Chapter Two
Luke arrived at the Paradise Hotel an hour later than usual for his night out, on checking his watch he realised it was almost nine thirty and the place was already heaving. As he stood to the side of the doorway watching and waiting before going in to see who was about, he greedily surveyed the busy dance floor below, like a predator observing his prey.
He made his way past the haphazard line of tables, positioned along the perimeter of the balcony, all taken up with noisy party goers hugging each other in merry groups with plentiful drinks lined up before them, as they took a rest from dancing, preferring to sit and ogle the others who were still gyrating on the dance floor below them. Some stragglers who had not been lucky enough to find a table littered the floor, some sitting or standing on the wide carpeted staircase, trying to balance their drinks whilst lighting a cigarette at the same time.
Luke sidled forwards, managing to edge his way between two tables to look down over the slim metal rail and study the jiving masses below in greater detail. He could see that a throng of party goers had flooded the area in front of the bar’s small serving hatch on the left hand side of the dance floor.
Joanna had been standing at the back of the queue with her friends and was becoming quite exasperated, it seemed they had hardly moved forwards at all and she had almost given up hope of ever being served tonight! It didn’t seem to matter how much they pushed and shoved at the barrage of bodies in front of them there were more drunken idiots arriving from the sides, sending the girls further backwards so that it appeared hopeless.
Suddenly out of nowhere Luke was standing right next to them, his beaming smile and stylish charisma artfully displayed before them like a gallant knight come to their rescue. With deep blue eyes twinkling in the semi darkness he moved his handsome features towards Joanna’s upturned and inquisitive face. Deciding she was the prettiest of the three he spoke directly to her in smooth, sultry tones, the lilting timbre of his east coast accent was a pleasurable distraction which immediately gained Joanna’s undivided attention. His words could not be whispered softly, as he would have liked, but instead he used a tone just loud enough for her to hear above the commotion going on around them as he offered politely, ‘Would you like me to get your drinks for you?’
Joanna was surprised and beguiled by the arresting stranger who was standing in such close proximity to her. As the crowd began to press in on them their closeness became embarrassingly intimate but she decided that she didn’t mind, giving him both barrels in the form of her vivid blue eyes, her pupils dilating of their own volition as she smiled up at him encouragingly, ’Oh would you, that would be wonderful’, she said in a sultry tone, batting her eyelashes provocatively, ‘thank you, kind sir,’ she chuckled, ’it seems hopeless tonight, it’s so ridiculously busy and we’ve been stuck here for ages, could you get us two rum and cokes please and half a cider?’
She handed over to him the crumpled twenty pound note she’d been clutching in the palm of her clammy hand for what seemed like an eternity and watched him turn away from them, moving almost seamlessly through the crowd. She noticed that he was tall and slim, casually dressed in a brushed cotton chequered shirt with a navy corduroy collar. His faded bell-bottomed jeans hugged his hips enticingly and his hair was dark and thick, almost strikingly so, with a soft natural wave and Joanna decided that she definitely liked the look of him.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ Eve scolded as she moved over to join her friend. ‘You don’t even know who he is! You’ll probably never see him again and now he’s gone off with our money!’
Joanna chewed her bottom lip, a flicker of uncertainty crossing her mind, as she looked across worriedly at the swarming mass of writhing bodies in front of her, all jostling for position. Oh damn, she thought, suddenly regretful of her impetuous behaviour, she couldn’t see him anywhere and as the seconds ticked by she was annoyed with herself for being so trusting. That was probably the oldest trick in the book she thought, and she’d fallen for it! She searched and searched the crowd, desperately trying to catch a glimpse of him, and then, with the greatest relief, she saw him standing at the edge of the bar offering up their twenty pound note to the barman as he ordered the drinks.
Joanna turned to her friend and delivered such a withering look it spoke volumes and Eve feeling a little ashamed raised her eyes to heaven and scuttled away.
A few moments later Joanna watched her hero returning in triumph with the three drinks clutched precariously in his hands. He smiled at Joanna before depositing them gingerly on a nearby table, trying his very best not to spill a single drop and then he looked up engagingly, including the other girls this time in his charismatic smile, before smugly reaching inside his shirt pocket and handing back the twenty pound note Joanna had given him earlier.
‘My treat’ he said brightly at her confused expression and added in a lowered tone while moving in a bit closer, ‘but a dance would be nice later on.... if you’d like to of course?’
‘What a smoothie,’ Joanna thought flippantly, but at the same time she was moved by his old fashioned chivalry, trying to suppress a sudden score of butterflies which had just taken flight in her lower abdomen. She decided she liked his candour and almost too quickly she was readily agreeing to his request; ‘Ok’, she said smiling and blushing at the same time, ‘it’s the least I can do, I suppose!’
He chuckled at her coyness, enjoying his successful manoeuvre in the game of love, and then he raised his hand in a brief wave as he moved away from her, retreating through the crowds, back towards the bar where his own pint of beer was waiting for him.
Luke leaned against the wall as he sipped his beer thoughtfully.
He’d come here on his own tonight, his friend Ian had let him down at the last minute, insisting there was no way he could possibly come out, apparently Ian had received a harsh rebuke that very day from his course tutor, Mr Jacobs, who’d given him a stark warning. He’d explained in no uncertain terms that Ian was so far behind in his studies that if he didn’t put in a supreme and immediate effort to catch up with his peers there would be dire consequences, he would have no alternative but to contact Ian’s parents!
This was indeed the last thing Ian wanted, it was what he feared the most, the very thought of it made him shudder, both his parents and older brother were successful and money driven, enjoying a high life in their affluent Surrey townhouse, to his parents the importance of keeping up appearances was paramount, and this included being able to crow very loudly and very often about the academic achievements of their offspring.
Unfortunately since Luke and Ian had met during fresher’s week the previous year they’d been an extremely bad influence on each other. They cajoled each other constantly to go out and have fun rather than stay in and do their coursework, their busy social life comprised of late night parties, regular binge drinking sessions, and the occasional jaunt to infamous Soho in London, attending the night clubs there until the early hours so that they would often miss the last train home, sleeping rough on a park bench or a station platform, and consequently a significant number of engineering lectures and seminars were forgotten about or abandoned. Ian was now mightily afraid he was going to be kicked out of Poly if he didn’t knuckle down. Luke was also behind with his studies but the difference between them was that he didn’t care!
He was a lot smarter than Ian although his mathematical brain had gone unnoticed at school, mainly due to his many ‘misdemeanours’. He was always in the vicinity of trouble even if he hadn’t been the cause of it and so blame was his constant companion, thrust upon him whether he deserved it or not, but now his talent had been unleashed, his acute engineering capabilities were coming to the fore in leaps and bounds enabling him to sail through any tests or exams put before him, so that fortuitously his regular absence from lectures remained largely undetected by the tutor’s random radar.
Luke had been enticed on to the course by a free government grant, a very generous one in fact, one he’d managed to squander with gay abandon since his arrival. He’d been desperate to escape the boredom of his home town, the repetitious and tedious nights out with the same group of mates, always rooted to the same spot in the same bar every week, with the same dull girls hanging around, prick teasers all of them, that he’d never looked back. Having left the shackles of his father’s overbearing attitude, the regular clips around his ear and the vicious unwarranted boots up his rear end, the heady taste of freedom Luke had relished for so long was still fresh and sweet on his lips.
Well, he’d come out tonight to see if he might get lucky and so far it seemed he had!
At around eleven o’clock the DJ put on a segment of slow ‘smoochy’ records and Luke walked determinedly across the middle of the dance floor towards Joanna who was sitting coyly with her friends, desperately hoping for his reappearance. As he held out his hand he delivered a slight old fashioned bow making her smile as she took his hand in her own, noticing straight away how soft and smooth they were, not calloused like some of the boys she’d danced with before.
Eve and Jenny looked on with disdain, and perhaps a galling touch of envy, as the attractive pair walked away to join the other couples on the dance floor.
As they moved together Luke put his arms around Joanna’s waist and she raised her own to link her hands gently at the back of his neck as they swayed together slowly in time to the music. Joanna breathed in his clean soapy smell and could tell straight away he’d had a shower and his shirt had been freshly washed, his face was clean shaven with no hint of a beard, and the waft of his masculine aftershave enticed her. On many occasions the smell of her dance partner had been repugnant to her, the sweaty nature of youth was a real passion killer.
She happily snuggled in to his warm chest and realised a feeling of safety in his strong arms. He noticed the encouraging signals and wasted no time as he moved in deliberately for a kiss, and she responded wholeheartedly, thankfully even, yes, she thought, this was the sort of man she’d been waiting for; a real man, a good man.
As the slow dances came to an end her friends made it known that they wanted to leave.
‘We’ve got work tomorrow, Joanna, but you can stay if you want to,’ suggested Jenny a little petulantly.
Joanna turned and looked expectantly at Luke, ‘I don’t suppose you have a car do you?’ she asked cheekily not wanting to say goodbye to him just yet.
‘Well, yes actually I do,’ he answered with a smile, ’but I’m afraid it’s not here tonight, I decided to leave the car at home and catch a train. I walked up from the station earlier on but how about I take your telephone number and I’ll give you a ring sometime in the week, perhaps we could go to the pictures or something?’
‘Oh I’d love to’ she responded eagerly, her heart beating so fast she was sure he must be able to hear it, the bubble of excitement inside of her could barely be contained as she scrabbled around in her bag for a pen. She found one triumphantly and held it up for him to use but then became immediately despondent when she couldn’t find a piece of paper to write on.
‘Here’, he said smiling encouragingly, holding out the back of his hand, ‘write it on here! I won’t wash it off, I promise!’
She grinned back at him happily and did as she was told.
After a final lingering kiss they said their goodbyes and she walked away with her friends, looking over her shoulder several times to make sure he was still watching and feeling very satisfied with her night out.
Luke gave one last wave as she disappeared from view and then quickly turned on his heel, heading back inside the disco once more.
That was a nice little interlude he thought to himself, shoving his hands deep into his pockets, as he surveyed the crowded dance floor again, now, where was that pretty little blonde he’d spotted earlier, the one dancing near the stage? He was sure she’d been watching him too. All was not lost!