Pretty in Pin

Something was licking his leg. It felt like a Brillo pad: rough and scratchy. Trying to clear the fog from his thumping head, Luke blearily opened his eyes, fully expecting to see his brother's spare room complete with the FHM calendar girls 2002 smiling down at him. It came as something of a shock to realise that he was sprawled on a bench and his hands were shackled to the metal legs with some pink furry handcuffs.

The large dog panting in his face stank of week old tuna. Its tongue lolled out as it regarded him with a faintly amused expression. Luke had no doubt that the dog was thinking much the same as he was, like how come he was chained to a bench and he had no...

Oh fuck. I'm naked. Robbie, you bastard, you're going to die when I catch up with you!

When the shock had receded somewhat, Luke looked around anxiously, hoping like hell he was not on Brighton Promenade surrounded by pensioners with weak hearts. He soon realised he was on a seafront somewhere, but fortunately for the National Health Service, Brighton it wasn't.

Miles upon miles of sand stretched out towards the horizon. Somewhere in the distance, the faint sound of waves could be heard, but the tide was so far out, he couldn't actually see it. High above, gulls wheeled in a blue sky streaked with a pink blush. There appeared to be some buildings a fair distance away, but he couldn't spot any signs of life. It was impossible to tell what time it was as his watch was AWOL along with his clothes, but he guessed it was early. Probably a good thing, he mused. At least this way he wasn't going to frighten any small children.

Luke pulled himself into an upright position and wondered what the hell he was going to do about his predicament. He tried yanking his hands to see if the cuffs broke, but they were stronger than they looked. Unless a kind stranger wielding a toolkit appeared, there was no chance he was going anywhere. When he gave up his inspection of the handcuffs, he realised the dog was still sitting nearby and he had a sudden thought.

"Where's your owner?" he asked it hopefully. It had a red collar around its neck and Luke figured it was unlikely to be roaming around unsupervised even if this place did appear to be a location shoot for Invasion of the Body Snatchers.

The dog looked at him dumbly and Luke sighed. "Oh great," he muttered. "I'm stuck on a bench in some godforsaken place with no clothes, cash, or phone, and I'm supposed to be getting married tomorrow!"

"Woof!" The dog licked his leg and grinned in doggy sympathy.

"Please tell me you really belong to some rich person with a private jet and a desire to help poor stranded young men?" Somehow Luke thought that would be unlikely. The way his luck was going, the dog would be a stray and he was on an island with a once weekly ferry service to the mainland—which had left yesterday.

"Max!"

Both Luke and the dog looked up in surprise.

Far away in the distance, Luke could make out a figure heading his way. "Max?" he asked the dog hopefully.

"Woof!" The dog agreed enthusiastically, its tail thumping the cracked concrete with great vigour.

"Don't leave me now!" warned Luke as it suddenly occurred to him that the dog might do a runner and lope off before the owner arrived.

The figure came nearer and Luke realised that it was a woman with long, curly blonde hair. He crossed his legs nervously and hoped that she wasn't the prudish type who ran away screaming at gratuitous male nudity.

"Max, you're so dead!" The woman looked very pissed off as she approached the bench. Her dog shrank down and tried to hide behind Luke's legs.

"Hi there, thanks for—" The woman's voice broke off abruptly when she realised that Luke was naked and chained to the bench.

They both stared at each other, Luke embarrassed as hell and the woman trying not to smirk. He knew she was staring at him, her eyes drawn to his crotch that he was doing his best to hide by crossing his legs. At least she wasn't rolling on the floor in hysterics, he supposed.

"Erm, I don't suppose you have something I can use to break these?" he asked eventually, looking first at the cuffs, then back at her.

Shit, she's really pretty

. He looked away quickly, now doubly aware that he was in a highly compromised state and that thinking anything but pure thoughts was not going to help his case.

"Shall I call the police?"

Luke heard the ripple of laughter in her voice and cursed his brother for putting him in this position. "May as well, I suppose. It can't get any worse."

"Nah," she said. "No need for that, give me twenty minutes and I'll fetch my truck down here. I have some tools in the boot. They should be enough to break you free."

"Thanks so much," Luke gushed with relief. "You wouldn't also be able to tell me where I am, too?"

"Where did you start off your evening?"

Luke had a sudden inkling he wasn't going to like her reply. "London—Clapham to be exact..."

"Then you're a very long way from home—this is Northumberland. Holy Island to be exact..."

"Holy crap," was his considered response. Holy Island was a bloody long way from London when he had no money or means of finding any.

"I'll go and fetch my tools," his Good Samaritan suggested as he sat on the bench in a state of utter dejection. The handcuffs and lack of clothing seemed the least of his woes right now.

*

Catriona, or Cat as she apparently preferred to be called, passed Luke a mug of coffee as they both considered what his options were.

"You have about two hours to leave the island before the tide comes in and closes the causeway," she told him.

"Christ, Monique is going to kill me if I miss our wedding," he said, not really addressing Cat as he considered how volatile his fiancée was when things failed to go her way.

"Ah," replied Cat sagely. "That explains a few things." She took a bite of toast and chewed thoughtfully. "I did wonder about the handcuffs and lack of clothing." Her voice trailed off and when Luke looked at her sharply he could have sworn she was trying not to laugh again.

He frowned. "My brother, Robbie, has a very twisted sense of humour."

And he's a dead man when I get hold of him.

"Well, feel free to keep the vest and jogging pants," she added. This time there was a definite snort of stifled giggling which she attempted to disguise with a coughing fit.

Luke glanced down at his borrowed Nike gear, and winced. Cat was a petite woman and he was a broad six-foot bloke. Clad in skin tight pink cotton, there was a very real chance he might attract the wrong kind of attention when he ventured out, but since the alternative had been a denim mini skirt, he had chosen the lesser of two evils in the style department. Hot pink was still better than being naked in front of Cat. She was way too attractive to make that an easy situation. A guy only had so much willpower when it came to suppressing his body's natural response to a pretty female.

"Look, I'm really sorry about this," he apologised for the millionth time. "You must have loads of better things to be doing."

"Don't worry about it, I needed the distraction anyway."

From the fleeting expression of sadness that crossed her face, Luke sensed that maybe he wasn't the only one with problems, but he didn't like to pry. The poor girl had done enough for him without being subjected to an in depth inquisition into her private life.

They both fell silent as Max sank down on tiled floor and closed his eyes. Luke took the opportunity to look around the room, trying to get a sense of who Cat was. There were several oil paintings on the wall, slightly abstract seascapes with a melancholy feel.

"I like those," he commented.

"Thanks—they're mine," Cat said.

"You're an artist?"

"Yes, I paint, plus I do some ceramics."

"Wow, I'm impressed!" And he was. He had no artistic talent whatsoever and he deeply admired people who had. No only was Cat gorgeous, she was also talented. She was becoming more and more attractive as the seconds ticked by. He wasn't so sure that was a good thing so he drained his coffee, yanking his mind with some determination back to the current situation. Sitting here, flirting with Cat, was not going to aid him in the slightest.

He needed to stop procrastinating and figure out how he was going to get home with no cash. He doubted that hitchhiking in his current outfit was going to be very successful—

unless there were lots of gay truckers with a penchant for butch guys in skin-tight pink sports apparel.

"I know it's a cheek, but do you think I could use your phone to make a telephone call?" He needed to get a grip.

"Sure, it's in the hall, help yourself."

Luke dialled Robbie's number, hoping like hell the bastard would pick up. He wanted an explanation for why his brother had done such a juvenile thing. But the answer service kicked in and after he'd listened to the message, he left one of his own.

"Robbie, you total fucking twat, I hope you've got life insurance 'cause I'm going to kill you when I catch up with you." He slammed the receiver back down and hoped Cat hadn't been eavesdropping. It was bad enough that she thought he was an idiot, without adding 'psycho' to the list of bad character traits.

*

"We better leave now or the tide will be coming in," Cat said, picking up her keys from the table. Max bounded outside, wagging his tail at the prospect of going somewhere. He jumped into the back seat of the truck, panting doggy breath in Luke's face.

"Just drop me off in the nearest town and I'll sort something out," Luke told her, hoping he sounded upbeat and positive. He still hadn't managed to address the issue of no money, but he was hoping that if he tried ringing his family, they might be able to send some cash.

"Do you have friends up this neck of the woods?" she asked as they set off down the lane.

"No, nobody."

"Erm, then how are you going to get home with no transport and no money?"

He turned to look at her. The amusement in her expression had vanished. She threw him a sympathetic look before negotiating the causeway.

"I don't mean to be negative here, but without cash, you're screwed."

Luke said nothing. She was right of course. He stood very little chance of getting home unless he hitchhiked. That could well be a lengthy process given his current attire and time was the one thing he was in short supply of. He looked ahead as they rumbled on. The sky was grey in the distance. Heavy clouds were rolling in over the horizon, bringing with them a promise of rain. The weather was turning out very like his mood; sombre and deeply depressed.

"You're right," he agreed morosely. "I've been screwed."

"Look," said Cat in a soft voice. "I've nothing important on for the next couple of days, how about I drive you home and you reimburse me for my diesel when we get there?"

They reached the mainland and she pulled over on to a grassy verge, leaving the engine idling as she turned to face Luke.

"Would you really do that?" he asked in surprise. She barely knew him and yet she was willing to put herself out for him. He was stunned. He certainly couldn't imagine many women being so generous.

"To be honest, a break from here would do me good," she said before looking away. "It's the weekend and I have nothing urgent to be working on."

Once more, Luke had the sense that something had happened to her, but before he could broach the subject, a large red car beeped as it drove towards them.

He thought he heard Cat mutter, "Oh fuck," before she smiled brightly at the driver as he stopped alongside them and wound his window down.

"Hey Babe, tried calling you last night, but I got no answer. I wanted to talk about, you know,

stuff."

There was a petulant, whiny tone in his voice.

Cat's smile slipped sideways. "Look, Tony, did it not occur to you that maybe I didn't feel like talking either then, or indeed ever?" she retorted sarcastically.

Luke couldn't help looking at the guy. His streaky blonde hair was styled in a way that suggested an awful lot of time had been spent achieving such a casual look, and his clothes were straight out of GQ magazine. The man was a walking-talking pin-up and Luke took an instant dislike to him.

Tony decided to ignore her blatant rudeness. "Is that your new girlfriend?" He sniggered, glancing slyly at Luke.

Luke saw that the guy had clocked his pink tracksuit trousers. He bristled angrily and forgot to engage his brain before retaliating. "I misplaced my clothes at some point last night," he smiled with a suggestive wink in Cat's direction. "You know how it is when you're ahem...distracted."

Cat raised both eyebrows, but said nothing to enlighten her friend as to the true circumstances of Luke's unfortunate attire.

"Oh I get it," Tony snarled, his face flushing red. "Well you didn't waste any time moving on!"

"Well at least I waited until we were over before I got laid again!" Cat rammed the truck into gear and screeched away, her tyres spraying sand and grit all over Tony's shiny red car, leaving him sitting in a dust cloud.

"That your ex?" Luke asked diplomatically when Cat slowed down enough to allow him to catch his breath. Max had slid into a horizontal position on the back seat, apparently asleep despite the hair-raising ride.

"Yes." From the forbidding expression on Cat's face, he concluded the subject was off-limits, so he said nothing more as the coastline whipped by in a blur of salty sand dunes and white tipped surf.

*

The truck stop was relatively deserted. A few people sat in the large dining area shovelling down massive plates of cholesterol enhanced food, while others simply drank coffee and flicked through tabloids and top shelf magazines.

A double page spread of a naked blonde with very perky tits caught Luke's eye as he walked past a particularly unsavoury trucker sitting at a table. The guy was practically salivating as he ogled his centrefold, although he did a quick double take when he spotted Luke in his pink gear.

For a moment Luke thought the model strongly resembled Cat, but when his conscience reminded him that he ought not to be thinking such lewd thoughts about a woman other than his fiancée, he shoved the image from his head.

"Eat up," Cat told him as he sat down at their table and eyed the plate of eggs and bacon. "We've got a very long way to go."

"Thanks so much," he began to say again, but she shushed him immediately.

"Forget it, I really don't mind," she told him before tucking into her food. "As I said, I'm happy to take a break from normal life. As long as you don't mind me stopping to walk Max at intervals, we'll be there in good time."

She began to read a newspaper somebody had abandoned on the table, so Luke ate his food and allowed his mind to wander off on a tangent. It took almost three seconds before his gaze drifted away from the concrete wasteland beyond the large windows and lingered back on the generous swell of Cat's breasts beneath her pale blue tee shirt.

His pink tracksuit trousers abruptly became uncomfortably tight. This was not good. Fantasising about Cat would seriously jeopardise his chances of making it home intact. The trouble was, she was incredibly sexy and, unfortunately, the complete opposite to the woman he was supposed to be marrying tomorrow. He forced himself to dredge up an appealing image of Monique in a vain attempt to defuse the sensation of arousal swamping him with lustful thoughts.

Monique in the sexy nurse's outfit he had brought for Valentine's Day...

No, that didn't work. She had refused to wear it for more than a few minutes, telling him it was degrading to women and she felt like a whore. That was the whole point, he had tried in vain to explain, but his pleas fell on deaf ears and he had been thrown out along with the nurse's outfit.

Monique in her bikini?

No, once again, he was left feeling slightly out of sorts. Monique hated wearing bikinis. Even when they went to Spain she had chosen to wear a black all-in-one swimsuit prudish enough for the average Nun to consider wearing. He supposed it was a result of her strict Catholic upbringing—she had many issues about her body and sexuality, none of which included a particularly open-minded outlook on sex and nudity.

He sometimes wondered why they were getting married, let alone in a relationship together. In the beginning, he had been attracted to her sweet, innocent qualities. Now he was just bored. But, the marriage train had overtaken him and if he jumped off now, he was likely to be decapitated by the future in-laws. It wasn't an appealing prospect.

It wasn't as if he didn't love Monique, he decided as he tried staring at a plastic plant rather than Cat's boobs—it was just that he wasn't

in

love with her. He sighed dramatically and spiked another forkful of egg. It was no use. He had to go through with the wedding, come hell or high water. There was no way he was going to break Monique's heart. He couldn't do it to her.

*

"What time's the wedding then?" Cat asked after as they hit the motorway again.

"Eleven." There was a distinct lack of jollity in his voice and Cat noticed.

She glanced sideways at him. "Shouldn't you be more excited about the prospect?"

Although he thought she had a point there, he replied with fake enthusiasm, "I can't wait." He decided that denial was a wonderful state of mind; it sure beat throwing himself off a cliff.

"So, what's your fiancée like?"

Billy Idol came on the radio singing one of his classics.

"It's a nice day for a white wedding,"

sang Cat loudly when Luke failed to answer her question.

"Why are you interested?" he said when the words began to grate on him.

"Dunno—I'm just nosey I suppose. Besides, you must be mad about her if you're so desperate to rush back in time to get hitched."

Luke wasn't sure 'desperate' was the word he would have used, but he felt he ought to say something. "Yeah, that's it, I'm totally mad," he muttered gloomily.

She shut up then and concentrated on the road while he turned away to stare out of the window morosely. He felt bad about being so snotty with her. After all, she was doing him an enormous favour by driving him all the way back home. He just didn't like the way she had homed in on the one thing he was uncomfortable talking about. Jesus. Why couldn't he have picked a girl who wanted to discuss Arsenal's form this season? He'd have happily waffled on about that for hours! Did she not understand he was a bloke and, as such, genetically incapable of discussing his feelings? Women!

*

"Wake up!"

Luke stirred. He opened his eyes carefully, feeling out of sorts once again, aware that it was dusk and the flat grey fields had changed into dirty streets and brightly lit retail parks.

"Where are we?" he asked, rubbing his eyes to clear the sticky residue of sleep.

"M25. You're gonna have to give me some directions or we'll be stuck on the road to hell for infinity."

Given the programme of events lined up for tomorrow, Luke had a feeling that it wasn't such a bad idea. But he pushed that thought to one side and told Cat which junction she needed.

In no time at all, they drove down Luke's street and found a space near his flat. His windows were dark so at least Monique wasn't holding a candlelit vigil waiting for him to return home. Hopefully she had no idea he had even been north of Watford. She had only texted him once and he had sent a quick reply to say he was seriously hung-over, but he would see her at their wedding. Fortunately, she hadn't pursued a conversation, for which he was grateful. He would have had a hard job explaining the sound of surf in the background.

Cat turned the engine off and yawned heavily. "Well we're here, so you better go and get ready, or whatever."