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Laura unsteadily ambled in first enthusiastically belting out, “ … Ain't no particular sign I'm more compatible with, I just want your extra time and your k-k-k-k-k-kiss …”
“Whoa-ooooo!” Bernice shrilled.
The two men gawked, dumbfounded.
Mrs Steele wiggled her hips. “ … You got to not talk dirty baby, if you wanna impress me …”
“Yeah-eah!”
“ … You can't be too flirty mama. I know how to undress me.”
“Yeah-eah!” Boogying on down, Bernice carried on supplying the background vocals.
“I wanna be your fan-ta-sy, maybe you could be mine.” They wrapped their arms around each other. “You just leave it all up to me, we could have a good time! You don't have to be –”
Murphy grinned. “I think that's meant to be 'Kiss' by Prince.”
“Thank heavens for small mercies. The state they're in it could easily have been The Osmonds.”
“Ssshh Bernice. Ssshh, we got an audience. Stop singing. See that man over there? The one with the blue eyes and dark hair? That's my hot, juicy hushband … husband. Sexy, isn't he?”
“If you like the shmouldering … smouldering type. I s'pose.”
“Murph!” Mrs Steele cried, arms akimbo. “Hey par … partner!”
“Hi Murphy. The gang's all … all here.”
He chuckled. “Laura, Bernice. I won't ask if you two had a good time.”
“Ladies, I think you've had a little too much to drink and –” Steele started to say.
“That's where you're wrong!” Bernice vehemently responded. “We've had a much too much to drink! Right Laura?”
“Right. Hol' on a minute.” She swayed over to her husband, threw her arms around his neck and smacked him full on the lips. “Hey lover. Fancy a little hot action tonight?”
Steele bent and picked his wife up. “Would you mind taking Mrs Wolfe home? I need to –”
“Sure.” He shrugged, “Mrs Wolfe?”
“That's what Skeeziks calls me Murphy. Mrs Wolfe. Wolf, Fox. Geddit?” She erupted into fits of giggles.
“Boy are you bombed.” Her former colleague shook his head disapprovingly.
“And Laura's not far behind her Murphy. I appreciate you taking Mrs Wolfe home. If you'll excuse me, I need to deposit my wife in the shower to –”
“Not the shower again! Take me on the floor instead my sshweet barbarian!” Head lolling back, she continued singing. “Ain't no particular sign that I'm compatible with! I just want your extra time and your k-k-k-kiss –”
Murphy stifled his laughter. “Thanks for –”
“Don't be ridiculous. We should do this more often. Thank you for –”
“Don't bother. Come on Bernice. Where're we going?”
“Sssanta Monica.”
“Santa Monica. Okay let's go. Fresh air will do you good but whatever you do, don't throw up in my car or you're walking home.”
“Yessssir!” she cried, mockingly saluting him at the same time.
“And stay awake. You've got to direct me to your place.”
“Hotel Murphy.”
“Whatever.”
“Hey Skeeshiks, I'll see you and Laura next week!” she yelled as she was dragged through the front door.
“Don't remind me Mrs Wolfe,” Steele called out as he carefully negotiated his way to the bathroom.
“I wanna be your fan-ta-sy, maybe you could be mine, you jusht leave it all up to me, we could have a good time! You don't have to be –”
“Come on Mrs Steele. Let's get undressed and sober you up.”
A dopey smile crossed her features. “I only had one, I shwear … swear.”
“One what? Litre?”
When they were both naked, Steele guided his wife into the shower turning it on with his right hand whilst holding her up with his left. As the lukewarm water beat down on them, he picked up a face flannel and gently ran it over her face.
“This … this is nice. You're a very nice man.”
“All the drunks say that.”
“Because it's true. You're nice. Very nice. Oooh, my head.”
“You'll feel better soon,” he responded in a soothing tone.
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
Laura drank in the sight of her husband as voraciously as the scotch she'd consumed. He looked good enough to eat. From nowhere surged joy, contentment. How to express it? She beamed, “Hello Remington Steele.”
Smiling down he responded, “Hello Laura Steele.”
Mission accomplished, Steele quickly dried his skin and pulled on a pair of pyjama bottoms. Turning his attention to Laura, he towelled her off, administered some moisturiser and pushed her arms through a cotton nightdress. Then he effortlessly swung her into his arms.
She glanced around her. “Where are we going?”
“The couch.”
“There isn't enough room for us to –”
“Not that. Not yet anyway. You need a hot drink.”
Plonking his wife on the sofa, he departed and returned a few minutes later with a cup of steaming black coffee that he handed to her with a smile.
Laura tentatively took a few sips. Then a little more. They sat in companionable silence for several minutes.
Eventually she looked deep into his eyes. “We had a good time.”
“So I see.”
“But I'm glad I'm home Mr Steele.”
“Good.”
“I needed that, to go out and talk with a woman my age who –”
“It's alright. No need to explain.”
Mulling over aspects of the past couple of hours, Laura remembered the question she wanted an answer to. “Do you really like being married to me?”
He inhaled then exhaled deeply. “No.”
“No?” Her face fell.
“No. I don't like being married to you. I very much enjoy being married to you.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
Laura broke into a broad smile. “I do too. With you, I mean.”
“I knew what you meant.”
“You did?”
His mouth twitched. He suppressed an urge to laugh at her. “Yes.”
“I didn't mean to –” She gestured with her hand, “Y'know.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Yes.”
“I'm sorry.”
Steele reached out and stroked her cheek. “Still feel an unerring impulse to apologise for emotion, eh Laura? It never ceases to amaze me. You had a few too many, that's all. It just makes you human – appealingly so. Besides, I can afford to be magnanimous. You may have to do this for me one day.”
“Really?”
“Rest assured though that when I do finally stagger home blind drunk, I'll be singing classier songs.” He gave her a slurred demonstration. “Oh, the shark babe, has shuch teeth dear. And it shows them pearly white. Jusht a jackknife has old Macheath babe, And it keeps it, out of sight. You know when that shark bites, with its teeth babe –”
“What is that?”
“ 'Mack The Knife.' ”
She shrugged, incomprehension too strong to hide. “Mack The what?”
“Mack The what?” Steele repeated incredulously. “Good grief, I'm married to a musical minnow.”
Laura playfully hit him, smiling as he feigned pain.
“Believe it or not, 'Mack The Knife' is a very popular standard. I'm rather partial to the Bobby Darin arrangement but Ol' Blue Eyes has sung it and Louis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald. It's a short story of a murderer's deed which has –”
“Typical.” She poked his thigh. “Every woman out there has a husband serenading them songs of love and romance. Mine gives me murder.”
“No need to thank me. Biting irony always was my forte.”
Laura placed her cup on the table in front of her. “I'm feeling much better.”
“Good. Let's go to bed.” He stood, stretched and reached for her hand.
She stared up at him. “I discovered two things about myself tonight.”
“Oh?”
“The first is that I'm a happier married woman than Bernice.”
“Glad to hear it. And the second?”
“The second is that I love it when you carry me.”
“Swept you off your feet did I?”
“From day one. Or maybe day two.”
Steele smiled and easily lifted her into his arms. She snuggled closer as he made his way back into their bedroom.
“I've only seen you drunk once. All these years and you've only been drunk once. That first time we posed as a married couple. The Malcolm Marcall case? You were so appealing and best of all – vulnerable.”
He switched on a side lamp and lowered her to the bed. “Why vulnerable best of all?”
“Oh, I don't know. It made you more human, simpatico. You opened up, you revealed some things … profound things.”
“I did?” This surprised him. “Like what?” He got in and reached for her.
“That would be telling Mr Steele.”
“That's why I'm asking Mrs Steele.”
Smugly she pointed out, “You told me never, ever to remind you that you'd said it.”
“Said what?”
“I can't tell you because I promised you that I'd never tell you.”
“If you don't tell me, I won't tell you what little secret of yours I've uncovered.”
She brooded for a couple of minutes but Steele knew he had her curiosity peaked. He smoothed her hair waiting for the beans to be spilt.
“Okay. You told me that you'd enjoyed being a Peppler.”
He grinned. “I said that all those years ago?”
“You did.”
“How prophetic Mrs Steele.”
“You were an excellent example of In Vino Veritas.”
Steele absent-mindedly ran his hands over her arms. “Alcohol. Better than any truth serum.”
“Yes. Still, it's hard to imagine you coming home drunk.”
“Oh I wouldn't be too sure of that. In Ireland it's traditional to wet the baby's head y'know. An old mate in London, Liam O'Brady, his wife had six children. We all knew when she'd given birth to a boy because he'd buy the Guinness first!” He wistfully recalled those bygone days. “We'd all huddle together in an Irish pub singing Irish songs like Molly Malone, Botany Bay, Curragh of Kildare, The Galway Shawl and –”
“Six children!” she exclaimed.
“Big families and Irish Catholics aren't exactly strange bedfellows, so to speak.”
“You don't expect me to –”
He smirked into her face. “Not to worry Laura. We'll stop at five.”
She quickly changed the subject. “Some men tried to pick us up.”
“Really? What happened?”
“Bernice told them to beat it.”
“I'm sure she did.” He fished for details, telling himself to keep it casual. “What were they like?”
“Who cares? Since I fell for you there's been – hold on. Isn't that a song?”
“ 'Since I Fell For You?' Another popular standard. Louis Armstrong's recorded it, Ella Fitzgerald, Sinatra's sung –”
“See!” she whooped, extremely pleased with herself. “I do know the classics, hah!”
“ 'Since I Fell For You.' Not bad for a beginner Laura. Not bad at all.”
“I'm learning Mr Steele.”
“So you are Mrs Steele. So you are. I'm sure Prince intended a similar plaintive malady about love and loss when he composed his charming little ditty. What's that line again? Ah yes, 'You don't have to be beautiful to turn me on.' Poetry. Sheer poetry.”
“That was Bernice's idea. She loves that song.”
“I should've guessed.”
“I love it too.”
“Dear God. Whatever next? Kenny Loggins?”
Laura laughed then moved her hand up and down his chest. “What did you and Murphy talk about?”
“You. Me. Us. Him. Work. Y'know he's seeing two women he met on a case without –”
He's seeing clients?” Her shock was all too apparent.
“No, he's not seeing clients. If you will interrupt Laura you'll –”
“Okay, okay! Finish your story.”
Steele cleared his throat. “Brandy and Mitzi are –”
“Brandy and Mitzi? What kind of names are those?”
“I give up.”
“Sorry. Go on, please.”
“Thank you Mrs Steele. Brandy and Mitzi are professional mud wrestlers. They're partners. Murphy met them following up a lead.”
“This is all so strange. Bernice is a whisker away from having an affair, Murphy's seeing two women and we're a boring married couple.”
“Shall I check or will you?”
“Check what?”
“Check to see if Rod Serling's underneath our bed.” Steele grinned.
Laura's brow furrowed. She realised he'd neatly side-stepped on something. “What's this secret of mine you claim to have uncovered?”
“How apt that we were referring, albeit loosely, to 'bed.' ”
“Yes?”
“Because talking of things under the bed …”
She kept her voice level and prompted, “Yes?”
“ … I see that's where you've hidden, 'Urgent Whisper' – the Charlotte Knight extravaganza you were reading earlier today.”
She groaned and covered her face. “I hate you.”
“Tsk, tsk, tsk. Did you momentarily forget that you're married to a first rate detective? Really Laura, under the bed? Even a village idiot would look there first. You're slipping love.”
“You are pond scum.”
He chuckled heartily. “Now Mrs Steele, how can you say that when I'm just about to re-enact all twenty two chapters with you? I had to kill time somehow while I was waiting for Murphy so I scanned it.”
Peeking through her fingers, she asked, “You scanned all of it?”
“Yes.”
“And we're re-enacting all of it?”
“All twenty two chapters Laura.”
“Even chapter twelve?”
“Especially chapter twelve.”
“That's not a chapter for boring married couples Mr Steele.”
“We'll take off our rings.”
“You're depraved.”
“You're reading that and I'm depraved?”
He rolled on top, nestling between her thighs. She enfolded him in her arms, nudging her hips against his, smoothing his back.
“I still can't believe Murphy's seeing two women at the same time Mr Steele.”
Laura felt him growing harder. She wrestled to remove his pyjama bottoms.
“It will all end in tears. His, I mean. They won't be very forgiving when they find out. I warned him but something tells me he'll find out the stormy way.”
Steele slowly lifted the nightdress up and over her shoulders. He kissed her throat, from jaw line to pulse at the base – maddeningly light, fluttering kisses. His sensuous trail continued down to her breasts where he immediately set about teasing her nipples.
Laura gasped as she felt his tongue, moaned as the unremitting suction increased.
“You wouldn't … have done that when you were single … two women at the same time ... mud wrestlers.”
He raised his head. “No.”
“Good.”
“No. I wouldn't have risked it. The wrath of two professional, female mud wrestlers? Doesn't bear thinking about.”
“You're right.” She deliberated on letting the tortuous foreplay continue or just climbing on top and screwing his brains out.
“If I was still single, infidelity would go hand in hand with refinement: two titled ladies – aristocrats – at the very least. Mud wrestlers may be the parochial American man's definition of style but I'm an urbane, cultured European with standards. That's Murphy's predicament in a nutshell. I always had more class than him.”
Laura laughed, hugging him to her, revelling in his chest hair tickling her breasts. “I'm ready for our marathon session now. Our twenty two chapters of lovemaking.”
“Just a minute. We're missing something.”
Reaching under a pillow, Steele
retrieved the dog-eared paperback.
“What are you doing?” she asked, puzzled.
He cleared his throat and solemnly announced, “ 'Urgent Whisper, chapter one. The train pulled into Grand Central Station. Bobby Ann Mitchell took a last look at –' ”
“To hell with all that,” she grabbed the book and flung it to the floor. “Let's go straight to chapter twelve.”
“I love it when you take charge Mrs Steele.”
Laura seized her husband's hand and steadily, seductively guided him down her body past her abdomen. She closed her eyes - absorbed in the flickering expertise of his fingers.
“This time Mr Steele … ” a rapturous sigh escaped her, “ … it's you and not the shower.”