This Is Your Carstairs SpeakingChapter 15: Call Of The Hunter free porn video

Today Sinterklaas arrived in The Netherlands! If you have no idea what that means, why not read my short story ‘Best Sinterklaas Ever’, available on this very website? It predates the events in ‘Best Sister Ever’. – RD

Having all that security gear installed in my house made me a tiny bit paranoid, I don’t mind telling you. It’s not as if I’m planning to assassinate the Queen or overthrow the government when I’m pottering about in the kitchen, but my private affairs are rather unusual and I really didn’t need a government dossier on them.

I told Mel about the request, but I didn’t dare do it at home, even now there were tiny little devices in the corner of each window, which made the glass vibrate randomly just enough to throw off any laser beams. Yes, I was worried about laser beams! Listen to me! That’s tinfoil hat talk, that is! But I needed to tell Mel what was up, which I ended up doing in a quaint old tearoom I’d never set foot in in my life. I figured a public place would not be bugged and I could keep an eye on people overhearing us. We left our phones in the car, which freaked Mel out. But she did understand, after I’d told her how I had been asked to be a spy.

“It makes sense now,” she said, finally breaking off a corner of her vanilla slice after having listened to my whispered story. “And having a burglar alarm is a good thing, I suppose. Plus, it’s probably not so much the government we should be worried about. I’ve often thought journalists would have a field day if they learned what goes on at our place. Having them on our doorstep just after they thought you landed a plane reminded me of that. I swear one of them stole a trash bag.”

I had to laugh at that.

“Dirty nappies?” I guessed.

“Oh yeah. And leftovers. Sushi. Oh, and Thai food.”

“Yuck! I almost feel sorry for that piece of ... Hang on, sushi and Thai food? Why’s that?”

“Because that’s what we eat when you’re not around. We order take-out. I know you don’t approve, but we do like it.”

I’m not really fond of Asian cuisine. It’s just not my thing. And I had to break both Melody and Kate from a nasty habit of ordering take-out almost every single night, because neither of them had either the time or the inclination to cook. Young people can eat anything, but I can’t and I’m fussy. That’s how I’d learned to cook for us, which I did most nights.

“I had no idea you had such a hankering for that stuff. It’s not as if you’re not allowed to order it, you know. If you let me know I can make something for myself.”

“It’s fine, sweetheart,” laughed Mel, as she stole a bite off my Bakewell tart. “I love your cooking, I really do. But I like a nice nigiri or a bowl of noodle soup as well, and that’s just not in your repertoire.”

“I could try, if you like.”

“It’s fine, really. You do so many dishes I love, you’re really spoiling us. Don’t worry about it.”

And so I didn’t. I’m not a great chef, but I don’t want to be one, either. I just want to be a proficient home cook, so my loved ones won’t have to subsist on take-out. Besides, it’s something to do, isn’t it?

British tearooms are the polar opposite of your average Starbucks or Costa. You’ll often find them in lopsided buildings that are so old even a short-arse like me needs to duck in doorways. The furniture will look like it was rescued from a skip. Doilies, fucking doilies everywhere. Handwritten notes on the till, to explain they don’t take anything except cash and you can’t have the carrot cake to take home because the little old lady who bakes it can only manage two a week. The teacups won’t match if you show up with more than two people, because they got them from a charity shop. That also explains the bric-a-brac on the walls. And there will be stainless steel tea kettles that have caused more burns than a Nigerian oil pipeline, as well as often quite mediocre pastry, half of which is on the menu but not actually available. I have no idea why I keep seeking out these places, although one in ten will turn out to be an absolute gem and just for a moment it feels like Saturday morning at your grandmother’s house. I miss oma.

Besides, no intelligence agency on Earth has a spook who can infiltrate a place like this without the gaggle of geriatrics seated at the largest table taking notice. In fact, Carstairs showing up nearly killed two of them (and with a black girl, no less!), but I just waved and took Mel to the farthest corner. We spoke only when they did, to stop them from listening in. But by now the novelty had worn off and they hadn’t worked up the courage to ask for a selfie, so Mel and I relaxed. We don’t get that much time to ourselves, really.

“Can I talk to you about this play you’re doing?” asked Mel, after I had successfully poured my second cup without getting second degree blisters.

“Sure.”

“How is that going?”

“Well, I’m meeting Diana tomorrow. She’ll tell me about the script she had commissioned. If I like it, we’ll work out a schedule, rehearse for about a month and then we do two performances a week, for as long as ticket sales hold up. Thursdays and Fridays. Not too bad. I can go after work.”

Mel just nodded.

“And that’s basically all I know,” I added.

“I see. Two shows a week is not much.”

“I don’t think she expects a big audience. We may have to move venues once or twice, just to keep the costs down. It’s her last public performance, apparently. She wants to do one piece that’s entirely to her own liking, which I can understand. And I gather she’s thinking of moving to Spain after that.”

“Right. She’s what now, fifty-five?”

“Or thereabouts. We’ll never know for sure.”

“Any idea what the play is about?”

“No, but I gather it will be quite serious. And it’s basically just me and her. Maybe a student to play a waiter or something, but small scale. One set.”

Mel nodded again and looked longingly at a glass display case with some scones, Chelsea buns and Eccles cakes in it, plus a large, mostly empty plate that was littered with chocolate crumbs. I could tell there was something on her mind.

“What’s up, sweetheart? Want to share something?”

“Yeah. But not cake. Listen, I don’t want to be one of THOSE women. You know I trust you. But I can’t say I like the idea of you working with Diana again.”

“I see.”

I couldn’t blame her, really. Melody is extremely generous in our relationship. Kate needs me, I need Kate and for a while I also played around with Samantha. She was also aware I sometimes slept with Caroline, in fact as recently as our trip to Qatar. But she knew about all of it and only ever asked me to use protection, which I did. It doesn’t turn her on, but she’s simply mature enough to understand that my life is complicated, and that marrying someone does not give you the right to make them your sexual hostage. Affection takes many forms and I have some catching up to do. Or maybe I’m greedy, I don’t know. But I’d never hurt Mel, or go behind her back. I told her everything she wanted to know, always. And I made damned sure she knew how I felt about her, and that’s not about sex. (Well, a little.)

“I know it’s a bit silly, considering how I trust you with other women. But ... It’s Diana, you know? It’s different.”

Diana Albinson. One of the most respected actresses working in Britain today. She landed her first role at age nineteen and never stopped working. And she was always, always sexy. Even when she played historical figures, such as Anne Boleyn. She never seemed to mind the reputation and in fact she worked very, very hard to keep her body in shape. But the UK has many fine actresses and show business can be unforgiving, so eventually the big, juicy roles dried up and what was left was the reputation of what Brits call a ‘sex pot’. Literally nobody in the country could imagine her without fishnet stockings, just like people always picture me with gloves and tails even if I’m standing right in front of them in jeans and a shirt. I’ve shown up to interviews in my leather bike gear and with a three day stubble, only to read back how I ‘entered the restaurant dressed like the quintessential British gentleman’, like my skin is actually tweed or something. Well, Diana had more or less the same problem, which is why I met her doing a rather frivolous comedy piece in a theatre one hour outside London. She spent half the show running around in her underwear and looked great doing it, but I fully understood that wasn’t the part she wanted to end her career on.

Diana was also the first woman to take an interest in me after my divorce, and if we’re not counting Kate, since birth. Monique was always more interested in my earning potential, but Diana and I met on the set where I shot the commercial that would ‘launch my career’ (there aren’t any extra heavy irony brackets in the UTF8 character set, are there?) as Carstairs. She found out I didn’t like being kissed, even it it was fake, for very childish reasons, and took an interest. I don’t know why. I guess she picks up stray dogs as well. Coincidentally, I also met Melody that day, but I managed to turn her against me in a matter of hours. I’m great at that sort of thing. It’s effortless, it really is.

A few days later Diana offered me a job as a lighting technician, which paid almost enough to cover the cost of public transport between Kate’s house and the theatre. Luckily, there was a free bus and so I took the job. It came with a perk. Two perks, actually: her left and her right boob every Friday night, plus whatever else I fancied. And I fancied a lot.

She’s a little older than me, but not by so much that it’s weird. Her body is in great shape and she’s really good company. I thought I’d fallen in love, I really had. But what the hell did I know about love? I was in lust, that’s what I was. Love came later, when someone helped me to escape the press, drove me around to find an apartment and then decorated it for me, spent time with me doing something other than having sex and basically made me very happy. But that person, as it turned out, was Melody. Not Diana, who just thought she’d landed a friend with benefits for Friday nights.

And so I confused all these emotions, thought it was all about Diana and felt betrayed when it turned out she was actually married and had no intention of sharing her life with me. That wasn’t malice on her part, mind you. She just had no idea I was so immature, that I had no idea what was really going on. I thought I’d found the woman I’d grow old with, finally. She thought everyone in the world knew she was married. Well, I didn’t.

It hurt, at the time, but I’ve forgiven her since. I count her as a friend now, even though the last time I saw her was at my wedding. I really have nothing to complain about in my life, at least when it comes to love and family. Why hold grudges, especially with someone who meant well?

Still, I could see Mel’s point.

“I see. Well, I’m glad you’re honest about that. Obviously I don’t think there’s even a small chance of anything happening, but if you’re worried then I won’t put you through that. I’ll let her know I’m not available. Okay?”

Mel shook her head.

“That’s not ... I don’t really want you to do that, either. You’ve never expressed any kind of interest in acting. Everything you’ve done as an actor you did kicking and screaming, even that movie. Now you’re finally interested in going out on stage, without Kelly even, and I really like that. I do think you’re a good actor. I’d like to see you grow in that.”

“I did a Hollywood movie, how much more can I grow?”

“That’s not what I mean, Martin. Carstairs is just a very two-dimensional character, it’s basically you with a haughty attitude. Colonel Meisel ... That was you, too.”

“Now hang on!”

Mel hushed me.

“I’m not saying you’d have been a Nazi, okay! Hear me out. It’s just that Meisel is a nice guy, good at his job, but then something happens and he snaps and he takes drastic measures. That’s you. If anyone puts a finger on me or Kate or Kelly, you go berserk. That’s Meisel’s story too, isn’t it? They killed his wife, they crippled his daughter and that broke him.”

“Thanks. Very kind of you, this free psycho-analysis session...” I growled. It’s very hard to growl with a pink and blue tea cup in your hand, by the way.

“What I mean to say is that whatever play Diana has selected, it will probably have a mature, fully rounded role for you. A chance to prove you can do more than put on a uniform hat or some gloves. So I’d like for you to try that, but at the same time ... I just don’t trust Diana. I’m sorry. She sees what I see, what we all see. Except she has thirty years more experience at getting what she wants.”

“Okay, like I said: I’ll cancel. It’s fine.”

“No, it’s not! Look ... Can’t I just tag along or something?”

“What do you mean?”

“Come to rehearsals with you?”

“Isn’t that a bit ... weird?”

“Yeah. I suppose it is. But I could be useful! I’m a set designer, after all. Well, I could do it. I’ve done all aspects of it, except carpentry. I could also do costuming, or make-up. Hell, I’ll do the lights if I have to. I’ve spent countless hours on all sorts of shoots, from commercials to drama. I’m sure I can do theatre.”

I was sure of it, too. Even though Melody was becoming a prominent figure in the London arts scene, she was a jack of all trades when I met her. She did everything from dressing sets to bridal make-up and drove tens of thousands of miles a year in her van, going from one production to another. There isn’t a motor service station on the British mainland she hasn’t been to.

“Okay! I’m absolutely fine with that. I’ll tell Caroline we come as a package. In fact, it will be nice to work with you.”

“Really? You think it’s a good idea?”

“I do. She’ll be lucky to have you, no matter what you bring to the production. But you have to be nice to her, okay?”

“When am I ever not nice?” she laughed.

“Well ... You can be a bit grumpy now and then. We don’t get a lot of sleep nowadays.”

“I’ll be good, I promise. I’ve dealt with actors for longer than you, Carstairs. I know better than to put them off their game. Oh, this is going to be fun!”

And that’s why Ali dropped off me, my darling wife and the apple of my eye, along with a stroller, in front of a rehearsal hall cum ballet studio cum folding chair theatre on Edgware road, not that far from the office as the crow flies, but millions of pounds away in terms of property prices. The Edgware Road (the ‘The’ is practically mandatory) is what you might call ‘multicultural’. The Odeon, at one point the biggest screen in London, now plays mostly Arabic movies. You can book your pilgrimage to Mecca, have your pick from at least ten different kebab shops, buy a gold-coloured iPhone cover and smoke a shisha waterpipe all without having to turn a single corner.

“There you go, guv’,” said Ali, who was double parked and hurried to help me get the stroller frame out of the boot of my company Mercedes. Mel was holding Edwin and waited patiently on the sidewalk.

“Stop calling me ‘guv’, I’m not a prison officer.”

“Sorry, Mista King. Any idea how long you’ll be?”

“I don’t know. An hour or so. You can go back to the office. I’ll let you know.”

“Cheers. I’ll get off this double red then. Bye Missus King! Bye Eddie!”

Five seconds later he merged with the traffic that moved through Edgware Road at a snail’s pace. I unfolded the stroller, placed the seat on top of it and then it was ready for Edwin. I remember the first couple of times we had to do this: I nearly snapped off my own index finger and I sweated so much Mel complained the handle bar got slippery. These folding contraptions are like an IQ test on rubber wheels, and I’d failed mine more than once. There’s always a button or a grip or a latch I forget about, usually when I’m also the one holding up Edwin. We can’t put him down because he can walk, so he’ll throw himself under a bus faster than a British MP will lose his massage parlour receipt. But by now I was practiced, so it only took two tries and a really very mild curse.

“Right, so where do we go?” asked Melody, when Edwin was strapped in.

“We’re looking for a glass door between a tobacconist and a Maplin,” I said, looking around.

“GUYS! RIGHT HERE!” yelled a man on the other side of the street, which was four lanes wide at this point.

“Is that for us?” asked Mel, who spotted him first. I turned round and recognized Nigel, Diana’s husband. (I had no idea they were married at the time. Long story.) Nigel is a dour looking man, who played the long suffering man of the house in I Married A Murderer, the play Diana was doing when we met. He’s really quite a good actor and I’ve spotted him in more than a few really nice roles since, but in real life he’s not exactly the life of the party. Particularly when his wife is shagging someone else. Me, to be precise.

But right now, as he waited for Mel and me to find a zebra crossing and join him, he was all smiles and warm handshakes and how have you beens and what a lovely boys. He guided us to a door I’d never have found in a million years.

“The Maplin’s moved last year. I suddenly remembered I hadn’t updated the instructions,” he chatted, as he held the door open so Mel and I could carry Edwin’s stroller over the threshold. And then, somewhat unexpectedly, he found it necessary to place his hands on my upper arms, much like I do when I try to impress on Edwin that he shouldn’t scrape his toy cars over the TV cabinet. Except Nigel didn’t have to squat. He meant well, as it turned out.

“Martin, listen up: I’ve seen Fatherland and it is REMARKABLE. Really is. I’m really happy things turned out so well for you, and that you want to do this for Diana. I know we weren’t best mates back in the day, but ... well ... that was then and this is now and I just hope we can all have a good time doing this. We’re looking forward to it and we should be a team, right?”

I smiled back at him and somewhat clumsily patted his ribcage, trying to return the friendly gesture.

“Sure. Absolutely. Considering what went on between me and Diana, you had every right to beat my head in with a tyre iron. So you’re forgiven for being a bit of an old grump.”

“Ah, but you didn’t KNOW! So ... Melody, lovely to see you. You’re very welcome here. I’m sure we can find a good use for you. And uhm ... We’ll keep an eye on them. The pair of us. Right? Haha!”

Melody smiled magnanimously. She knew what this man had been through over the years, perhaps better than anyone.

“Happy to help,” she said.

“Good. Good! Well, fortunately there’s a lift so if you’ll follow me!”

I must admit I was a bit nervous about seeing Diana. Even though I was really over her, and we’d talked about it, there was the undeniable fact I was in awe of her from the moment we met. You’ve probably never met someone as kind and confident as her. Just as confident? Well, yes, if you’ve met Caroline Keller, then you have. Just as kind? Well, I’d married the one woman alive who was just as kind. But both? No, there is only one Diana Albinson and the odd wrinkle that had inevitably appeared really took nothing away from the impression she made.

I found her upstairs, in a pantry that was clearly used by all sorts of creative types year round. In other words: it wasn’t very clean, there were passive aggressive notes on almost every surface, no two items of crockery matched and the garbage can wanted emptying last week. Not that I blamed Diana for any of this: she just rented the space for a few hours.

She was dressed very simply in tight blue jeans, a checkered shirt and wore a scarf around her head, tied in what I can only describe as a hippy-esque style. She was brewing coffee and had put out cups and saucers. Right now she was scooping coffee grounds into a brown filter.

“Hi there,” I said, accidentally startling her. She spilled some coffee.

“Oh! You’re here! Already! How lovely!”

“I saw them getting out of the car,” said Nigel.

“Darling, how wonderful to see you!”

She gave me a very chaste hug, then showbiz-kissed Melody (who reciprocated, because she knows that drill) and began to fuss over Edwin, which is one of the best ways to make my day. You can lie, that’s fine. You won’t have a reason to because he’s absolutely gorgeous and perfect, but if you really hate kids just say that he’s the cutest little boy you ever saw and that he should be signed up to a casting agency as soon as possible and you and me will be friends for life.

“Oh he’s lovely! Isn’t he lovely, Nige? Will you come say hello to Aunty Diana? No? You’re shy? Well, who wouldn’t be, with all these new faces? Oh my God, Martin, he’s adorable. He’s got your eyes.”

My eyes are blue. Edwin’s are brown, if not outright black. My genes contributed next to nothing to his appearance, although he’ll probably have to contend with male pattern baldness and rather sturdy thighs later in life. But it’s fine, it’s all fine. He gets his looks from the woman I love, thank God.

We had coffee and tea as we chatted about nothing in particular, as people do. It wasn’t about the stories, but about reconnecting and establishing new relationships for what was about to happen. For instance, I’d never thought of Nigel as someone I’d be on friendly terms with. Civil, certainly. But not friendly. Fair dues to the man: when I had to fill in as The Inspector in their play, not having had a single rehearsal, he did his level best to feed me lines and make sure I faced the right way. He had every chance to make me look bad and score some cheap laughs, but he was the consummate professional during every performance, even though I was shagging his missus. Which I didn’t know at the time, but he certainly did.

But now we were suddenly on track to be buddies, because as it turned out he would be directing the whole affair. And he was a lot less grumpy than I’d ever seen him before, that was for certain. Mind you, I’m sure he could say the same about me.

“So what’s the piece going to be about?”

Funnily enough it was Melody who brought it up, because Diana seemed far more interested in my adventure on Tower Bridge and my recent meeting with the Pope.

“Yes dear, shall we get some work done?” suggested Nigel, stroking Diana’s back. “You’ve made Martin tell you his story twice over now.”

“Have I? Well, it’s quite a story, isn’t it? But you’re right, of course. So where’s my ... ah...”

Nigel handed her a red folder, which contained a nice thick stack of paper.

“Right. Nigel keeps track of this now. I keep losing it. Found it in the microwave the other day. Ha! So ... This is what I’ve had commissioned. It’s written by a dear friend of mine, Andrew Walters, who ... Well, he’s just lovely, he really is. Have you seen The Cross? He wrote that. I was Penelope in that, for the first season. We were in Cornwall for the summer, it was...”

“Diana?”

“Oh yes. Nigel is always here to keep me on the straight and narrow! Thank you, darling. Right, so it is called I’ll Be with You Shortly and it’s the story of a man and a woman who meet in a hospital waiting room and they get talking, as you do, and they find out they’ve met twice before in their lives. Once as teenagers, later on as busy adults and now in old age.”

“How old, exactly?” I asked, envisaging endless nights in make-up.

“Sixties. Don’t worry darling, we won’t hang an artificial chin on you, or paint liver spots. Neither of us are thirty anymore. It just takes a wig and some old-fashioned clothes and we’re there. Which is good, because we’ll also be doing a scene set when we are in our thirties. You’ll just need a darker wig and I can just about pull it off if we dim the lights and maybe blind the audience with lasers or something.”

“Nonsense darling, you can easily do that,” said Nigel. I agreed.

“Thank you, you’re such sweet boys. Anyway, it’s mostly the two of us but Andrew said we should make this our own so it’s got a couple of gaps here and there and I’m hoping we can improvise there, to make up the backstory of our characters. The script is about seventy minutes right now, which is a bit on the short side.”

“Don’t worry too much about that,” said Nigel to me. “Andrew will join us after a few weeks and help flesh out anything we haven’t gotten around to.”

I wasn’t that worried yet, because although I am pretty much the last person who should be doing improv, I knew that quite often a script is just a starting point. Unless you’re doing a classic, such as The Mousetrap or Shakespeare, obviously.

“Guys, Edwin has almost nodded off,” said Mel. For the past hour Edwin had been happily running around the kitchen, playing with his toy car. We kept him away from the grimy bits and took turns sitting him down on our laps to browse one of his musical books. He loves those books where you push the page somewhere and a sound clip is played. They’re two quid each. Sadly, a battery change is six pounds. As we’d given him a rice waffle, Mel had put him back in the stroller. And now he had dozed off, with half a soggy waffle stuck to his fingers. I took a picture. It was only the third one that day.

“It’s dark in the wings of the theatre,” said Nigel. One rehearsal space had a small stage and some curtains. Mel nodded and rolled Edwin away. Once he’s asleep he’s usually good for an hour and if he needs you he’ll let you know. We hadn’t used the baby monitor in our house for quite some time.

“Sorry about that,” said Mel, as she joined us. “So why don’t they recognize each other? I didn’t quite catch that.”

“Because people change. Hair, glasses, dress style, things like that,” explained Nigel.

“Oh, right. So they meet for a third time. Then what?”

“They talk. They find out they met before. And as they wait and wait, they speculate about what might have become of their lives if they hadn’t gone their separate ways. And they come to the conclusion that this time, they’re not going to let it happen. That is, if they’re given the chance. Because one of them, the woman, might receive some very bad news that day.”

“Oh, I see. So it’s very dramatic.”

“Yes,” said Nigel. “It is in its current form,” said Nigel. “But I’m pretty sure that Martin and Diana will find ways to liven it up as we rehearse and shape the back story. This piece is going to need some big laughs, or else the entire audience will just walk into traffic like a bunch of lemmings at the end of it. We may even do a song.”

“Yes darling, we can have some fun with it!” said Diana, reaching out to touch my upper arm. “Oh and it’s called I’ll Be With You Shortly.”

“That’s good, I like that ... Oh, excuse me.”

My phone rang. It was Kate. I could tell by the ringtone, which is ‘On The Street Where You Live’ for her. I had a bastard of a time setting that up, by the way. Why can’t you just pick an mp3 file from your music collection?

“Hi Kate. I’m...”

“Martin, I’m outside. I just can’t seem to find the bloody entrance.”

I shook my head. She wasn’t supposed to be here, but she could track me and Mel via our phones.

“I’ll send someone out. Go stand on your tippy toes, so Nigel will be able to spot you.”

“You fu...”

I rang off.

“It’s the showbiz police. I guess we’re being raided,” I announced. That piqued Nigel and Diana’s curiosity, but as soon as Kate appeared at the top of the stairs there was a flurry of kisses and ‘darlings’ and ‘I adore this’ and ‘So lovely to’ that’s. It is at times like these I see my sister as the rest of the world does: a highly regarded professional you do not, under any circumstances, want to upset. Someone who knows everyone, particularly their flaws, and who is aware of all major goings-on. She is royalty, even at twenty-six, and has been for a while. I take very little credit for how amazing she is, but I do take some. If I hadn’t carefully removed that marble she stuck up her nose once, who knows where she might have ended up, right?

Kate wasted very little time after the pleasantries were over.

“Right, so is there a script?”

“Yes. We’ve done this before, you know,” Nigel couldn’t help saying. He and Diana are not with Keller & Fox. Diana and Caroline are close friends, which is why they decided not to have a business relationship. If I were to sign on to this I would be ‘on loan’ from Keller & Fox, which was the only excuse Kate had for being here. But then, that was all she needed.

“Of course, Nige, that came out wrong. I’m just curious what you’re up to. Looking out for Martin is kind of what I do.”

“I was about to suggest we have a read-through,” said Nigel. “But what with Edwin being here, I’m not sure if there’s time. It’s been a while since Lola was his age, but I recall they can’t be strapped in their strollers indefinitely. And this isn’t the best place to go off and explore.”

Lola was Nigel’s stepdaughter. I don’t know all the details, but he and Diana got together when Lola was very young and her real dad was out of the picture. When I met Lola she had some social anxiety issues, which had given her the nickname ‘quiet Lola’: she hardly ever spoke and if she did she was almost inaudible. (Which was a bit of a problem because she managed the ticket office!) But then I found out she could get over that by acting, so I had a very interesting though not very pleasant hotel room adventure with her.