The rest of the week was a fairly typical mix of small family parties, mostly in back yards or occasionally at churches or village halls, corporate events and assessment sessions. The only real difference to Mollie from any other working week was that she started following the diet recommendations in the pamphlet the company offered to people they were going to cook – plenty of meat, dairy and vegetables, avoiding too many carbs, other sugars and processed foods and drinking a lot of fruit and vegetable blended smoothies. There was no strict rule about this, simply guidance, but Mollie had her professional pride to consider and wanted to be as delicious as she possibly could be, feeling that anything less might reflect poorly on the company.

Since the party on Saturday was to start early with the food being served for lunch rather than dinner, Mollie liaised with the client, Mrs O’Sullivan, to get access to the venue for setting up on Friday afternoon. Lydia, Doug and Cole came with her in her car while the large-scale equipment was transported by courier truck. The venue was a cricket club that Mrs O’Sullivan’s late husband had been a member of and she had always been an active part of the community there, serving on the committee and getting stuck in to all the fundraising events so they had been more than happy to allow her to book the venue for her party. They could not set up on the pitch itself, of course, but the club also had an expansive lawn which was perfect for social gatherings and of course the clubhouse was there to provide facilities such as kitchen and toilets as well as somewhere to shelter if the weather should turn unexpectedly.

When the caterers arrived, still in their casual uniforms, Mrs O’Sullivan and her four granddaughters were there to meet them. The little ones rushed to hug Mollie and Lydia while Natasha and Selena looked a little disappointed that they did not bring Carl with them this time. After giving a quick tour and handing them a set of keys, Mrs O’Sullivan explained that she would be taking the younger three to a movie but that Natasha wanted to stay to help them set up as she would be an unofficial member of their team on the day, and that they would be back after the movie so the girls could see the set-up. Mollie confirmed that she was happy with this and a few minutes later they were all hard at work setting up the “Cannibal Village” for the next day’s party. Careful to be as non-invasive as they could, the poles were secured with pegs in their bases rather than being sunk into the ground and the patches of turf removed for Lydia’s live buffet and Carl’s roasting pit were stacked carefully by the back wall of the club-house where they would be safe.

Despite not being a regular member of their team, Natasha was a great help and got stuck in as much as anyone, her behaviour reassuring Mollie that she would do a good job of supervising her sister’s flogging the next day. When the rest of the family returned, they were all hyped up from a mixture of sugar, the movie and the excitement of seeing the place where they would be cooking. Mollie gave them a full tour and reminded them how each piece of equipment worked then reminded them to only wear loose clothing, if anything at all, for the rest of the day once they got home and to try to get a good night’s rest, with the same advice going for Natasha.

“Are you bringing the costumes in the morning?” the young teen asked as they were getting ready to leave.

“Yes,” Mollie promised her, “just come in a light dress or something. A night-shirt even, and I’ll bring your uniform and the accessories for the others. We’ll be arriving in ours.” After some final confirmatory discussion with Mrs O’Sullivan and more hugs for the girls, Mollie and her team headed back to the car.

The next morning, bright and early, Mollie drove to work in only her dressing gown, relaxed about her own nudity but not quite so relaxed as Marcia and Jessica and not especially wanting to cause any sort of traffic accident by distracting other drivers! On the back seat she had a shopping bag of regular clothes in case she wanted to go anywhere after work but, much like Megan’s Sidney party, this would be a shift she was working in little more than her birthday suit and honestly, given the weather forecast, she was quite grateful for this fact!

Unsurprisingly, she was the first one there and left the door unlocked, making sure to wedge open the inner door which led from Reception into the main corridor so that she would hear the buzzer when anyone else arrived. With nothing specific to do until Carl arrived to be prepped, Mollie made herself a coffee and sat at her desk, opening up her emails and checking for anything that needed to be actioned immediately. She had already started the process for passing on new clients to the other senior caterers, hating the thought of going to the spit leaving someone’s party unplanned. That would just be the worst, she thought to herself as she forwarded a couple of booking requests to her colleagues, to be already fully spitted and turned over to coals only to remember that you promised to get back to someone and never did, with no possible way to let anyone know! On her last day, before heading out to the party, she would set up an “Out of Office” message and auto-forwarding until her account to run until her account was deleted but for now she was doing most of the reallocation by hand, only taking on simple, fast jobs and dealing with meat applications.

Half way through her coffee, she heard the door ping as it opened and was about to get up to see who was there until Lydia shouted that it was just her. Although on the menu for the party herself, like Mollie with Courtney’s party, Lydia was technically listed as part of the catering team and would receive a full day’s salary which would be included in the amount sent to her parents, along with the purchase fee for her meat of course!

“Need a coffee or anything?” she asked, leaning on the frame of the open office door and peering in to ask Mollie, dressed in a long T-shirt which looked like it was normally something she wore to bed.

“I’m okay, thanks!” Mollie smiled, raising her half-full mug. “But thank you.”

“No worries.” Lydia smiled airily. “I think I’m gonna work on my tan outside for a bit. Let me know if you need me!”

“Will do!” Mollie chuckled, knowing that prepping Carl would be the only real work that needed doing that morning before they headed out and she was more than capable of doing that on her own. Arriving together since they came on the same bus, chatting and laughing as they let themselves in, Doug and Cole followed about twenty minutes later, just as Mollie was starting to think another coffee might be a good idea after all. She sent her reply to the mother of an eight year old girl who was keen to sign up, inviting her to come for an assessment after school on Tuesday, then took her mug to the staff kitchen where she was not surprised to find the boys peering not too discretely out the window at Lydia who was laying out, happily browning her birthday suit, on one of the picnic tables. “Tongues back in your mouth, boys!” she teased, playfully elbowing Cole out of the way of the sink. “You can get a proper taste later. Unless, of course, there’s too many guests and I decide to invoke emergency protocol seven seven two!” She made brief, knowing eye-contact with Doug and winked. There was no such protocol, of course, but Cole was still new enough to not be entirely sure she was making it up when she claimed the small-print in his contact allowed him to be conscripted as additional meat should she decide it was necessary.

“Why us?” Cole asked, a little defensively and almost convinced that the whole thing was a joke but not quite confident enough to dismiss it out of hand. “Why couldn’t you step in?”

“Because I’m already spoken for, remember?” she reminded him sweetly as she spooned some more instant coffee granules into her mug. “Deposit paid and everything!” Cole muttered a little under his breath but soon turned his attention back to watching Lydia out the window. “Since you’re so determined to watch her anyway,” Mollie chuckled to the boys, “keep an eye on her and make sure she doesn’t burn, okay? Mrs O’Sullivan didn’t order lobster today!” Shaking her head in amusement at the boys, especially since their job entailed seeing naked women and girls pretty much every day, she took the fresh coffee back to her office. She was just getting towards the bottom of this second mug when she heard the door again. There was really only one person it could be this time so she went out to Reception and was not surprised to see Carl standing there in a pair of draw-string shorts and a T-shirt, flip-flops on his feet.

“Suddenly I feel a little over-dressed!” he greeted her with sheepish charm, looking at her dressing gown which has started to come loose around the waist. “Sorry,” he grinned at her, “I meant to say good morning!”

“Well good morning to you too, mister!” She grinned. “And if you think I’m scantily clad, wait until you see Lydia! Not that it matters anyway,” she giggled, “since none of us plan on leaving anything to the imagination today! So,” she smiled, locking the door behind him now that they were not expecting anyone else to arrive until the proper morning shift who would have keys of their own anyway, “you still up for the spit? Not too late to move things around!” This was not the breach of her personal etiquette it might have sounded like as she was not for a second suggesting he might want to change his mind about cooking, just the method.

“Oh no! That spit and I have got a date I’m eager to keep!” he assured her with a smile as she led him down the corridor to Inspection Room 3.

“Glad to hear it!” she grinned back at him. “Do you need a last pee?” she asked, pausing by the door of the toilet and pushing it open slightly. “Once get you prepped, it won’t be an option!”

“Oh…” Carl looked from her to the door and back again, his cheeks a little pink. “That might not be such a bad idea!”

“Just remember to wash your hands!” Mollie teased him playfully as the door swung closed behind him. By the time he came out, it was not Mollie who stood waiting for him but Doug.

“They’re in three,” the young man told him pleasantly, “waiting for you.” Carl nodded and gave him a quick smile of acknowledgement before heading towards the open door of the inspection room. Inside, Mollie and Lydia were waiting for him, both stark naked and Lydia’s hair wet as if she had just taken a shower.

“We thought this might make you more comfortable?” Mollie smiled. “And help get that sausage nice and ready for the Permahard! It works either way,” she explained, “but it’s so much better when you’ve already done most of the work for it! Did you shower before you came out?”

“Yes,” Carl nodded, “and I used the gel last night and this morning.”

“Good boy.” Mollie nodded, pulling out a chair and patting it. “Now, let’s have you out of those clothes and I’ll get you looking the part of an old-timey explorer!” Carl’s beard, while not exactly full, had certainly grown enough to be cut into a respectable pair of mutton-chops attached to a moustache! More relaxed with just these two than he had been with all the girls from the O’Sullivan family watching, Carl pulled off her T-shirt and put it into a plastic bag Mollie handed them then kicked off his flip-flops, picked them up and added them to the bag then finally untied the cord of his loose-fitting shorts and let them drop, proving that he had followed the instructions not to wear underwear. Although perhaps not quite yet standing to full attention, he was certainly well on the way as he took his seat. “Knees apart, please!” Mollie instructed, holding a can of shaving get in one hand and a cut-throat razor in the other.


To be continued...