Jean was excited to be on her dream holiday – in Barcelona. 6 days in the sun, a chance to escape kids and work and rain, on holiday with her best friend Debbie. Jean and Debbie were friends from school days, although both now 41. They now lived apart some distance, Debbie having gone away to college, and then work. Occasionally they had holidayed together. Often they visited each other. Weekly they chatted on skype. Through all their ups and downs in life, particularly for Jean after her disastrous marriage which she somehow sustained for 14 years, they had remained good friends. Now, following her divorce Jean was having her first holiday without husband or children in tow.
Jean loved her children who had stayed with her after the divorce, but was delighted her parents would look after them for the week. It was her first real holiday after the break-up from her husband eighteen months before, and was thrilled to be going with Debbie her best friend. Over the eighteen months Jean had one or two short-term relationships, and somehow with nicer men than her husband, was beginning to enjoy sex, but this holiday seemed like freedom for the first time ever.
So they had arrived on the Tuesday in Barcelona.
Both had enjoyed sight-seeing. Particularly some of the Gaudi buildings. Both had enjoyed shopping. Both had enjoyed time on the beach catching some sun. Both had enjoyed the food. Now it was Saturday evening. They had eaten, then ended up in a busy bar about half a mile from their hotel.
The bar was busy, seats a premium, but they were surprised to find themselves surrounded by six guys. It wasn't the being surrounded part, it was because the guys were English, all in their twenties, a group of friends from a rugby club in south London, away for a stag weekend. They were friendly, and quickly chatting to Jean and Debbie.
Jean struggled to remember all their names, but knew Charlie was the groom to be, and his best man Miles. There was a Pete in the group, as well as a Tony. With hindsight Jean never could remember the names of the other two.
The men were friendly, happy to chat and find out a bit about the two women, "stunned" to discover their ages: "thought you were only about thirty," Pete commented.
The group chatted through the evening, the guys keeping Jean and Debbie in drinks. They were friendly, but they were also rugby players, and the evening had its "bawdier" moments. Rugby was always a game that could produce a lot of innuendo! At one stage Jean said she didn't really understand rugby. One of the guys cracked the old joke: "Rugby is a game played by men with funny shaped balls!" He made Jean giggle and blush when he looked straight at her and asked her: "would you like to play with our funny shaped balls?"
They continued to chat, and Jean remembered Debbie saying "aren't there things called rucks and mauls in rugby. Remember my boyfriend saying he wouldn't like to be under that ruck. What was he talking about?"
Miles had smiled, and tried to explain the difference between a ruck and a maul. It was the guy called Pete who had said "bet you two would enjoy a good mauling, or even a good rucking!" It was said with a huge wink. Jean had gone bright red again, Debbie had replied back that she would never go on a rugby pitch for that sort of treatment.
The conversation had continued, and they worked out what positions some of the men played in. It was Jean who asked the question "so what's the most important player in the team?"
It had sparked a bit of a debate, but it was Tony who said: "I think the most important thing a club needs is a couple of good hookers. He then peered straight at Jean, then Debbie. "Will you be our hookers for the night?"
It was Debbie who responded quickest. " Hookers? You couldn't afford us!"
There was a pause. Debbie had realised – as had Jean, that her response had opened a door. It was Miles, the best man, who spoke. "We'll all put in twenty quid each if you'll come up to our hotel room."
Jean was dumbfounded. Indignant. "We are not like that. We are not hookers, prostitutes. How dare you?"
