THE MASTERY OF TABLE-TURNING
[Alan Watson had been forced very much against his will to attend the Rugby Club "Do". So far, all had gone much better than he could have imagined. But the evening was young, and there was still plenty of time for his worst fears to be imagined - and more so!]
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR - What Happened Next
Donald Mayhew was right; the comedian was dreadful. His jokes were so awful they were met with groans of derision. It was obvious he had been employed merely as a curtain-raiser for the main event as the evening's organisers saw it - the stripper. As the baying became louder and was backed up with a steady but increasing in volume slow hand-clap, the comedian decided that discretion was the better part of valour, and, that if he wished to leave the establishment still retaining his trousers, it would be as well to cut his act short and make a dignified withdrawal.
Rather hurriedly then, the femme fatale made her appearance and had to wait with a glazed expression fixed on her face in a ridiculous starting pose, long after her entrance applause had died, until her pre-recorded bump and grind music found its beginning on the tape.
Donald had said he would stay if she were under forty. I would have guessed her to be about thirty-nine and a half, though possibly she need not have been any older than twenty-five. She had a well lived-in look, however, and the caked on make-up was not kind, up close as she was to us. With little finesse and an ill-concealed look of extreme boredom she completed her routine by numbers until she stood reduced to a pair of red pendulous tassels, black fishnet stockings, a red and black suspender belt and a red satin thong or g-string. The tawdriness repelled somehow, but I found the differing expressions on the faces of her audience quite fascinating to behold.
Geoff, Phil and Dave were quite obviously enraptured by her performance and felt themselves to be very mature in their wolfish response. Tim Robey, I noted with interest, appeared to be almost disgusted by the spectacle he had just witnessed, and viewed his friends' excitement with a sardonic air tinged with a worldly boredom.
Frank Hartley and Dave Whalley brayed, roared and trumpeted with bovine glee in the time-honoured fashion of generations of rugger hearties, and were rewarded for their trouble with a pair of very wet and sloppy kisses as she grabbed their hands and placed them very firmly on her barely-concealed crotch for a complimentary grope, before she turned and strutted offstage.
As I was making my farewells to Donald Mayhew, who was moving on to finish the night off at the Country Club, I was aware of a sudden surge to the bar as the club secretary, who had taken on the rôle of master-of-ceremonies for the evening, began to draw the raffle. We were speaking a little about my planned trip with Richard to his Lakes cottage during the coming half-term, when Frank Hartley came over and clapped me on the shoulder.
"Alan," he said, "seven, three, four - I think that's yours."
I looked at him totally bemused, before realising he was referring to some raffle tickets he had sold me earlier. I fished in my pocket for them and, sure enough, my two strips numbered from 731 to 740. Amidst desultory applause I was escorted to the stage to be presented with my raffle prize, which turned out to be a rugby ball. The county magazine photographer wanted to record the moment. This was the sort of event which was meat and drink to vanity publications like his. It was easy to do a double-page spread of the great and the good in their glad-rags, confident in the knowledge that each snap published increased circulation sales.
"Hang on a bit - I know you!" the freelance photographer announced, having taken a picture of my self-consciously cheesy grin to camera, clutching the rugby ball in one hand and shaking the club secretary's hand with the other.
"You're that teacher bloke that scored a try with all your kit torn off. I remember taking your photo at school."
It was a heart-stopping moment. I felt the panic arising even then as I stared back at him, already reliving the nightmare of my first exposure before his lens on the rugger pitch at school. At that very instant, I knew I was being swept along by a chain of events fpr which I was already helplessly out of control. Distant voices began to explain; exclamations of recognition echoed round me; people jostled closer to see the man who had been stripped naked on the local telly. I felt submerged, out of my depth, and yet in my mind I was already one step ahead, dreading the inevitability of it all. The irony of my prize was not missed and, scenting the additional financial advantage afforded by my notoriety in the form of selling pictures on to the local paper as well as the television, the freelance photographer suggested I reproduced my infamous pose. I categorically refused. By then, Dave Whalley had taken over the microphone and was explaining to all and sundry the humour of the coincidence. He urged everybody, for the benefit of the club, to persuade me to pose for the photographer with just the ball again. I was horrified at the excited gladiatorial roar that went up. Civilised local businessmen were suddenly baying for my clothes.
Plucked at and jostled, I protested as good-humouredly as it was possible for me to be in the circumstances in which I found myself, but I knew it was useless as my tormentors began a slow hand-clapping chorus of "Off! Off! Off! Off!" This was quickly taken up by all those assembled, and before I knew what was happening, I felt my dinner jacket being removed by Frank Hartley as Dave Whalley moved in to unbutton my shirt. Hands grappled with my trouser fastenings and I shot to protect them as I suddenly remembered I only had on a very small jockstrap underneath.
"No!" I cried helplessly, but to no avail.
As my trousers were dragged off my black silk stockinged feet, I was spun round to reveal my naked bottom to the entire crowd. A tremendous "Ooooooooohhhhhh!" went up.
Growing quite fierce, I remained adamant against the removal of my jockstrap. I was in a sheer blue funk, truth to tell. Remember, I had the cock ring on! The photographer looked me up and down with a critical eye.
"Aye, that'll be fine, lad," he said. "Last time you were wearing those great big old-fashioned Y-fronts. It'll be easy to hide that skimpy little thing behind the ball. Not so skimpy what you've got in it, mind!" he murmured throatily as he gave me a nudge and a knowing wink. "Doesn't it bring tears to the eyes scrunching up all the family jewels like that in that little itsy bitsy pouch? Especially with you obviously being such a big lad. It brings tears to my eyes to just think about it."
A roar of raucous applause and amusement went up. His comments had been reproduced with clarity through the public address system. I stood doomed to my humiliating fate, an object of scorn and derision, all but naked, reduced to an obscenely filled small white mesh pouch-fronted athletic support.
"He's got five pounds of King Edward's potatoes in there!" some wag called out, pointing at the jockstrap causing further hilarity at my mortified expense.
Gratefully, I seized the rugby ball prize again from the secretary and thrust it protectively before my bulge. I lost count of how many poses I was put through, but in the end my reflexes were positively Pavlovian. On two occasions I had been alarmed to suddenly feel the distinctive buzz of my cock ring which so quickly excited me to an involuntary arousal. Each time I had searched out which of my tormentors had paged me from their triumphantly teasing expressions and cast them beseeching looks, and, in their favour, I must report they took pity on me and stopped the vibrations immediately.
My ordeal was finally at an end when the photographer proclaimed himself satisfied, and I was permitted to dress - still extremely unnerved, having to do so onstage with an audience of onlookers. I had just one leg in my black evening trousers when a hand thrust out from the front of the stage.
"Congratulations, Mr Watson. You're a braver man than I. Let me shake you by the hand. That was most impressive."
I took Neil Sanderson's outstretched hand with a sheepish grin.
"Thank you, Sanderson," I mumbled self-consciously as I realised he was looking up at me, studying the exposed and shaved fork of my legs where the pouch material finished and the support straps began.
"Call me Neil. Really, quite outstanding - and I mean outstanding!" he mused, squeezing my hand.
"Thank you . . . Neil," I stammered.
"I'd kneel for you any time," he murmured at my groin with a meaningful grin.
I let go of his hand as if burnt.
"By the way, I believe you know my girlfriend . . ."
I turned to look, and froze in horror. It was Rosemary.
"Hello, Alan," she said with a smile as she devoured my nakedness. "Well, I've seen more of you tonight than in all the time I've known you, she added with a giggle.
"What on earth are you doing here? I didn't see you earlier," I gasped.
"No, I only just got here in time for your strip. I promised to bring the car for Neil so he could drink." She smiled with a wicked gleam in her eye. "Well, you're a bit of a dark horse, and no mistake. Who'd have thought there was so much more to you than meets the eye?"
Her raised eyebrows and significant look in the direction of my jockstrap spurred me into my trousers in quick-time.
Fully dressed again, I was positively processed towards the bar as though a celebrity by the grateful publicity-seeking secretary, Dave Whalley and Frank Hartley, and plied with complimentary alcohol - as was the freelance photographer. As the night wore on, and he more lubricious in his cups, he nudged me again and, pointing at his camera, said he could get me some very lucrative work if I wanted and winked, tapping the side of his nose. I politely declined, hopefully screening my expression from the outrage I felt at such a proposition. Tim, Dave, Phil and Geoff joined us eventually, as did Neil Sanderson and Rosemary.
After a few more proffered drinks I began to relax a little - conscious all the time, however, that my young masters were in our company and listening. Tim became very animated, for instance, upon learning that Rosemary and I had gone out together, and I became nervous of what he might say, but I need not have worried. I could not stop being wary though. At one point, Geoff approached me with his cupped hand as he had done that morning in the school library. I glanced at him in horror. He grinned appreciating my worried stare.
"Give me your glass, Sir. It's my round," he said in amused exaggerated innocence, and it was with much relief that I put my empty glass into the palm of his hand which only that very morning had held my shaved scrotum.
Conversation turned to a review in retrospect of the evening's entertainment. The comedian was generally regarded as a mistake; the stripper earned mixed reviews, however, the younger and less discerning critics expressing themselves more satisfied than the older members of the group.
"What do you know, lads?" Dave Whalley said, swaying on his pins. "Tonight was probably the first time you've seen a lady take her clothes off for most of you."
There was some ribald laughter.
"The first time tonight, perhaps, but definitely not the last!" Neil Sanderson exclaimed, staring straight at Rosemary.
She had the grace to blush and shot a look straight at me. Our eyes met, and I could tell she could read my expression.
"Well, whatever you say about the stripper, she can't have been half as good as Alan, here," she trilled as she tossed her head in devil-may-care attitude, her remark earning various cheers, jeers, stamping and cat calls.
"Now there's a nice little earner for you, Sir," Geoff Talbot trumpeted. "How do you see yourself as a male stripper?"
This was met with guffaws and renewed cries of "Off! Off! Off!"
"Very lucrative, and so popular at hen nights," Rosemary volunteered, with a teasing wink at me.
"We'll have to audition you sometime, Sir - with music."
There was a steely edge to Tim Robey's remark and I shot him a slightly anxious glance. He stared unblinkingly back at me, a small smile playing over his thin lips.
It must have been about two-fifteen in the morning when we finally piled out of the rugby club do, and into Dave Newman's father's car. The secretary had volunteered to share his taxi with Dave Whalley and Frank Hartley, so that left Neil Sanderson with Rosemary. She had given me a chaste little peck on the car park, and, linking arms with the obviously worse-for-wear Neil, had steered him across to her car. By the time the five of us were installed in Daves fathers, everybody else had driven off. Such was the relaxed happy atmosphere, moreover, nobody - including me - had realised I was travelling with them fully clothed for once. It was the car radio to blame for breaking the mood.
I am exceedingly limited in my knowledge of popular music, I'm afraid - my particular forte definitely leaning towards the classics - so I am unable to say for sure what the tune was that suddenly burst onto the airwaves. That I recognised it at all says something, and that I could even place where I had first heard it adds much. It was used to great and amusing effect in a British film of recent years called "The Full Monty" which told the tale of a group of out-of-work steel workers who decided to form a troupe of male strippers. The tune being played on the radio at that moment was from the scene where they were queuing for benefit in the unemployment office and, almost unaware of the fact they were doing it, they began to rehearse their routine.
"Stop!" Tim shouted.
With a screech of brakes the car hurtled to a stop in the middle of this country lane.
"Out you get, Big Boy. This is your audition. Strip for us in the car headlights."
I was appalled.
"What if someone comes?" I faltered.
"You'll be the only one who comes. You finish your act by tossing yourself off, right?"
"No, Sir, I mean another road user - the police, even!"
"The sooner you strip, and the sooner you wank and come, the sooner you'll be allowed back in the car and out of here."
I remember feeling ashamed as I registered that I was already hard before I got out of the car. They wheeled down the windows and turned up the volume of the music just as it began its reprise. Stepping to and fro as I recalled from the oft-shown film clip (why, even the Prince of Wales had been filmed imitating the routine!) I shrugged off my jacket, swung it round above my head and threw it on the car bonnet. My white shirt gleamed in the glare of the headlights. Nervously, I looked over my shoulder into the velvet blackness beyond. Who knew how many unseen eyes were out there watching my performance? Certainly four I wasn't expecting!
Rotating my hips, I pulled my bow tie undone and slowly pulled it free from my collar as, with my other hand, I began to unbutton my pleat-fronted evening shirt. The tie flew to rest upon my discarded jacket, and I turned my back upon my audience of four, avidly watching behind my spotlights, and teasingly exposed first one bare shoulder and then the other. My alcohol-fuelled bravery and inventiveness surprised even me. Pulling my shirt tails free from the waistband of my trousers, I divested myself of the garment quickly and began with the seductive descent of my zip. My strip tease became even more ludicrous and bizarre when I discovered I couldn't get my trousers off over my shoes, so I had to hop round in ungainly fashion with my trousers gathered round my knees as I struggled to untie the laces. Of course I gained roars of mirthful approval from them every time I exposed my bare bottom, framed as it was with the elasticated straps of my tiny athletic support beneath each cheek.
My penis had already escaped the minuscule confines of my jockstrap pouch and was rearing up and bobbing about obscenely much to my added chagrin.
"You have to come before the tune ends or you'll have to pay a forfeit," Tim bellowed over the music.
Throwing all attempts at modesty to the winds, I ripped off the jockstrap, took hold of my rock hard penis with both hands and began frigging with much urgency. As the final eight bars approached so did my orgasm, and as the final notes dies on the air, strings of my sperm spurted out with an almost jewel-like iridescence caught in the headlights' beam.
As my spendings subsided to a drool hanging from my fast flagging organ, and I stood stark naked in the middle of an anonymous country lane in the middle of the night, mocking applause broke out from the car.
"Bravo! Encore!" came cries from my immediate left. I leapt, startled.
Another set of headlights was suddenly switched on immediately stripping away any shadows in which I could conceal my nudity. I gazed wide-eyed and unseeing, horror-struck and immoveable.
"Mr Watson passes the audition with flying colours!"
It slowly dawned on me that the voice belonged to Neil Sanderson.
My heart was beating painfully in my chest. My mouth was dry. My head was pounding. My brain was paralysed; short of blood, which had so recently been engorging my rampant member before an extra and uninvited audience. And then the real shock hit home, and as it did, I heard the second voice.
"Quite a performance, Alan. I never knew you had so much with which to impress," Rosemary called through the driver's window, her measured clapping ringing in my ears.