Doug S

Part 1: Josephine and the Wishbone Whenever I visit my brother Richard in the West Country he takes me to a theatre/dining club. Yes, I know they’re a long way from London, but they do have night clubs down there. Let me tell you about one Friday when we visited the Erotic Magic Club in Exeter. The first half of the evening’s entertainment was fairly standard stuff. It started with a sort of dance/strip show with all eight girls, then each one had a solo set, so that one did a few extreme backbends and then folded herself into a tiny perspex box, one did a sword swallowing and fire-breathing act and so on – all either nude or in the tiniest, tightest clothing. The first half finished with another ensemble dance piece and then, during the interval, the girls wandered round the audience chatting to the exclusively male clientelle. By this time all the girls were wearing very tight, very short leather shorts and matching high heels and nothing else, the kind of shorts I refer to as Daisy Dukes but which my brother insists on calling Hot Pants. One was in black, one in pink, one in blue and so on, eight identical topless outfits in eight different colours. ...

continued from part 1 Part 2: Accidents will happen I told you about the first time I visited the Erotic Magic Club, yes ? That was on a Friday night. My brother and I had been led up on stage to watch a six-foot blonde with a buzz-cut get tied up and then have her top half squeezed down to nothing. We got a leg each to look after, and had been invited to bring them backstage afterwards to watch her being restored. The girl was called Josephine, and the magician, Jim. The MC, who owned the club, is called Stavro. ...

continued from part 2 Part 3: Bowling Night By now you know all about the Erotic Magic Club. You recall that, after I helped to rescue Suzy from an illusion she was trapped in, her father, who owns the club, invited me to a night out bowling with all the girls. Bowling night was about a month after the rescue, and I’d spent the intervening few weeks sort of dating Josephine, one of the dancers. Therefore, it was Josephine who came to pick me up and show me where it was that we were meeting. ...

continued from part 3 Part 4: Sandy on the Pole Good news – my biggest customer is relocating. A couple of thousand weather forecasters and support staff, and a few cellars full of supercomputers and and communications equipment, are moving to Exeter. This would normally mean I’d be very busy and working long hours a long way from home, but in my case I’ve been looking for an excuse to move to Exeter for a month or two now. ...

continued from part 4 Part 5: Eggs at Easter I thought I was busy in the run up to Christmas, but somehow the approach of Easter was even worse. Work was OK but all the things I seem to have taken up in my spare time since moving here to Exeter just filled up all the space in my diary. On top of this, the thermostat on my central heating had blown up and the house had been roasting since Tuesday. ...

continued from part 5 Part 6: Swapping with Sandy My fiancée – I still can’t get used to calling her that – my fiancée, Josephine, came into the study with that sly smile that she wears when she’s planning something. “What are you doing on Sunday Week?” she asked. I clicked up my diary and scrolled down ten days. “Here we are – May 6th, nothing. Why, what do you have in mind?” ...

continued from part 6 Part 7: Norwegian Wood Jo put down the phone and came in to the kitchen. I looked up at her and she spoke: “Old Eirik is dead.” “Erich?” I said. “He was at the club on Friday. He was fine. What happened?” “No, it’s not Erich, it’s Eirik. Ei-rik.” She pronounced each separate syllable distinctly. “Eirik Lumbermann is my, umm, was my grandfather, my mother’s father. He was a hundred and two last winter.” ...