“Ready for the Hallowe’en themed night at Jonty’s.” Georgia’s initial message says. She attaches photos of herself, Brianna and Trey dressed in their outfits. They’ve made the group decision to dress as notorious villains from their hometowns.
Georgia, as Deacon Brodie, (the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde), is dressed in a medieval outfit with a powdered man’s wig, a carpenter’s leather apron and a set of large imposing keys. Brianna, from Stratford-Upon-Avon, decided on Lady Macbeth and wears a tight-fitting bat-winged dress in shimmering emerald-green. She’s enhanced her look with splatters of fake blood across her face and on the palms of her hands. Trey has elected to dress as Hannibal Lecter, given that Baltimore is the chosen location for the TV show Hannibal. He wears a blue boiler suit (Scott’s?) with a leather-effect face mask and quick-release handcuffs.
“Looking fabulous, all of you,” Heather replies. “Have a great night. Stay safe!”
“Great look,” types Scott, “No beer splatters on my best boiler suit, mind, Trey!”
So, the suit is his! And he can use words when required. And there’s not a thumbs up emoji in sight.
“OMG. You Guys!!! Loving it!” says Bethany.
Gerry pulls up in his car moments later. Heather puts her phone onto silent and watches his face in amusement as she totters down the path to his waiting car.
‘Do you like it, then?’ she asks.
Even to her critical eye, her sexy Dracula costume is a triumph. Black fishnet covers her arms and legs. The purple dress shows just the right amount of thigh to be provocative but not slutty, and cinches her in at the waist, her best feature. The cape tied around her throat is high-necked and somehow elongates her body. She’s wearing black stilettos to complete the look. If this doesn’t encourage Gerry to make a pass at her, then the man is most likely made of steel.
Or jelly.
Gerry pulls up in the school car park and steps out of the car. He’s wearing a costume purloined from various departments around school: a lab coat from chemistry, a stethoscope from PE, a bald-headed wig with spurts of grey hair sticking crazily at right angles from drama and, in his hands, a rolling pin from food technology and a hacksaw from product design. He looks like an eclectic mix between Einstein, a handyman and a mad-cap doctor, but it’s very much endorsed by his colleagues who shout screams of approval when he walks into the hall with Heather on his arm. (Heather assumes the screech was for his costume and not for her). She recognises very few of the staff from her time working at the school, but there are some familiar faces from those who’ve nurtured Georgia over the years.
There’s a cold buffet of sandwiches, sausage rolls, flan and pretzels. And dancing. Heather loves to dance, so she drags areluctant Gerry towards the area of the sports hall designated for that purpose. Gerry’s hesitation is explained the moment he begins to move. Heather’s stilettos mean she’s marginally taller than him tonight, but, nevertheless, Gerry dances as though he’s all arms and legs. Like a locust. Not that it matters. Other couples follow their lead and before long there are swarms of teachers gyrating and chanting 80s and 90s classics such as “Another Brick In The Wall” and “Don’t You Forget About Me”.
Heather, who’s “Dancing Like It’s 1999”, is hot, sweaty and giggling uncontrollably throughout the evening, and she finds it’s easy to clear her head and just give herself to the music. By the end of the evening, when slower, more romantic songs are being played, Heather falls easily into Gerry’s arms, and although it doesn’t feel entirely natural, it doesn’t feel awful, and she relaxes into the feeling that maybe she’ll discover a new dimension to Gerry tonight.
It’s past midnight when Gerry’s car pulls up at her home.
‘Do you want to come in?’ she asks. It’s not, in all honesty, Heather’s style to invite a man into her home (or her bed!) so readily. Usually, when it’s time to take that next step, it’s engineered so they’ve just enjoyed a home cooked meal together and in someone’s house, or they’ve already branched out into the territory of a mini break, so the intersect between their evening together and the bedroom is not quite so pronounced.
Gerry, also awkward and clearly out of practice, pulls on his handbrake and says, ‘Yes, please!’
He practically skips up the path and watches, perhaps a little too eagerly, as Heather unlocks her front door and welcomes him into her home.
Heather can tell from the first tentative contact of their lips and the first fumble at the knot in her cape that there just isn’t any chemistry.
But what to do?
Gerry’s trying his level best and, from what she can tell, is unleashing his very best moves. But she feels … Nothing. Well, not nothing, exactly. It’s gentle and courteous and thoughtful. But the fire, the passion, the connection she hopes to achieve with him is entirely missing. But perhaps that’s where she’s been going wrong all these years?
Gerry (finally!) gives up with the knot at her neck, accepts the cape is staying on and pulls at the lace in her bodice. Heather’s breasts, which have always been ample for her size, spring apart, and Gerry, who’s clearly what her brother Fraser would term, “a tits man” gasps audibly before plunging his lips, then tongue, then entire face into her bosom. Heather stands, watching the top of his bald-headed wig disappear into her cleavage, in slight amusement. Is this where she’s expected to sigh and call Gerry’s name?
‘Is everything alright?’
Gerry looks up.
‘Yes. Yes. Of course. Do you mind if I just get a drink or something?’ Heather, who doesn’t trust herself to combine alcohol with killer heels at this stage in life, has been pacing herself and only had one drink all evening. Perhaps the problem is simply one of needing alcohol to get her more in the mood? She steps away from Gerry.
‘Do you want one?’
Gerry’s eyes are skimming her body and have come to rest, perhaps predictably, on her chest.
‘Huh?’
‘A drink. Do you want one?’
It’s as though Heather’s line of questioning snaps Gerry from lecherous man-about-town back to mid-life art teacher in an instant. He adjusts his wig and smooths down any potential ruffles in his borrowed lab coat.
‘No. Errr. Yes. Well … maybe. What do you have?’
