Galling As Falling - Appalling!
by Angharad
part 245.

I assumed mention of bikinis was just a wind up because there was no way I was wearing one to play with dormice, especially on film. Simon and Des were still sparring.

"You want a drink presh?" asked Simon.

I wasn't really listening, thinking about bikinis and Des. "Erm, what?"

"Do you want a drink?"

I'm not driving, so I opted for a glass of red wine, thought some of the antioxidants might help protect me from the chemicals in the food. Or was that antifreeze?

While Simon went up to the bar, Des leaned over to me, "You look absolutely gorgeous tonight. Leave Beetle juice and elope with me."

"I think the correct pronunciation is Betelgeuse and it's a first magnitude, red supergiant in the constellation of Orion. Besides he bought me a Specialized Ruby for Christmas."

"I have a friend who could be selling a Pinarello which would probably fit you."

"Tempting, but not enough," I flirted, "besides Simon's Saab is more comfortable than that scruffy old Landrover of yours."

"Yeah, but can you lie down in the back of his Saab?"

"I have a bed for lying on."

"Yeah, but just think, lying out in the open air, looking up at the stars...."

"Getting eating alive by blood sucking insects," I continued, "remember I do fieldwork, I've met just about every midge, mosquito and gnat there is in this country."

"Oh, how I envy them their intimacy," he said with this pained look on his face.

"What before or after I squash them?"

"Oh how kinky!" he chuckled.

I thought of the erectile projectile as I said the word squash. I wondered for a moment what would happen to a willie if those muscles spasmed. I saw Des being thrown out of the back of his Landrover. It caused me to smirk, he thought at his joke, typical man.

"So how come you know so much about astronomy?"

"Who said I did?"

"Did what?" asked Simon returning with drinks.

"We were talking about astronomy and Cathy was giving me a lecture on the constellation of Orion and it's Alpha star, Betelgeuse."

"Belt up," said Simon and began laughing.

Des and I looked at each other and shrugged.

"Belt - Orion's belt, belt up, geddit?"

"Ha ha," said Des.

I began to laugh, but more at Simon's explanation than the joke or even Des' response. It really was so weak.

"Well Cathy thought it was funny, didn't you babes?"

"Absolutely," I said laughing some more, this was getting sillier by the moment.

"You don't call her 'babes', do you? How patronising!"

"What's it to you what I call her?" Simon began to sound aggressive and he was probably big enough to do Des some serious damage.

"Come on you two, you're old school chums, come on don't fight over little me. I'm already spoken for, which you both know anyway."

"He was like this in school too, big bully," said Des, as if he was calling names in front of the teacher.

"Big bully? I saved your scrawny neck a few times at school, remember the time that Lampard was going to seriously hurt you?"

"Oh bugger yes, I'd only borrowed his bike talk about overreaction."

"His bike was rather valuable if I remember correctly and you forgot to return it after borrowing it."

"Wasn't my fault, some bastard stole it while it was outside the Coach and Horses."

"What were you doing inside the Coach and Horses?" I asked although I thought illegal drinking was probably the answer.

"You don't want to know dear...."

"He was screwing the landlord's missus, while he was down in the bar playing skittles," Simon said triumphantly.

"You bastard!" Des accused

"Is this true?" I asked.

"My parents were married before I was born, how dare you question them! So it isn't true." Said Simon obfuscating.

"Will the two of you behave?" I said firmly.

"He started it."

"Did not."

"You did so."

"Shut up, shut up both of you. Now stop this silly bickering." I felt myself getting very hot and bothered.

"But...."

"No buts, we came here to talk about a legitimate project, that of a film about the work we're doing at the university on captive breeding of dormice. Let's keep it to that and ordering our food, shall we?"

"Yes Mummy," said Des smirking.

"You just don't listen do you. If necessary I'll find another film maker." As I said this his face changed from amused to angry.

"Yes maybe you better had." He got up and walked away.

"Oh!" I felt myself blushing. "Can't you stop him Simon?"

"What for? Bloody moron, good riddance."

"But the bank wanted him to do it."

"It isn't my project, you want to stop him you go after him."

"Okay, I will, you realise he asked me to elope," I dropped as I walked past him.

"Wait Cathy, I'll go..."

Simon came rushing past me. I stopped and turned back to our table where a very confused waitress was waiting to take our orders.

"A misunderstanding," I said to her, "hopefully they'll both be back in a minute or two."

"Men!" said the waitress.

"Well you know, they're probably hormonal at the moment."

She started to laugh and so did I.

A few minutes later Simon came back to the table alone.

"Where's Des?" I asked anxiously.

"It's alright, he's gone to the toilet, he'll be back in a minute. Now to food, hardly inspiring as a menu is it?"

"I know what I'm going to have," I said.

"They don't have a tuna salad here," Simon scanned the menu.

"I'm not having tuna today."

He touched the back of his hand to my forehead, "You don't have a temperature, do you feel alright."

"I shall be fine as soon as we can sort out some details with Dirty Des."

"I heard that," he said, "I'll have you know I spent an hour in the bath this afternoon."

"Takes you that long to play with yourself?" Simon teased.

"I wasn't on my own."

"Nah, you had your rubber duck," said Simon.

"You saw me!" accused Des and we all fell about laughing.

"To order," I said as the waitress returned.

Simon opted for the steak and Des for the gammon. I looked at her and said, "Could I have just egg and chips?"

"Course you can, how many eggs?"

"Can I be greedy and have three?"

"Course," she went off with the order.

While we waited for the food, we actually began to talk sensibly. Des promised to look at how he would produce a film and what sort of shooting schedule he'd need, some in the labs some in the field and some in the bank.

In return I would give him some idea of the process of breeding and releasing the dormice, he wanted to film some being born if he could so we could appear to do a complete life cycle of the animals.

The food arrived and we ate talking more like adults, even Simon said useful things although it wasn't his field at all. He was obviously interested in costings and how many would be involved, who was going to write the script and so on.

The night ended much as it had started with Simon and Des shaking hands and Des kissing me and hugging me an instant too long to be comfortable, but his beard did tickle, which stuck in my mind longer than the details of the film, good job I'd written them down.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Change of policy: comments are now compulsory!

(So I lied, it was Bonzi's idea.)