It was Darren who noticed it first. Mr. Benett's mobile phone on the floor of the Hostel common room. After giving me a nudge and pointing in its direction he casually bent down, picked it up and slipped it into his trouser pocket, the same as if it were a coin he had just dropped.
"Give it 20 minutes", he said. "If he notices it's gone before he goes to sleep he'll come down looking for it."
We actually waited 25 minutes, just to be sure. Then, after exchanging knowing glances between ourselves and our room-mate Paul, who we'd let in on the find, we headed off as normal (so everyone thought) 'to bed'.
I should fill you in on a few things. Firstly, we were on a Sixth Form trip to Europe, currently spending a few days in Prague, in the Czech Republic. There were about 20 of us in all, with four teachers along as supervisors: Mr. Bennett, Ms. Spenser, Mr. Hunt and Mrs. McCoy.
The reason Mr. Bennett's phone was such a good find is that, back home, he was going out with one of the best looking women in the school, the Biology teacher Ms. O'Neill. In fact, she wasn't just good looking, she was hot.
What was so hot about her? Well, Ms. O'Neill was a teacher from Ireland in her late 20s, so she had this delicious accent; she's about 5'8" tall, with shoulder-length straight blonde hair, and underneath her clothes she was slim, and seemed to have perky B cup (I'd have guessed) boobs, as well as a curvy round bum. Trust me, she's hot.
And I wasn't the only one to think so. As we got into our room, we were all in agreement that the coolest thing about having Mr. Bennett's phone was that it might have texts or (even better) pictures from her on it.
"Right, let's have a look!" said Darren, as he sat down on the end of his bed.
"Go to the photos section first..." I said. It was clear that it was a pretty new, 3G picture phone.
I looked over Darren's shoulder as he went through the Photo section of the phone's memory. While there was a nice one of her in front of some scenic location, she was wearing way more clothes than we wanted.
"How about his text messages?", Paul suggested.
Darren started to scan down through them.
"What's her first name?" he asked.
I was completely blank. Paul didn't look like he knew either. None of us actually did Biology, so we'd never had her as a teacher, we'd just seen her around the school.
"Would it be Susan, or something like that?" Darren said, "Most of the messages in her are from the phone number that he's called 'Suz'..."
"Looks like you've cracked it!", I said with a wink, "Well, anything interesting?"
"Most of them are boring enough, I'm afraid. 'Do you wanna meet for lunch?' and that sort of thing."
Paul and I exchanged resigned looks. Perhaps this phone wouldn't be the goldmine we'd hoped.
"Hang on a minute!", Darren shouted, "How about this: 'Sorry you're busy babes. If we could have met up I'd have told you all about how I've been day-dreaming about last night all through this mornings classes...' - that's from about six weeks ago."
"Fair play Mr. Bennet!", Paul said, "He obviously knows a thing or two!"
"Yeah, well sorry if I'm not too excited that he gets to see her tits and we don't." I said
Just then, the phone beeped in Darren's hands. The phone had just received a text message. Darren hit 'Read'.
Suz: Hi there babes. I hope today went well. You miss me? Cos I'm really missing you...
"What are we going to do?" asked Paul, "Should we try and smuggle the phone back to him?"
Paul may have thought the game was up but not me.
"No way man. We might still be able to get what we want here. Ask her how much she's missing him by..."
"Good idea!" said Darren, and proceeded to type.
Message: Today went well. So you're missing me? How much? ;-)
I thought the little wink at the end was a stroke of genius. The reply was pretty much instant.
Suz: Oh so much baby. I was just about to get to bed – that's why I texted you... ;-)
She was preparing for bed! No doubt we all had the same mental picture at this point! And she was winking too - this boded well. Quick as a flash, Darren was typing again.
Message: So go on then, tell how much you're missing me...
"Nice one Darren" I said.
This time the reply took a few minutes to arrive.
It was a picture message! She must have taken it in front of a big bathroom mirror. In it she was wearing a pair of blue jeans, a white tank top and her hair tied up in a pony tail. Her hands were spread far apart, with the phone in one of them.
Underneath she had added:
This much!
This was such a surprise that as I looked from one guy to the other, all our mouths were where you'd expect – hanging wide open with the shock! This was a godsend. Not only did we now know that she also had a camera phone but she'd also shown that she wasn't afraid to use it.
"Ok, we've got to get her clothes off" I said.
"Way ahead of you man" Darren replied. He was already typing.
Message: You're a funny girl. I like that. How about you show me, in the way that I like, now. ;-)
This was a slight risk. Maybe Mr. Bennett didn't go in for the kind of photos we were hoping to get from her. Still, if he had a girlfriend like Susan O'Neill and he didn't then he was a bit of a saddo.
Pretty quickly we got a response. It was just a text message though.
Suz: What do you mean? How do you want me to show you?
"Hmmm" said Darren, "how blunt should we be?"
"Go for it dude" said Paul, "you're her boyfriend, after all."
"I dunno, maybe it'd seem a bit off, if he doesn't normally boss her around, or something. Y'know?" said Darren.
"Lookit, we've come this far and we will never, ever have this chance again." I said, "Let's just ask her. What's the worst that can happen? She'll be mad at him – not us!"
"Ok, here goes" said Darren, and started typing again.
Message: Like maybe you could show me how much the rest of your body is missing me – not just your arms?
Quickly we got a response.
Suz: Well aren't you a naughty boy! I dunno. What if someone sees them?
This was great news. She wasn't totally disgusted by the idea. In fact, she was just checking make sure a photo didn't fall into the wrong hands. If only she knew...
Message: Don't worry about that. I'm on my own in the room and I'll delete it off the phone by the morning. Please!
By now I had decided that Darren was a texting savaunt. That 'Please!' at the end was as good a touch as the winks had been earlier.
Five minutes passed by and still we got no response. Darren lay back on the bed while Paul and I paced the room.
Finally, the phone produced a message tone. Paul and I jumped on the bed behind Darren.