The black tie ball on Sugar Beach culminated rapidly after the DJ’s system went on the blink, the silence creating an instant vacuum.

Jeremy and Liv capitalised on the confused moment making a furtive escape to the grassy dunes. In their private swale, the charging sound of the breakers and the gabble of the crowd was muffled. Urgent intimacy ensued, not without an awkward muddle of dress studs, cummerbund clips and some uncomfortable delays searching for concealed gown zips. Moments later, a horse’s whinny shattered the moment, causing great alarm for the canoodling couple, leaving them clutching at their threads, hair ruffled in the moonlight.

“Ahh whoops! Sooorreeeeeee!” Said the horse, ruefully. Liv shrieked leaping backwards as Jeremy started to hyperventilate. 

The horse continued “I was just trying to find somewhere to lie down, didn’t mean to burst in, sorry guys, eeek!”. 

“You talk!” Said Jeremy, Liv remained struck with tonic immobility.

“Ahh yeah?” Said the horse, like it was normal. “Like I was saying, I just wanted to crash for a minute. You people think carrying a 160kg bloke five hundred meters over sand is okay?”. (Horses were employed to ferry guests between the ranch and the party on the beach).

“Anyway, I’ll go find another swale and leave you guys to, ah, ya know…” the horse whistled ‘whii-whoo’ while trying to make a finger-in-hole gesture, albeit less intelligible with cloven hooves. 

“Wait!” Said Liv, “…you didn’t umm see anything did you?” Gesturing downwardly at herself.

“Why do you care lady, I’m just a horse after-all, right?”

Liv paused, arrested with compunction. 

“Well you’re not just any horse it appears” remarked Jeremy.

“That’s what my mother used to say to me” mused the horse reflectively, while sitting himself down on his haunches, front legs rested on his crossed hind legs, “…but then I ended up carting folks like you around. But hey, I guess it isn’t Waterloo right! Or ‘Watergloo’ as us equines call it…. Which reminds me, did you see Napolean by the way? Ridley Scott? What did you think? Jeez I couldn’t watch, I had to put the ol’ blinkers on… ” exclaimed the horse with a chilled and shuddering whinny.

“Yeah I thought it was okay only” said Jeremy, now composed re-tying his bowtie “…a little academic I think, Kubrick would have done it better”

“My thoughts exactly” said the horse.

“Though I thought Vanessa Kirby was great” added Liv.

“Yeah that’s fair” said the horse. “Anyway!..” slapping his hooves on his thighs “…you guys wanna ride back to the party?”