Operation Pink Freedom: A narrow celebrity escape

As any reader of the celebrity mags would know, there were two hunks vying for the affections of Metropole soap star Gillian Bogle. In a choice women have been faced with since the oldest times, Gill found herself torn between a bad boy and squeaky-clean smoothie.
There was her rugged, recently arrested leading man, Wiaan Nortje, with his puffy face, brandified body odour and easy wit. Then there was clean-cut Kyknet presenter Chad Wilkins with his chiselled cheekbones and gymnast’s physique, sadly offset by the fact that he had the sense of humour of a gym locker.
And as fate would have it, they were both in the queue at Taboo tonight, which presented problems for Gillian Bogle. The only one who seemed to notice this was Butch Varnes, head bouncer on the cooking Friday night where all three had somehow found their way to Taboo.
It was a time for diplomacy.
Butch left the queue and popped back to the VIP section, where Gillian was having her third cosmopolitan of the evening. “Evening, Ms Bogle,” the bouncer’s headset always made him more formal. “We’ve got Mr Nortje and Mr Wilkins in the queue outside. Should I show them through to your table?”
Gillian did a double-take and promptly spilt her cosmopolitan’s sticky pinkness all down the front of her top. Butch couldn’t have known that she’d spent the night with Chad that very Wednesday. And had spent a torrid hour in a parked car with Wiaan two weeks previously. Now was not the time to meet the two of them together.
To compound the difficulty, there was a heat photographer patrolling the club, looking for any signs of celebrity romance. “Who’s with who” is their most popular game, closely followed by “Find the drunk celeb with booze spilt down herself”.
She didn’t need this now. It was time to get out.
“Help me, Butch. I need to get out of here. I can’t be seen with either of those men. And now I’ve spilt booze all over myself and I look like hell. Please can you make a plan?”
Butch thought for a good minute, then hatched a cunning plan and set to work.
He walked up to Fanie Moses, the celeb lensman and tugged on his sleeve. “I got something you might be interested in, bru.”
“Sure. What’s up?”
“Just go stand at the door. You’ll see.”
Butch returned to his station at the door just in time for Wiaan Nortje to make it to the front of the queue. “Howzit, man,” he winked at the beefy bouncer.
Butch did not return his warm greeting. “Sorry sir. No jeans.”
“What do you mean? Come on, man. I was wearing this last week and you let me in fine…”
Butch put his large right hand on Wiaan’s shoulder. “I’m sorry sir. We’re tightening up on admission policy. I can’t let you in dressed like that.”
“Are you kidding me?” Wiaan raised his voice. “These jeans cost a grand and a half!”
Ten places further back in the queue, Chad Wilkins noticed the commotion and came to see if he could help out.
“Evening gents, I know this guy. Is there a problem?
“This oke won’t let me in!” said Wiaan.
“Sir! This is not your problem,” urged Butch. “Please don’t get involved.”
He placed a restraining hand on both the TV stars, and Fanie the photographer began shooting.
“Hey!” The two TV guys immediately chorused. “Stop taking photos!”
This was like a red rag to a bull, and Fanie’s lens only clicked faster.
As Wiaan and Chad fought to get at the lensman, Butch began gently ushering the group outside.
“Sorry gents. Not tonight.” Butch had had enough. “Allow me to escort you out to the parking lot.”
With his best gentle-giant demeanour, he saw the irate duo out to their cars, as Fanie merrily earned his evening’s wages.
Somewhere behind the paparazzo’s right shoulder, a short woman in a pink-stained top could be discerned scurrying out of the nightclub and making a short left for the underground parking lot.
As she dug in her handbag for her keys and her parking ticket she thought to herself, “Good work, Butch, I owe you one.”
And then later, as she started her Z3 and moved off, “And not bad skills either, man. You can act, boy. I may have underestimated you.”