‘SKOL!’

Eleanor was dancing on the table, singing ‘All That Jazz’ from Chicago. Everybody else cheered her on, and joined in with all the words they knew (basically, the song’s title!). The food, which nobody had touched, had been taken away about half an hour ago by the waiting staff after Lars had thrust several more hundred-dollar bills into their hands.

Now, Eleanor was getting quite raunchy as she sang about ‘rouging her knees and pulling her stockings down’ – raising her skirt and giving a little shimmy as she twirled inexpertly amongst the glasses and bottles.

Poppy, sitting next to Marty, was feeling a tad uncomfortable despite the neat liquor. Her boss had said earlier that mommies shouldn’t be ingesting poisons, after all. She turned to him and saw that he was roaring with laughter and applauding.

‘Sorry about Lars ordering the schnapps,’ she whispered to him.

‘Are you kidding? This is great! THIS is the woman I married.’ And, stumbling slightly, Marty got up to join his wife on the table. Alas, his greater weight was too much and the table collapsed beneath them. Husband and wife lay, roaring with happy laughter, amongst the absolute chaos of broken glass and no-longer starched linen.

‘I love you, Martypoos!’

‘Oh, Elliekins, I love you too!’

And they had a very unseemly public smooch. Poppy thanked God that neither of them seemed to be hurt by the scary-looking green shards of ex-wine bottles that surrounded them.

Poppy was dreaming that Ben was going down on her, his tongue expertly flicking her clitoris, his long-lashed blue eyes looking up at her mischievously. Even in her dream, she hated him, so she bashed his head, hard.

‘Owww,’ said Damian, who was the actual cunnilinguist. ‘I thought I was doing quite well.’

Awake now, Poppy said, ‘Sorry, darling. Bad dream. Please, don’t stop.’

Damian didn’t stop. He continued to lick Poppy’s waxed cunt until he could taste her arousal. She moaned, and Damian opened her up with his fingers, feasting his eyes and keeping her waiting for a couple of seconds, before sliding the first two fingers of his other hand inside her. He bent his head again and resumed sucking, licking, nibbling. Poppy bucked against him, moaning more and more loudly until, with a sharp cry, she came.

He waited a second or two, then started moving his fingers in and out again, ever so slowly, sucking again to milk the very last drops of pleasure from her. Only when he felt her throbbing finally begin to subside did he withdraw his hand, then move up the bed to kiss her on the lips. Poppy kissed him back, liking the taste of herself on him.

‘Mmmm, thank you, darling,’ she said dreamily. ‘That was soooo good.’

Damian leapt to his feet.

‘And now for the second course!’

He walked to the kitchen of their apartment, which was pretty much the interior brickwork urban cool ex-warehouse in the Meatpacking District that Andy had envisaged. He returned bearing a tray heaped with eggs, bacon and mushrooms, waffles and maple syrup, freshly squeezed orange juice, bagels and smoked salmon.