by Jo Carnegie
This time it was Harriet, brandishing a bottle of wine and a beautiful bunch of flowers. ‘Oh Hats, they’re beautiful,’ said Camilla, taking them. ‘Thank you!’
‘They’re off the estate, actually,’ said Harriet grinning. ‘I went and picked them this arvo; at least that flower-arranging course I went on taught me something!’ She shrugged off her coat to reveal a plunging red dress which showed off an enormous, milky white cleavage. Harriet had obviously tried to tame her frizzy hair and failed, as it was now scraped back in an unflattering bun with bits sticking out everywhere. The whole effect was a rather unnerving blend of Dolly Parton meets Worzel Gummidge.
‘Golly, Hats!’ giggled Camilla, staring down at her friend’s décolletage. ‘Where did they come from?’
Harriet looked anxious. ‘It’s too much, isn’t it? I’ve been standing in front of the mirror for hours. Mummy bought it for me; she said I have to stop dressing like an old maid. I don’t think it looked as revealing as this on the hanger, though.’
‘It’s fine! You look great,’ said Camilla, stretching the truth for the second time that night. ‘Come on, let’s get you a drink.’
A few minutes later, the doorbell rang again, and this time the door was nearly knocked down as someone hammered on it. Camilla ran to open it and was confronted by Angus, dressed in black tie, a Santa Claus hat incongruously perched on his huge head. Flanking him were two equally enormous men. One was dressed in full drag, complete with blonde wig and fishnet stockings, and the other was dressed as a giant fairy with wings, a wand and a pink tutu. They looked like clones of Angus, with their big meaty bodies and ruddy red cheeks, except the one on the left had a huge, Desperate-Dan-style chin, and the fairy on the right was sporting an inane, gap-toothed smile. Camilla’s heart sank.
‘Hello, you foxy filly!’ boomed Angus, clapping a hand around the men either side of him. ‘You’ve met Sniffer,’ he said, cocking his head to the one dressed in drag. ‘And this is Horse.’ The hulk of a man next to him flashed his gap-toothed smile and curtsied in his tutu.
‘Angus, it’s not fancy dress,’ said Camilla faintly, as they all thundered in, filling the narrow corridor completely.
‘Yah, I know,’ said Angus. ‘But me and the chaps thought it would be jolly good fun; keep you ladies entertained all night!’
‘If you know what we mean,’ leered Sniffer, looming over her. Camilla pretended she didn’t, and wondered just what Angus had been saying to his friends about her.
It was too late to do anything. Camilla stood aside helplessly and watched them barrel into the living room. Cool as a cucumber, Calypso lit her cigarette and looked at them.
‘Didn’t know there was a dress code, lads.’
‘Yah, we decided things needed livening up a bit,’ boomed Sniffer, his eyes travelling up and down her endless legs. He took in the make-up and earrings. ‘Are you a pop star or something?’
Calypso ignored him and took a drag.
‘So!’ said Camilla brightly. ‘Let me introduce everyone. Caro, this is er, Sniffer and Horse. Guys, this is my sister Caro, and that,’ she indicated Calypso, ‘is our younger sister, Calypso.’
Horse bared his substantial teeth in what Camilla took to be an inviting smile. ‘Yah, well I can see good looks run in the family. I do have a liking for sisters.’ Sniffer elbowed him conspicuously, and they fell about laughing.
Camilla ploughed on. ‘This is my best friend, Harriet Fraser.’ All three of them rounded on Harriet, who until that point had been trying to shrink unobtrusively into the armchair in the corner of the room.
‘Mamma mia!’ said Sniffer, looking down into the acres of cleavage.
‘You don’t get many of those to the pound,’ chortled Horse. Harriet went bright red and put a cushion over her chest. Angus, sharply prodded by a furious Camilla, realized his friends might have gone slightly too far. ‘Come on, you two, leave the poor girl alone. What’s a chap got to do for a drink around here, anyway?’
‘So why are you called Horse?’ asked Calypso sarcastically.
A smug smile spread across Horse’s face and he gestured down to his crotch. ‘Can’t you guess, gorgeous?’
‘Urgh!’
Sniffer stepped in. ‘Stop lying, Horseman! Your name has got nothing to do with how big your dick is,’ he said. Horse’s red cheeks paled slightly.
‘No?’ asked Calypso, leaning forward and showing her first spark of interest so far. ‘Why’s he really called Horse, then?’
Angus guffawed. ‘Because he used to have huge front teeth at prep school!’ He turned to Horse. ‘Isn’t that right, you goofy twat?’
Angus and Sniffer roared with laughter, while Horse looked thoroughly put out. ‘Leave it out, you bastards,’ he said petulantly. ‘I had to wear a brace, so what?’
His friends roared with laughter again. Just then the doorbell rang. Camilla looked at the clock on the wall; it read 8.08 p.m.
Calypso’s eyes lit up. ‘Sam!’ she exclaimed, and ran out of the room.
‘Who’s Sam?’ boomed Angus.
‘Sam is Calypso’s new boyfriend, and Angus, you must behave around him!’ implored Camilla. ‘Don’t challenge him to arm-wrestle you or anything! Calypso is frightfully keen on him.’
Angus gave Sniffer and Horse a knowing look. ‘As if we would.’ They turned to face the door of the living room like everyone else, awaiting the new arrival.
Camilla could hear Calypso giggling coquettishly in the hall. Suddenly she appeared in the doorway, looking flushed and excited. ‘Everybody, I’d like you to meet my lover, Sam!’ she announced and pulled Sam in next to her. There was utter silence in the room, and then Camilla, as if in slow motion, dropped the glass she was holding.
‘Bugger me!’ exclaimed Angus, open-mouthed. Even with the short spiky hair and oversized man’s shirt and jeans, there was no disguising the swell of breasts or the vaguely feminine face.
Sam was a she, not a he.
After an excruciating twenty seconds, Camilla realized how rude she must look, and managed to stop staring. Beside her Angus was making no such pretence; he was looking rather like a goggle-eyed fish as he gaped at the muscular, squat build, the multiple body-piercing and the leather dog-collar. For her part, Sam seemed remarkably unfazed by the reception, surveying the room with amused contempt.
‘Sam, hi!’ Camilla trilled in what sounded to her like an unnaturally high voice. ‘I’m Camilla, Calypso’s sister and this is Caro, our other sister . . .’ She turned beseechingly to Caro, who looked like a rabbit caught in headlights.
‘Hi!’
‘I know who you are,’ replied Sam in a gruff, cockney accent. ‘Cal’s told me all about you.’
Cal? thought Camilla. Dear God, had her sister been leading a double life? She managed to carry on with the introductions: ‘This is my dear friend Harriet, and my boyfriend Angus, and his friends Sniffer and Horse . . .’
‘Are you a lezzer now, then?’ Angus asked Calypso.
She gave him a scathing look. ‘Sam and I don’t define sexuality; we’re lovers and partners.’
‘Look like a pair of rug-munchers to me!’ said Angus cheerfully, helping himself to another drink.
‘Angus!’ hissed Camilla. Sam scowled at him. ‘Oh, it doesn’t bother me,’ said Angus. ‘As long as you promise to put on a girlie show later. Haw haw haw!’
‘He’s only joking,’ Camilla said quickly, as Sam looked ready to throw the iron door stop at his head. ‘Don’t mind Angus, he’s just got, er, a very peculiar sense of humour.’
Sam looked slightly pacified until Horse said in a stage-whisper to Angus, ‘Are you sure it’s a woman? It’s got a bigger neck than I have!’
‘Champers time!’ announced Camilla brightly.
A few hours later everyone had relaxed visibly. In fact, they were all so drunk they wouldn’t have noticed if the lemon meringue had come to life and started breathing. After several bottles of Bollinger, the eight of them had worked their way thr
ough copious amounts of an obscenely expensive red Angus had found in his wine cellar at home. They were now on extremely alcoholic Irish coffees, remnants of Brie and Camembert melting and oozing on a cheese board in the middle of the table.
Caro was having her glass refilled by Sniffer for the umpteenth time and telling him she hadn’t had a shag in ages. ‘With my huzzband of course,’ she said unsteadily. ‘I’m not slutting it around. Babies, you know, once you have them you get all fat and your sex life goes up the sprout.’ She slapped a hand to her forehead. ‘I mean spout.’
Sniffer, sensing a damsel-in-distress situation, leaned in. ‘You look pretty sexy to me, Mrs Belmont.’ He tried to blow cigar smoke out of his mouth seductively, no easy feat when you’re six foot four and dressed like an extra from The Rocky Horror Show.
‘But you are pleased you’ve got Milo, aren’t you?’ interrupted Camilla. She had been eavesdropping on the exchange, and even through her haze of alcohol could sense something was definitely not right with her sister. But Caro was already talking wistfully about the days when she could fit easily into her size-ten jeans. Sniffer had leaned in even further, and Camilla resolved to switch to water and keep an eye on them. She didn’t want that awful lech taking advantage. Sebastian did that enough already. Although Camilla had never been openly rude to her brother-in-law, she didn’t hold a very high opinion of him in private. She’d seen the change in Caro. But every time she’d tried to talk to her about it, Caro had suddenly changed the subject. However her sister was feeling at the moment, she clearly didn’t want to talk about it when she was sober.
On the other side of the table, Calypso was happily telling Harriet how she and Sam had got together. Sam was leaning back listening, one arm laid possessively around Calypso’s shoulders. ‘Yah, we met at this club in Brighton. I was like, going out with Henry at the time, but he was rah-ly doing my head in. Anyway, when my friend Lizzie decided we should go to this gay club because, like, it would be a total laugh, I totally said yes! As soon as I walked in, I saw Sam, and that was it, really.’
‘Yeah, I always hang round the entrance to corrupt new innocents,’ said Sam in her gruff voice. She smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes, and Harriet wondered if she was joking. She suddenly felt very depressed. Here she was at thirty, and still with her bloody hymen intact, while Camilla’s bloody younger sister had moved on to women! Where was she going wrong?
Harriet stood up to go to the loo, lurched and fell straight in Horse’s lap. She realized she was absolutely plastered. ‘Scuse me,’ she slurred as she stumbled past him. His hands were suddenly on her bottom, ‘helping’ her past.
When she got to the loo, Harriet stared at herself in the mirror. A wild-haired, mascara-smudged woman, with a chest barely contained within her flimsy dress, stared back. She pulled down her tights and sat heavily on the toilet. ‘My love life’s a messh,’ she murmured drunkenly.
When Harriet returned to the dining room about fifteen minutes later, after dropping her lipstick down the toilet, a fuggy, pungent haze hung over the table. Calypso was inhaling an enormous spliff, which she passed to Sam. Caro had passed out, her head on the table. Harriet sat down again.
‘I say, anyone fancy an E?’ said Horse suddenly. He produced a small packet of Ecstasy from inside his tutu and waved it around in front of them. ‘I got them off Dodgy Dave in town earlier.’
‘I’ll just stick to this, tonight,’ said Calypso, drawing on the joint. ‘I’m trying to cut back on my narcotic intake.’ Sam nodded assent. Camilla tried not to look shocked – she thought her sister only smoked joints. Angus went to say yes, but Camilla shot him one of her rare steely looks. He was wrecked enough already.
‘No, old boy, thanks anyway.’
At the other end of the table, Sniffer had passed out next to Caro, face down in his third helping of lemon meringue.
That left Harriet. Horse turned to her. ‘What do you say, foxy?’ He pressed his considerable thigh against hers under the table.
Maybe it was because she was drunk. Maybe it was because of talking to Calypso and Sam earlier. Maybe it was because she was already stoned from passively inhaling smoke from the joint, but something inside Harriet snapped. She was tired of being boring, safe Harriet. She wanted to live a little. ‘Go on, then,’ she said.
‘Hats, I don’t think that’s a good idea—’ Camilla started, but Horse leaned over and put one arm round Harriet.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll only let her have a little bit, she’s in safe hands, I promise.’ He guffawed and Harriet felt one of those safe hands creep round and squeeze her boob. Something inside her stirred slightly as she watched Horse fish a small pill out of the packet and cut it up clumsily with one of Camilla’s cheese knives.
Horse gave a little bit of the pill to her and kept a bit for himself. He picked up his glass of wine and Harriet did the same. ‘Here’s to getting totally trashed. One, two, three!’
Thirty minutes passed. Harriet still felt drunk, but not really any different. Conversation had resumed around the table. Calypso was now telling a story about the time a millionaire businessman had offered two thousand camels for her when she was working as a promotions girl in Annabel’s nightclub. ‘Like, I’m worth so many more than that!’ she joked indignantly. By now it was two in the morning and everything was slowly winding down. Camilla was snuggled into Angus’s broad shoulders, Calypso into Sam’s even broader ones. Sniffer and Caro were still conked out, heads down side by side on the table.
The smoke from the joint had been making Harriet feel drowsy to the point where she thought she might drop off. Then suddenly – or was it gradually? – every part of her body started to wake up. She stopped eyeing up a remaining chocolate as a feeling of energy rushed through her body, eradicating her appetite. Her head and neck started tingling, as though she had been given a very pleasant electric shock.
Harriet looked round the table; everyone looked the same but somehow so different. Shinier, happier, more alive. Her senses were sharpened, colours more vivid, conversations louder. Harriet smiled to herself as a feeling of warmth and elation tucked itself around her. God, she loved these people, this room, this life!
‘Hats, are you OK?’ Camilla’s voice seemed a million miles away, but it brought her face back into focus. ‘Your eyes look like saucers!’
‘I’m cool,’ sighed Harriet happily. ‘Everything’s cool. Live life!’
‘Er, OK,’ replied Camilla. ‘Look, I’m awfully tired and Angus is about to pass out. You will be all right if we go to bed? Horse, you had better look after her!’ She turned to him, but he was gazing in happy fascination at a watercolour of a hunting scene on the wall.
‘The colours . . .’ he said in wonder. ‘It’s, it’s . . . like something out of Joseph and his Techno Dreamcoat.’
‘I think you mean Technicolor, you bloody pill-head,’ said Calypso, who had managed to hold herself together remarkably well throughout the evening. ‘Don’t worry, sis, I’ll keep an eye on them.’
It was only when Calypso interrupted Harriet’s monologue – about why Howard was the sexiest member of Take That – to say she and Sam were going to bed, that Harriet realized she had been talking non-stop for two hours.
‘Are you going to be OK, Hats?’ asked Calypso kindly.
‘Drink loads of orange juice when you start to come down,’ was Sam’s gruff instruction. Then Calypso and Sam left them there, Horse still staring in wonder at the watercolour, Harriet just sitting, pulsing with new-found confidence and energy.
Finally Horse dragged his eyes away and focused them on Harriet. They glittered sexily, and Harriet was suddenly struck by how good-looking he was: like a younger Colin Firth. Horse, in turn, seemed mesmerized by her chest. It was practically hanging out now; Harriet had stopped tugging her dress up long ago.
‘You’re . . . stunning!’ Horse said in wonder, coming over and running his hand through her hair. ‘Your hair, it’s like a beautiful Brillo Pad.’
‘And I love your teeth, they’re so big and white . . .’ breathed Harriet, looking up at him.
‘All the better to eat you with,’ said Horse lasciviously. He leaned down and stuck his tongue down her throat.
Any sober, innocent bystander would have seen this for what it was: a slobbering, wet and disgusting tongue sandwich. But to Harriet, her senses crying out in a chemical haze, having Horse’s tongue thrust around her mouth was the most erotic experience ever. The last person she’d French-kissed was a nineteen-year-old viscount at a black tie two years ago. That had been a disaster, but somehow this was so different; she felt so uninhibited.
After a few minutes, they were groping each other like randy octopuses. Horse raised his tutu to reveal white M&S underpants. He dragged them off, pulled Harriet’s dress down so her breasts were completely exposed, and started rubbing his erect manhood up and down between them. Harriet looked down at the purple, knobbly member that bent like a banana to the left, and thought it was the most exquisite thing she had ever seen in her life.
‘Fancy riding my knob, little lady?’ whispered Horse in her ear. Through her drug-enhanced mood, Harriet was still aware that normally she wouldn’t have put herself in this position in a million years. But this wasn’t normal. And she was tired of waiting for Prince Charming to come and whisk her off to be deflowered in a grassy meadow somewhere. She just needed to grab the bull by his horniness and get on with it. She wanted it.
Harriet led Horse into the living room and lay back on the sofa. ‘Have you got something?’ she whispered, feeling like she was reading the script of a teen drama. Horse smiled and retrieved his wallet from under the tutu, pulling out a square silver package. Before he put it on, he rubbed Harriet’s clitoris the way one might rub a horse’s nose affectionately (‘Was that why he was really called Horse?’ wondered Harriet fleetingly).
Horse crudely stuck his fingers up her, and Harriet winced. ‘Christ, you’re tight! Are you a virgin?’ he asked.
