Girl's Night Out

“Wooooooooooooooooooo! Tequila!”

Anne grimaced internally as Mandy staggered to the table with a sticky plastic tray. She dutifully licked salt off her hand, knocked back the shot of tequila and bit into the limp, dry bit of lemon.

Anne was thirty five, and so were all her school friends. This was the eighth hen night in eighteen months and Anne was getting sick of it all. There had been an expensive jaunt to Amsterdam, several spa days, a seventies night, an Arabian Nights night and a school disco night. At least tonight didn’t have a theme, or if it did it was liver damage and despair. With fortieth birthdays now visible on the collective horizon, the “Pink Ladies” as the group had called themselves since the school performance of Grease in the fifth form, were grimly determined to prove they could still party like it was 1999. Drinks in Wakefield then taxi to Leeds ot party on into the small hours.

“Do you want some money?” shouted Jenny over the music.

“It’s OK, you got the sambucas.” shouted Mandy.

They were in the “VIP” bar of a local nite spot. Twenty years ago when they had first started drinking there on fake IDs it had been called Cinderella’s. The it had been Spice!, then The Cyber B@r, then it had shut down for a few years for Health and Safety violations before reopening as Don Juan’s and then relaunching as Tygerbright. It still had the original carpets though. As well as Anne, Mandy and Jenny, there was the Bride to Be, Sharon, who hadn’t said anything since twenty minutes ago when she had announced that she could no longer feel her face.

“Your round, Anne.” shouted Mandy.

“Shall I get Shaz a coke, she looks like she could do with a break from the hard stuff?” shouted Anne, looking at Sharon who was leaning at an alarming angle, gripping the table, her shocking pink polyester veil trailing in the jug that had once held four pints of mojitos.

“Nah. She’s fine!”

“What do you want, Jen?” Jenny was staring at the screen of her smartphone.

“What? Sorry, just checking with Steve that the kids got to sleep OK. Erm, whatever. Vodka and something?”

Anne crossed the sticky carpet to the bar and ordered two vodka and cokes, two cokes and one shot of vodka. She dipped her finger into the vodka and carefully wet the top of one of the glasses of coke with it, before pouring the rest into the other coke. “The perfect crime” she thought to herself, sucking the excess vodka off her fingers. As she did so, a man approached the bar.

“Alright, mate. Stripper.” he said to the barman.

“Get changed in the disabled loo.” said the barman, gesturing over to a door in the corner.

“Stripper?” asked Anne.

“Your friend set it up.” he said, gesturing at Mandy, who was blowing up a large, inflatable penis.

Anne returned to her friends and put the tray of drinks on the table, handing the unvodka’d one to Sharon who held it unsteadily. Mandy sniffed it suspiciously but seemed satisfied it was intoxicating.

“Mandy, did you get a stripper?” Asked Anne. “We all said we didn’t want one.”

“Lighten up, it’ll be fun, won’t it Shaz?” said Mandy, nudging Sharon who began to keel over to the other side, before being righted by Jenny. “Oooh, look, bubbly!”

The barman cleared some of the empty shot glasses from the table and placed an ice bucket with a bottle of Lambrini in on the table. Mandy poured four glasses.

“I’m not sure about the stripper, Mandy” said Jenny, barely audible over the noise of the club. “It doesn’t feel right, Steve at home looking after the boys and I’m looking at… a man… undressing.”

“Well it’s not about you two, is it?” Mandy crossed her arms defensively. “It’s Shaz’s night and I’m chief bridesmaid and I organised it, so that’s that. God, you two have become a right pair of stuck up bitches.”

Anne opened her mouth to respond, but thought better of it and took a swig of the vodka and coke. She couldn’t quite put her finger on why she didn’t want to see a stripper. It wasn’t the nudity that offended her, from the brief glance she had had of the stripper at the bar it wouldn’t be a chore to see him with his clothes off. It wasn’t even the exchange of cash. There was just something grubby about the whole situation. But before she had time to think about it any more the stripper emerged from the disabled toilet.

Anne needed a strategy. She couldn’t not look at him, that would be impolite. She looked in his general direction, trying to stare into the middle-distance. But her eyes rebelled and focussed on the man, who was unbuttoning a crisp white shirt while dancing suggestively to the music. The shirt fell to the floor and Anne tried to exude the correct amount of indifference as her eyes wandered over his chiseled, oiled torso. He moved closer. Anne panicked. She wanted to look anywhere but at the gyrating crotch in front of her, and so she made the worst choice possible. She looked up into the stripper’s eyes. He was young, early twenties, and his brown eyes were filled with fear, his brows knitted determinedly.

He took a step back and grabbed the waistband of his trousers. He pulled hard. Nothing happened. He pulled again, harder. Still nothing happened. With an expression of terror on his face, he ran back to the disabled loo.

Mandy stood up to follow him, hands on hips, swaying slightly.

“Sit down, Mandy, I’ll sort this.” said Anne. As Anne stood up she realised she wasn’t as sober as she’d hoped, but was probably still the soberest of the four by a long chalk. She picked up the shirt from the floor and walked over to the disabled toilet. She knocked on the door, hard, then pulled the handle. It wasn’t locked. Anne walked in. The stripper was leaning against the sink, his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry. I’m really sorry.” he said. “It’s the trousers. They wouldn’t come off and I panicked. It’s my first time.”

“Don’t worry about it. Here, here’s your shirt.”

“I guess I won’t get paid, seen as I didn’t finish the job. I thought it’d be easy, it’s easy enough in front of the mirror at home. But in front of real women...”

“Let me talk to the girls, we’ll sort something out.”

“Really? That would be great. It’s just that the rent’s due next week and…” He looked at her hopefully. Anne smiled and squeezed his bare shoulder. “Be careful, I’m a bit oily.” he said.

“Do you not have a… day job?”

“Not anymore. I worked at the little Tesco on Westgate but I’ve been replaced by a self-scan machine.” He pulled the shirt on, buttoning it up as deftly as he had unbuttoned it earlier. “There’s not a lot else I can do that fits in with college.”

“What are you studying?”

“Landscape gardening.”

“Could you do a bit of freelance work? I know my front patch is in need of attention. I’ll give you my number, if you want. You can come out and give me a quote.”

“That’s really kind.”

“Put some clothes on and go have a drink at the bar. Put it on our tab. I’ll sort things out.”

Anne returned to the other Pink Ladies. Jenny was trying to talk on the phone, with a finger in one ear to block out the sound of the dance music. Sharon was attempting to drink a glass of Lambrini, but kept missing her mouth.

“How much did you say you’d pay him, Mandy?” asked Anne.

“Hundred quid. But I’m not paying him, not after that. Didn’t get to see owt.”

“Come on Mandy. It’s only twenty five quid each. The poor lad tried his best.”

“I’m not paying, and neither is Sharon, are you, Shazza love?” Sharon shook her head. She didn’t look at all well.

“Jenny?” Jenny held her hand up, she was still talking on the phone.

Anne walked over to the bar where the stripper was drinking a pint of lager. She opened her purse and handed over everything but a tenner.

“There’s fifty. Sorry it’s not more.”

“Thank you.”

Jenny came wobbling up. “I’ve got to go. Little Benny’s had a night terror and Steve can’t get him back to sleep.” she opened her handbag and handed the stripper two twenty pound notes. “There you are. Um, thank you. Sorry about everything.”

“So much for partying all night,” said Anne. “Doesn’t look like the bride to be’s going to last much longer.”

Anne and the stripper looked over just in time to see a plume of vomit emerge from Sharon’s lips. Most of it landed in the mojito jug. A bouncer appeared from nowhere. “Get her out. Now.”

Mandy was holding her hand over her own mouth and looked ready to throw up herself. Anne looked over at the stripper. “You couldn’t give me a hand getting them out, could you?”

Anne and the stripper each took one of Sharon’s arms and half carried, half dragged her out into the cool night air. Mandy stumbled down the stairs and threw up in a bin on the street. Anne shepherded them into a taxi, giving the driver Mandy’s address. As they watched the cab pull away, Sharon and Mandy each hanging their heads out of the passenger windows, the stripper asked Anne “Not going with them?”

“No, I live the other side of town.” Said Anne, waving down another taxi.

“I don’t mean to be pushy, but you mentioned giving me your number?”

Anne smiled and passed him a business card from her wallet. “Sure, call me tomorrow. You okay to get home?”

“I’m fine, I can walk it.”

Anne got into a taxi and gave the driver her address. She waved at the stripper and realised she hadn’t asked his name. She took off her shoes and rubbed her feet. “I really hope he calls.” She thought to herself.