4
Hunter had high hopes for the dinner. Not so much for the food (he wasn't a fussy eater) but for the chance to restore some normality after the events following their arrival at the hotel. Unfortunately, what with one thing and another, it turned out to be another episode that tested his equilibrium to the limits.
When they got to the taverna, Julia took charge and after spending at least five minutes laughing and chatting with a girl who was a little older than her and, Hunter thought, perhaps the daughter of the owner, the group was shown to a table that was essentially cut off from the other diners by a couple of partitions made of reeds or something like that. It was also, Hunter thought, a really small table - much better suited for two people than for four. The others insisted that he sat furthest away from the passageway, which meant he was essentially hemmed in by Tina and Briony, with Julia sitting opposite him and taking charge of the ordering.
From the beginning, he felt a little uncomfortable at the way every waitress who came to their table (there were waiters in the main part of the restaurant, but none of these ever set foot in their alcove) had fits of giggles whenever they talked with Julia - invariably looking at Hunter as they did so.
As for the reason why they were behaving as they were, Hunter really didn't want to go there, but Julia took it upon herself to explain anyway. They thought Hunter was so handsome that they had taken to referring to him as Adonis. They kept coming back into the room because they wanted to imprint a mental image on their mind which they could keep with them until such time as they might see him again.
Hunter tried to laugh this off as so much nonsense, but when (at the serving girls' insistence) Julia was forced to translate what he had said, some became sad, others became angry and unwittingly he found himself in the midst of a diplomatic incident.
'Hunter, please,' said Julia, attempting to restore calm to the situation, 'they are merely poor serving girls. For many of them, the dream of escaping from this island with a handsome foreigner is one they cherish from their early teenage years. Please be civil to them and return their smiles. It is so little to ask.'
Hunter was close to falling for this line until he remembered how Julia had threatened to call the police when he inadvertently revealed more of her breasts than he ever meant to. They must make a packet out of foreigners during the tourist season and he couldn't believe they didn't have boyfriends of their own. Added to that, most of the foreign men who visited this place were a good deal younger and fitter than him. All in all, he was pretty sure that it was just Julia playing another of her little games.
Finally, the food arrived and they got stuck into the lamb, the octopus salad, the stuffed vine leaves, the spinach and feta cheese pie, and the fresh fish, which was pretty good, even if Hunter would have preferred it steamed rather than fried. The way he was squeezed in so tight between Briony and Tina meant he had to be very careful not to stick his elbows out too far, but the girls didn't seem to be reciprocating in terms of the care they were showing.
Things came to a head when Briony somehow managed to drop a piece of octopus, which ended up in his lap. Foolishly, Hunter wasn't wearing a napkin, not least because there wasn't any room to place them on the table, unlike in a normal restaurant, say the ones he was a partner in. Before he had a chance to deal with it, Briony was attempting to pick the twisty rubbery piece up with her fingers, but owing to the olive oil with which almost everything is served in a Greek restaurant she had succeeded only in pushing it further towards his zipper.
Not wanting to draw attention to the issue, as one of the waitresses who mooned over him the most had just returned to their table to check everything was all right, Hunter let Briony continue in her efforts to get her hands on the wayward piece of octopus. It must have been a lot oilier than he realised because rather than securing it between her fingers she had only succeeded in pushing it onto the area which was now occupied by his rapidly swelling penis.
Sensing this, she flicked the mollusc onto the floor and began to work her fingers along his shaft. Groaning involuntarily, Hunter tried to cover his outburst with an outbreak of coughing. This led Tina, who had been following Briony's escapades with growing interest, to pat him on the back in the time-honoured way. Under cover of that action with her left hand, she let her right one drop to his lap, unzipping his trousers in one easy motion.
Hunter's first instinct was to stand up and walk out of the room (hell, the restaurant!), but he could hardly do that given his dishevelment. With that adoring waitress only six feet away looking suspiciously at what was going on in the corner of the room, Hunter decided to engage Julia in conversation, commenting very positively on the quality of the food. Julia, who must have known what the other two were up to, showed that she wasn't entirely happy about the turn things had taken by asking him whether he knew that octopus was an aphrodisiac.
At this point the waitress interrupted them to ask, in English, what an aphrodisiac was. After being given the Greek translation (if you can be said to translate a Greek word back into Greek), she grinned in a knowing kind of way and, thankfully, made her way out of the room. By this time, Briony or Tina (he couldn't be sure which was which) had managed to undo his trousers and had slipped a hand inside, which was massaging his manhood - albeit, through the cotton fabric - rather fiercely. Not to be outdone, the other girl had somehow managed to get her hand round the side of his boxers and was cradling his balls - again, with rather more energy than he would have wanted, if he had wanted them invading his privacy in the first place.
Julia was getting increasingly peeved about the direction in which things were going, basically because it was a direction she wasn't travelling in. A loud cough was all it took to bring a bit of order to proceedings, to see that hands were returned to their rightful owners and that Hunter's trousers were handed back to him in their original state, barring the odd crease or two, and of course some olive oil stains. Owing to the lateness of the hour and the unruly behaviour of the other girls, Julia asked for the bill, paid up and they all trooped back to the hotel.
5
As they crossed the atrium, Hunter glanced across at Reception wondering if he couldn't even at this late hour cut a deal with the duty manager. He had stuffed his pockets with euros, thinking he might be able to bribe one of the hotel staff and get them to give him his own room. Sensing what was going through his devious mind, Julia had taken him firmly by the arm and was fairly marching him along to their room, followed by Tina and Briony, who had the room next door.
She threw the most cursory of 'goodnights' over her shoulder as she swiped her key card and ushered Hayden into the room. Clearly concerned that he might attempt to do a runner, she invited Hayden to use the bathroom first. He really wanted to have a shower, since he hadn't had one since that morning, but didn't want to make himself more attractive to this lustful young lady, so he satisfied himself with a body wash at the basin, which ended up being more thorough and covering more bits of his body than he had at first intended. After brushing his teeth and changing into his sleeping gear, he scooted across to the sleeping area he had made and, after taking his book, lay down, with his head resting on a couple of extra cushions he had taken from the chairs around the room.
He suddenly realised he wasn't wearing a pair of socks as added protection against a possible assault - something he had decided on earlier in the evening when Julia started to act so strangely - but decided against putting them on now. He felt pretty sure the worst was over, Julia-wise at any rate. As for the other girls, he would speak to them tomorrow - after breakfast, probably, without Julia. Yes, he was definitely going to do that.
When Julia came out of the bathroom twenty minutes later (what do they always find to do in there, he wondered?) he already had his back turned to her and he didn't move an inch. Unfortunately, that didn't prevent other senses being invaded by her, first the sense of smell, as an extraordinarily enticing fragrance wafted its way over to his corner, then the sense of hearing, as she spoke to him, using her sweetest voice.
