It was the Grand Prix Club away weekend coming up, and I was looking forward to it as usual. By my reckoning this was the twenty-fifth anniversary of the first one in one form or another, and it now provided a great opportunity to catch up with some old friends. It had all started twenty-five plus years ago, three of us sharing a bank of desks in an office, all with an interest in Formula One motor racing. Someone had suggested a sweepstake on each race and the Club was born. All you had to do was pick first, second and third in each race, pay up Β£1 per race and we were off!
It wasn't as easy to win as that though, and at the end of the season there had been no winners and we had a few pounds in the kitty. Not a huge sum but enough for the three of us to go out for a few beers at Christmas and have something to eat. The problem was that the wives got to hear about it and decided that they would like to come the next year.
The next problem was that someone won the kitty mid-season, and we all had to put our hands in our pockets to fund the dinner that year. It had caused a rewriting of the rules to make it more difficult to win, and basically we all accepted that in the remote event that someone did win they would contribute their ill-gotten gains to fund the year end extravaganza.
The rules had been revised several times since to stop it becoming boring, we had found ourselves picking the same drivers week in week out, and so we put a stop to that and we continued to modify the rules to make it so that you needed a supercomputer to validate our selections.
Initially the gatherings were Sunday lunches, all of us had children of roughly the same ages who required babysitters arranging, but as they got older it became easier, and then someone had the bright idea of making a night of it in a hotel somewhere. The Β£1 per race had long before been put up and changed to a Β£5 per month standing order payment, then to Β£10 per month, but now it was increased to Β£20 per month.
This meant we could have dinner, bed and breakfast at a nice hotel, with all drinks and wine paid for out of the kitty and it had become a regular thing which we all looked forward to. The boys talked motor racing, football and bollocks, and the wives talked kids, grandkids and weddings and we all had a good time.
I was the treasurer, Pete was the selection monitor and kept all the stats, we actually had a trophy for the most successful of us over the season and Tim, the third member was the social secretary who arranged the get together.
The kitty had now grown to well over a thousand pounds and we were getting towards having to return some capital to the shareholders, either that or have a real blow out one year.
A word on the wives, I was married to Deb, fairly petite but with big boobs, always well dressed and outwardly prim and proper, but when aroused she could be a little firecracker in bed, and elsewhere too when the fancy took her.
Tim was married to Anne, blond and glamorous with the most gorgeous backside and like Deb, big tits. She always flirted suggestively with the other two of us, and I suspected she could be a handful.
Pete's wife was Marie, rake thin with no tits to speak of. She'd suffered from eating disorders in the past, but now seemed past those and she could be great fun after a few drinks.
All in all I was looking forward to meeting up with them again, the gathering had been delayed as Pete had been diagnosed with prostate cancer and had been undergoing treatment for that, but had now been given the all clear and like us, was raring to get his life back on track again.
So Deb and I were in the car heading for the Cotswolds one Saturday lunchtime, following the Satnav's directions.
"What's the name of this hotel again?" she asked.
"The Red Button."
"That's a bloody strange name, what's behind it?"
"Haven't got a clue. The website says it is a boutique venue with only 12 bedrooms and is aimed at discerning and perceptive guests... Apparently Tim and Anne have been there a couple of times and say the food and service are really good. It's difficult to book and basically you have to be a past guest or recommended by one."
"Sounds like they are a bit up themselves." was Deb's comment.
The traffic wasn't bad and it didn't take too long to get there, and when we pulled in in the car park we saw that Pete's red Porsche was already there, but no sign of Tim's more mundane Jag. We parked and grabbed our overnight bags from the boot and made our way to Reception to find Pete and Marie just checking in. We greeted each other with hugs, kisses and man-hugs and completed the formalities.
"What's with the weird name?" asked Marie quietly.
"Dunno," I replied laconically, "we were discussing it on the way up."
"Have you noticed the Receptionist has one very prominent red button on her suit jacket?" We looked and sure enough she did. At that moment Tim and Anne strode in and the hugs and kisses were repeated. I got an especially tight hug from Anne which I thoroughly enjoyed, together with a half dirty look from Deb.
"You've been here before, what with the name?" pressed Marie.