Chapter 8

Friday came round, they would be leaving the next day, all their bags had to be packed. They opted to eat in Belfast, having a drink in The Crown and then having tea before heading back. It had been a truly excellent week. Rupert was driving. He didn’t like Guinness or lager, he wasn’t fussed, therefore about drinking a J2O in the Crown. They had ended up just buying takeout wraps. Not what they’d thought of, but even that didn’t seem to matter.

“It has been a truly excellent week.” Rupert said, “I thought I’d miss the sun, sea, and sex that Ibiza might have offered.”

“Well the beaches are phenomenal and the sun did come out, and the sex, well...” Amelie interrupted.

“That’s all exactly what I was going to say. It’s been a good week. FUCKING PILLOCK!!! No, not you Amelie, that idiot.” A boy racer had roared past and slotted into a space in front of them. The space wasn’t very large.

Tomorrow they would get the ferry from Strangford, so they drove down the western edge of Strangford Lough. They still couldn’t get over the fact that somewhere so remote and wild could be so close to a big city like Belfast. The people of Northern Ireland, they agreed, were very lucky on that score; even if there were balancing issues about this piece of the United Kingdom (“or Ireland, depending on your perspective” Mary added).

They arrived back earlier than expected, the family were just arriving for another weekend at their caravan. They all got talking, the boys just stood back and looked at the girls, trying to remember which ones they had seen topless. Their sister had no trouble remembering the boy she had seen; he was talking politely and reasonably to her parents, saying how much he loved the countryside, how much he had enjoyed Titanic, how had been amazed by the Giant’s Causeway. He even mentioned going to The Crown - “Of course I couldn’t drink because it was my turn to drive, but it is an incredible pub.” Sarah’s parents didn’t drink, but they even tolerated that comment from Rupert; he seemed a sensible chap. Luckily, he didn’t mention the trip to Bushmills distillery. Somehow, Amelie found herself chatting with David, Michael and Sarah’s mother, who was saying that they knew the weekends were a little boring for the children but it was so nice to get away, and it was so good for her parents (the older couple who smiled and said little). Amelie invited the three children to their caravan, they had games they could bring. Somehow the seven of them were committed to playing Monopoly.

The grandparents were happy, they wanted to watch Celebrity Antiques Roadshow – a two hour special. They could watch it uninterrupted now. The parents were happy too. They suggested that the children didn’t stay up too late, but that since it wasn’t a school night, they could choose their own bedtime. It was rare to have energy during the week, and rare to have time alone at weekends. Beneath their respectable demeanour, Margaret and Robert were into mild BDSM; both of them. Margaret liked being tied up and having ice and/or candle wax on sensitive parts. Robert enjoyed being teased for hours – sucking and rubbing and lying on his back with his arms tied and unable to stop her straddling him and then pulling off before he came. Her parents were pretty deaf, they wouldn’t hear anything after ten when they were in bed. At least, that’s what they thought. Actually the grandparents weren’t as deaf as they pretended to be, it just helped sometimes so they could ignore conversations that they found boring. The Antiques program finished at 9:30, the old people lay in bed at ten, giggling at what they could hear through the thin walls.

Next door, the game had started well. Seven people needed one extra token, but that was okay. The three had arrived with biscuits and chocolate. They had each been given a glass of cider – their first - which they sipped like it was spirits, they certainly did not get drunk. For the first hour, the game progressed as normal. Then Amelie landed on David’s Mayfair. He didn’t have the set, but still, if she paid, she would have no money left.

“Well, you could mortgage something.”

“But then I can’t charge rent, and I only have two sets, so I’ll have to sell the houses first.”

“You could sell me something? A set. Oh, no, I can’t afford to buy the whole thing. You can owe me it.” David had the hots for Amelie. David had the hots for Amelie, Abi, Mary, and even his sister. He was definitely interested in girls.

“No, no. That’s not fair.” said Abigail, Sarah agreed. “You have to pay something.”

“Pay your teeshirt.” Mary said with a laugh. It went quiet. She had been making a joke, but the others were all thinking about this. Sarah was not so innocent that she didn’t realise there would be no visits from parents, they would be having an early night. She said nothing.

“Seriously? David?” Amelie said. His mouth was dry, he nodded rather than spoke. Before he knew it, a teeshirt flew across the board at him.

Another Rubicon had been crossed. Luckily Sarah was the next to hit an issue, she had been banking on getting the £200 for passing Go, she landed on Income Tax with a double 4 for £200 then her second throw took her to Chance which charged her for all the houses and hotels. In a classic of capitalist development, she had overextended. She was rich in property and poor in money. Her teeshirt went to the bank. Rupert was the next to lose his shirt. Sarah was distracted. His chest was no better that her brothers’, not really, but she still fancied him.

Now nobody seemed willing to pay rent or fines with money, they much preferred clothing; so did the other competitors. “How far do we go?” Mary asked. “We need to be clear what the rules are.”

“We’ve started, now it’s all the way – I mean all the clothes, not ‘all the way’” said Abigail. “You lose your clothes, you are out of the game, okay? I’ll turn up the heating, we’ll need it.”

So the game continued. If it was going to go all the way, then David and Michael realised that there was no way they could not end up seeing some naked female flesh. Sarah was banking on Rupert NOT winning. Abi wondered if they were corrupting minors, or leading innocents astray, but figured that the two boys were like every other boy since Adam and would happily remove the occasional figleaf to see the glories beneath. Sarah, she could see was definitely up for seeing a boy in the nude, she was almost dribbling at the prospect (she wondered if Sarah was dribbling from her other lips in reality).

Mary was the first to be just bra and pants; her pants were little shorts, and David and Michael discovered a truism, that less is more. In this case, exposing less was more erotic. Didn’t stop them both hoping that she land on something else that she couldn’t (or wouldn’t) pay.