‘Give her one for us,’ Liam’s drunken friends shouted above the noise of the club. He looked at them with a smirk. He was the lucky bastard, and they could go to Hell.
The woman grabbed him firmly and pulled him towards the dance floor. He almost tripped as she dragged him to the centre, away from his jeering mates.
‘What’s your name?’ Liam slurred, attempting to focus. He was desperate to stagger out and to relieve his bladder, but he held on. He regretted that he had drunk so much; concerned that he would not be able to perform. The woman was giving him the right signals. He knew he was on to a sure thing.
‘Does it matter?’ the woman replied when he pressed yet again for her name.
‘I suppose not,’ Liam said. He had been deprived of a woman who had shown interest in him for too long, other than the women who feigned interest as long as he paid, but this one, she was gorgeous.
He swayed as he spoke; he wanted desperately to sober up, but the woman continued to prime him with alcohol, even taking a drink from another drunk on the dance floor who was close to collapse. The drunk had attempted to complain but the woman had just leant over towards him and given him a kiss on the cheek.
‘Thanks,’ she said. The drunk could see the beauty in the woman, although the woman he had been fondling on the dance floor was not too happy and stormed off. The drunk tried momentarily to cut in on Liam. The woman pushed him away, as had Liam. No bastard is taking this woman from me, he thought.
The woman moved in closer at his sign of bravado. She was holding him tight, her breasts pressing hard against his chest, her legs close to being entwined around his. They danced, they kissed, and all the time Liam Fogarty could feel the need of the woman. He could see the beauty in the woman, but not the venom in her eyes, the searing hatred that coursed through her veins. He could not realise that the woman was working on him, bringing him to a crescendo.
***
The club where Liam and his woman were dancing was not far from London. It was heaving that night. The music was loud and getting louder, the drinks were flowing, and the noise was overpowering. A residential estate close by had tried to have the noise moderated a few months earlier. They had formed a residents’ committee to make a submission to the local council. They wanted a noise abatement order as the first step, a closure of the club to follow.
A heated meeting in the council offices had come to nothing. A formal notice had been sent to the club. Its owner, Sam Goldsmith, a shrewd businessman who had made his money to the east of London with clubs and discos, legal or otherwise, knew more about local councils than the local residents, led by a busybody by the name of Betty Arkwright, did. She had the law on her side, and a write-up in the local newspaper had garnered widespread support for her and her residents’ committee.
Sam Goldsmith, impervious to the man in the street as long as he could afford his extravagant lifestyle and his two mistresses, cared little for the Arkwright woman and her sanctimonious group of narrow-minded residents. The more they complained, the more he would bribe, by way of cash and trips overseas. The local residents’ committee had no chance just by waving a copy of the Environmental Protection Act 1990 at the council.
Goldsmith knew that more music, the longer trading hours, the increased patronage could only mean one thing: more money for him and the greedy councillors, their snouts in the trough.
***
It was Liam Fogarty’s first time in the club: a celebration with his friends, and he was paying. Not that he minded, as they were good friends he had known since his schooldays. They were still struggling to make their mark, but there he was, regional manager for a multinational bank. It had been hard-won, a lot of sweat and tears, a lot of study and sleepless nights, a lot of time without a woman. However, tonight was his night.
In his drunken mind, the woman he was dancing with was with him because of his self-assuredness. He had noticed her pale complexion; he had certainly seen her breasts, as had his friends. ‘Give them a squeeze for us,’ they had hollered when they had first seen Liam and the woman together.
Liam was drunk, almost close to comatose, but his friends were worse. The club did not tolerate excessive drunkenness officially, but Liam had the money. There were over five hundred in the club that night, and four hundred would probably fail a breathalyser if they attempted to drive home.
‘Do you come here often?’ Liam had asked when he first saw the woman making eyes at him, swaying from side to side to show her assets. He had thought that she would disappear as he made his way towards her, but she did not. He could see a good night ahead. He realised it was a clichéd chat-up line. He had moved in close to the woman, as the noise made it impossible to hold a normal conversation.
‘First time. And you?’
‘Celebrating with my mates. Are you on your own?’ Liam hoped that she was. A promotion and this woman in the one day was
