginning of the next poker game.
As we were all drunk, we all agreed. What I didn’t take into account was the following:
- Carl is gay.
- Martin is a fucking pervert.
- I’m quite picky and have only ever slept with a few certain types of women.
Once we had all written our lists, we handed them to Martin who wrote one long list from all of the items on the post-it notes. This, in turn, was then copied two more times times and we were all handed a copy.
So Carl’s activities were (surprise, surprise):
- Visit a gay sauna.
- Have full sex with some one of the same sex.
- Have sex with someone outside. (As nature intended)
I objected to Carls Number 2. Whilst this would be extremely unusual for me and maybe Martin too, it was pretty routine for Carl.
Martin, who had by now nominated himself as judge and jury, overruled my objection. Instead he said if he and I had to sleep with some one of the same sex, Carl, being gay, would have to sleep with some one of the opposite sex. Carls’ face dropped.
Martins tasks were:
- Visit a BDSM Dungeon and get pegged.
- Sleep with a double amputee
- Join a swinging orgy.
As I said, Martin was a pervert.
My pathetic tasks were:
- Join a dating site and sleep with four members in a month.
- Have a threesome.
- Sleep with someone at least 20 years older than you.
I intentionally put that last one in as I quite fancied the woman at the local florist who looked like she was in her mid-sixties but was really fit. I would walk past her shop each morning on the way to the train station and I would wave at her. She, in turn, would give me a beaming smile and wave back.
So, our final task list or “Fuckit list” as Martin would later refer to it as, was:
- Visit a BDSM Dungeon and get pegged.
- Sleep with a double amputee
- Visit a gay sauna.
- Join an orgy
- Join a dating site and sleep with four members in a month.
- Have a threesome.
- Sleep with someone at least 20 years older than you.
- Have full sex with some one of the same sex.
- Have sex with someone outside.
I hope that explains the initial call to Lydia.
So here I am with four days left until the poker game and unless I can tick one off, it was £1000.00 in the pot for me.
Once again, as always, I had left it to the last minute to act. To be fair, I was hoping everyone would forget about it. I also thought that I could just lie and tell them I had completed one of the tasks. How would they even know?
That was soon put to bed when I received an email from Martin, the self-proclaimed organiser, stating that we had to produce enough evidence to convince the other players that our story was genuine.
Chapter One: Visit a Gay Sauna.
This had to be the easiest task. I could go in, have a sauna, and come out. I didn’t have to do anything. Just sit in a sauna.
Once I got home from work I googled “Gay Sauna. Aylesbury” The first entry on the list directed me to the website of an establishment called “Tops Sauna” in a place called Hemel Hempstead. As I happened to be in Aylesbury the very next day for a business meeting with a potentially huge client, it made sense to find a sauna in that area. Hemel Hempstead was only twenty minutes away.
I called the Sauna. It seemed simple from what the rather camp receptionist told me. You turn up, pay, receive a towel and a locker key, shower, undress, pop in the jacuzzi or steam room and have fun. Although I thought to myself, my version would be: you turn up, pay, receive a towel and a locker key, shower, undress, pop in the jacuzzi or steam room, stay for 5 minutes and then shower, dress and leave. Simple. Rich was £1000 pounds better off.
That’s not quite how it went.
As I planned the sauna visit the following day, I drove to the meeting. This was unusual for me as I would normally use the great British public transport system. That way, I can list the meeting minutes and actions on my return journey. However, as my scheduled meeting with a Mr Anderson, the owner of Kelda Products, was not until 4pm, I calculated that by the time we were finished, and I had driven to the Sauna, it would be very late. So, on this occasion, I thought it would be better for me to stay over for a night.
I booked a hotel I had managed to find three streets away from the sauna. My plan was to have my meeting, drive to Hemel Hempstead, visit the sauna, return to the hotel, watch some TV, and then sleep. Again, that’s not quite how it went.
The meeting, I thought, had gone quite well. The potential client, Mr Andersson, seemed quite impressed with our proposals to improve his logistics. Mr Andersson was a very large man. He was around six feet tall and sported a long shaggy grey beard and he had a huge belly which hung over his belt line. His head was completely shaven and I noticed the edges of tattoos protruding from his shirt sleeves and another just above his neck collar.
When the meeting was concluded, Mr Andersson stated that he would give me an answer very soon regarding whether I had convinced him to switch suppliers.
He then asked if I were staying locally that evening. Without thinking I told him I was. He, to my utter annoyance, proceeded to invite himself to dinner with me and advised me that he would be happy to reserve a table at his favourite restaurant. He claimed that as I was not from the area I wouldn’t know any good restaurants and would end up eating at a greasy spoon cafe. I thought it would be rude to refuse him and hardly a good start to a potential business relationship. I felt that he was almost testing me and wanted to get to know me and my company a little more before agreeing to a long-term commitment.
Now, this was going to be a bit of a problem. I now had just over two days left and the perfect opportunity to complete a task was slipping away from me. Although the sauna was a 24 hour a day operation, I didn’t really feel like staying up until the early morning hours with Mr Anderson and then be faced with having to find the place as well as having to go through the motions of stripping, spending a short while in the sauna, just to get dressed and leave again. I thought that perhaps I could end the evening dinner with our potential client short by feigning a headache.
I’d arranged to meet Mr Andersson at my hotel later that evening. From there we were to get a cab to the restaurant. Mr Andersson raised an eyebrow when I gave him directions to the Hotel. I knew he was probably asking himself why the hell I had booked a room in an entirely different town when there were many good hotels and motels near the offices we had held the meeting in.
I kind of gave him a shrug of the shoulders and a submissive smile and lied to him that a friend’s friend owned the Hotel and we received special rates. He nodded.
At 7.55 pm my room phone rang. It was the receptionist advising me that a gentleman was waiting for me in the foyer. The slight pause she made before saying the word “Gentleman” had me intrigued.
I grabbed my jacket and left the room. I got to the foyer where Mr Andersson shook my hand. I guessed that he was around 50 years old. Surprisingly, he was wearing a torn pair of jeans and a black leather waist coat with a white Tee shirt underneath. His arms were completely covered in ink. I, on the other hand, had decided to wear a suit complete with a formal waist coat and tie. I felt a little overdressed but thought it was better to be safe than sorry.
We left the hotel to hail a cab. The weather for May was unexpectedly warm and I noticed that the streets seemed unusually busy. Mr Andersson seemed like a pro. He expertly weaved and pushed his way through the throngs of pedestrians to the kerb side and whistled loudly. Within 20 seconds a cab was parked in front of us.
The driver was given the instructions and another twenty-five minutes later I found myself back in Aylesbury arriving outside a tiny Indian restaurant. The only two things I could think about now was: first, the task, and secondly was how Mr Anderson looked just like an insane biker you were likely see in a Mad Max movie.
As we entered the restaurant a small Asian waiter approached us with a huge smile. “Welcome Mr Tony” he exclaimed. “Your usual table?”
“Yes please, Ahmed” Mr Anderson replied.
We were shown to a table with four chairs. Two of the chairs were nestled against a wall facing the door and the other two on the opposite side where halfway into the waiter’s small passage way.
It was quite comical watching Mr Anderson squeeze his huge frame into one of the tiny chairs against the wall. His big belly pushed the table five or six inches further out resulting in my chair ending up even further into the passageway.
He sighed and looked at me. “I’m such a fat cunt” he said shaking his head.
I looked back at him and burst into laughter. I certainly wasn’t expecting the CEO of an international company to use such langauge. Furthermore, how on earth do you reply to that? To agree with ‘Yes you are a fat cunt Mr Anderson,’ could be a game stopper. To disagree could be construed as sucking up to him, which he may not like or foster respect for. So, I just laughed.
Thankfully, he looked at me, smiling, and indicated by waving his hand that I should take a seat opposite him.
Throughout the evening we chatted. Tony, which he had by now asked me call him, told me the story of how he had grown his business over the past twenty years. He had only started it when he was sacked from his job as a nightclub bouncer for punching one of the managers there. He went on to explain that the reason for his actions was that not ten minutes earlier he was set upon by three rowdy cliental he had previously turned away. He had left the nightclub to dispose of some empty bottles. The council skip was located around the corner from the nightclub. As he was not in the other bouncer’s line of sight and they could not hear him shout, he found that he could not raise the alarm.
Although he had eventually managed to get the better of the three lads, the nightclub manager had later told him that it was his own fault he had nearly gotten beaten up for leaving the door area. As Tony was high on adrenaline at the time, he just looked the manager in the eyes, smiled, and punched him square on the chin. His employment was immediately terminated.
After three months, Tony had gone on to design a device hat would act as a panic alarm as well as a communication system. It was operated remotely and was completely wire free. Any team could now remain in constant contact. He was now a multimillionaire from this invention and more recetly had won many contacts internationally.
Tony told me that he also had a love of motorbikes and that he owned fourteen Harley Davidson bikes, as well as his trusted old Triumph Bonneville.