Fire Hose

[….]

‘Aaarrgh! Jesus, fuck!’ Pete leapt out of bed, suddenly soaking wet and cold. Johnny was standing on the bottom of Pete's bed, stark naked except for a bright red bra fastened over his head like a Spitfire pilot's leather helmet. He was aiming a still-dripping fire hose at Pete.

‘Oh, hello Helena,’ Johnny said cordially.

‘Bastard!’ Helena said as she tried to extricate herself from the sodden sheets.

Johnny whipped the sheets away from her. ‘Nice tits,’ he said. He dropped the fire hose and sat on the bed, taking one of Helena's cigarettes from the bedside table and lighting it. ‘Y'know, I wish I'd seen you pair shagging on that table. Not old hairy arse here, of course. But you.’ He leered at Helena. ‘I suppose a quick one, now, is out of the question?’

‘Would 'fuck off' and 'over my dead body' be too ambiguous for you?’

‘Ambi-what? Don't forget dear heart, I'm just a working-class thicko. I don't understand your posh words.’ Johnny stood up and waved his cock at Helena. ‘Anyway, fancy a bit of rough then?’

‘Piss off.’

Pete leapt across the bed. ‘No, don….’ He made a grab for Helena just as Johnny did as she'd asked, all over the bed where she had been sitting. Pete took Helena by the hand and ran for the door as Johnny re-aimed his own personal fire hose.

‘Johnny's coming to get you!’ Johnny cried, leaping over the bed. ‘Come back, Helena. It's only a bit of social justice. I only want to do to you what you upper-class folk have been doing to us workers for centuries.’

Pete grabbed the door and flung it open, dragging Helena out into the hotel corridor with him.

‘Good evening, sir.’ The police sergeant said. ‘We have had reports from the hotel manager here, of a disturbance.’

Pete and Helena were trapped. They stood, naked, in front of the open hotel room door, confronted by the police sergeant, a constable, a WPC and the hotel manager. The two policemen smiled humourlessly at the nude couple as the WPC turned away towards the room just as Johnny pissed through the open doorway.

‘Oh… shit,’ she cried, jumping back out of the doorway and gingerly trying to keep her sodden uniform blouse away from her skin, holding it between the tips of her fingers.

‘Er no… WPC Rogers,’ the sergeant said, trying not to laugh. ‘A misinterpretation of the evidence I would say.’ He looked around the door into the hotel room. ‘Oh, hello Johnny, I thought it would be you,’ he said with a sigh. ‘You know the form. Hold your hands out for the cuffs, and keep that thing pointed away from me.’ He turned to Pete and Helena. ‘I suggest you get dressed, sir, miss… before….’

There were several flashes in rapid succession. Pete turned to see a photographer and reporter at the other end of the corridor.

‘Hey!’ The constable shouted. But the photographer and reporter had already disappeared through the fire exit.

The sergeant herded the entire group back into Pete's room. Helena began to pick her clothes up from the floor as the WPC disappeared into the bathroom, still trying to stop her sodden blouse from touching her skin.

‘I was going to say: 'before the press boys get here',’ the sergeant said. ‘But it's too late now.’ He turned to Johnny. ‘Have you got any idea where your clothes are this time?’

Johnny shook his head. The sergeant turned to the hotel manager and asked to borrow a blanket.

The manager nodded. ‘I'll add it to the bill.’

‘We are going to have to charge you this time, Johnny,’ the constable said. ‘Someone had parked their car underneath where you let that telly fall out of the window. He is not a happy man at all. It was a brand-new Mercedes.’

The WPC came back from the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, and dropped her blouse and personal radio on the bed. ‘There's also damage to police property,’ she said. ‘He pissed all over my radio, it's completely fucked.’ She turned to Johnny.

Johnny smiled at her. ‘Any chance of a shag? I like a woman in uniform.’

The WPC smiled, and then brought her knee up quickly. Johnny groaned as he collapsed. He squirmed on the floor, gasping for breath and clutching his genitals.

The three police officers stood watching impassively for the several minutes it took before Johnny could speak again.

‘My, my. What happened to you then?’ the sergeant asked Johnny.

‘I… I….’ Johnny looked up at each of the officers in turn. ‘I seem to have foolishly bumped into some furniture while I was too drunk to realise what I was doing.’

‘Yes, my thoughts exactly,’ the sergeant agreed.

‘How much this time?’

Everyone turned at the sound of Stan's voice.

‘It's gone beyond that, I'm afraid… sir,’ the hotel manager said.

Stan glanced at the manager, then ignored him. He walked over to the sergeant. The sergeant was standing in the middle of the soaking wet hotel room, next to where Johnny lay on the floor. The PC and the WPC stood behind them. The WPC was now wearing a Transmission tour t-shirt Pete had given her.

‘Is that true?’ Stan said to the sergeant. The sergeant nodded.

‘In that case,’ Stan said. ‘How much would I have to pay you to drop him out of the window?’

‘I'd do that for nothing,’ the WPC said.

‘I’m in love!’ Johnny said, reaching up to kiss the policewoman's hand. He groaned and then curled up into a ball on the soaking wet carpet. A moment later, he was snoring soundly.

[….]

[An extract from Dance on Fire]