‘You’ve got to keep hold of the reins,’ said Ed. ‘The minute you let her tell you what to do, mate, it’s game over.’
Ben agreed, as a girl ground her naked buttocks against his lap. ‘You’re right. I’ve got to tell her the score, starting right now. I’m not going home tonight. I’m going to spend my last night of freedom with whoever the hell I want. Like you, Ed. You’re my very best friend.’
‘Now is not the time to tell me you’re going gay, mate,’ said Ed.
‘Me? Never. Let’s have another dance,’ Ben said to the blondest of the three half-naked girls.
All that day Ben talked the talk in front of his mates. With every pint he sank, he became more vehement. He was going to wear the trousers in his marriage, make no mistake. So long as he was firm with Diana, everything would work out fine. The advantages of marriage were manifold: someone to cook for you, sex on tap . . . well, sometimes . . . Ben convinced himself that it was going to be great. Yes, he would be the boss. Marriage would calm Diana’s more neurotic tendencies and give Ben gravitas and respectability. They’d certainly be useful at work. But at half past eleven, the stag party at the lap-dancing club was joined by a surprise guest. The guys were so drunk that one of them asked her to dance. He got a slap round the head for his trouble.
‘You arsehole.’ Diana grabbed Ed by the collar and pulled him to his feet with frightening strength. ‘You told me there would be no bloody strippers.’
The lads were at a loss as to how on earth Diana had found out where they were. They had been sworn to secrecy, instructed to mutter vaguely about a pub even under torture. Not even Jerry’s wife knew where he really was and she was about to go into labour. Who was the weakest link?
Diana, who was flanked by Nicole and Nicole’s sister, Gemma, brandished her mobile phone in Ben’s face.
‘I don’t think you meant to send this to me, you moron,’ Diana spat at her fiancé.
Ben certainly hadn’t meant to send Diana anything. He had meant to send the photograph of himself straddled by three strippers to Dirk, a former workmate who now lived in Tenerife.
‘It’s his stag night,’ Ed pleaded mitigation.
‘I don’t care.’ Diana turned back to Ben. ‘You’re bloody well coming home with me now or the wedding is off,’ she said.
In front of his disbelieving friends, Ben found his last official night of freedom being cut brutally short.
Ben was still in the doghouse almost a week later. Meanwhile, Ed was very nearly banned from the wedding.
‘He’s my best man.’
‘He betrayed me. I told him no strippers. You had three naked women on your lap.’
Diana was so horrified by the thought of those bare bottoms on her fiancé’s thighs that she had refused even to let Ben put the jeans he had been wearing in the washing machine, insisting instead that he had them dry-cleaned.
‘I don’t want Ed to come within twenty feet of my house again. Not ever.’
‘It was a stag party.’
‘I don’t care. You know my feelings about it. How would you like it if I had a naked man at my hen do?’
‘I would trust you.’
‘Well, we’ve already established that I can’t even trust you when you’re supposed to be at work!’
‘Lucy has gone,’ Ben reminded her. ‘She left last month. I didn’t even go to her leaving do.’
‘I can’t believe you would even have considered it!’ Diana shrieked.
Four weeks from the wedding, the image of the ball and chain loomed larger than ever in Ben’s mind.
Chapter Forty-Two
9 April 2011
Of course, Diana’s hen do had to be as extravagant as her wedding. Not for Diana a simple night out with her friends. Nicole and her sister, Gemma, had put together the ultimate send-off for their dear friend: a whole weekend of activities centred round a luxury spa hotel near Petersfield.
Diana was delighted when she saw the itinerary (though not entirely surprised. She had given Nicole enough hints about what she wanted). There were to be facials, manicures, pedicures, not to mention a last-minute session on a Power Plate. Nicole knew exactly what a bride-to-be needed. Together with the rest of the girls, she had filled Diana’s suite with flowers and well-chosen gifts. She had even gone to the trouble of sourcing a bottle of Chanel’s hottest new colour for Diana’s nails. Diana loved it. Never mind that she had seen the same colour on Ben’s big toe when he got a fungal infection. The grey-green shade of bruise was the very latest thing. The other girls would understand how chic the colour was when it was applied to Diana’s beautifully shaped nails.
The hen party arrived at the hotel at eleven o’clock, where they were treated to morning coffee with hen-party-themed cupcakes decorated with iced pictures of Louboutins. After that, they were shown to their rooms and went their separate ways for their first treatments. Diana was having the time of her life. The hen party was one of the best bits about being the bride.
But there was a surprise on the list of activities. On the Saturday afternoon, before the girls sat down to a delicious low-cal vegetarian spa dinner, they were going to have a dance lesson.
‘It was my idea,’ said Nicole over lunch. ‘You could choose paint-your-own-pottery or a dance class. I thought that dancing would be more fun.’
‘Ben and I already had dance lessons for the reception,’ said Diana.
‘I know, but this is a dance lesson you’ll use again and again after you’re married, starting on the honeymoon.’
Nicole handed Diana a leaflet, which was illustrated with a cartoon of a Betty Boop-style character wearing a basque over stockings and suspenders.
‘Juicy Lucy’s Bridal Burlesque’ was the name of the class the hens would be taking.
‘It sounds brilliant, don’t you think? One of the girls from work did a class for her sister’s hen do last month. Juicy Lucy brings along a whole load of accessories that you get to take away to use at home. My friend’s sister said her husband practically had a heart attack when he saw her routine. He was stunned. In a good way,’ Nicole added.
Diana didn’t need to be sold on the idea. She was already picturing herself in a tightly laced corset and a bowler hat like the showgirls in Cabaret. She had often pored over pictures of Dita Von Teese and wondered whether she could achieve the same kind of glamour. Now she would find out for sure.
‘I can’t wait,’ she told Nicole, ‘and I especially can’t wait to see Mum having a go.’
Susie ordered champagne with her lunch as a precaution.
Self-proclaimed burlesque mistress Juicy Lucy certainly knew how to set the scene. While the girls ate lunch, the small aerobics studio where some of the hens had done a stretch session had been transformed into a theatre. Juicy Lucy’s assistant, who was dressed like a saucy circus ringmaster and called herself Curvy Clare, welcomed the hen party to the class and settled them down into seats facing the low stage, on which were a single velvet-upholstered chair and a Japanese-style screen. Clare explained that the best way to get an idea of what burlesque really meant was to watch some.
‘You mean we’ve got to watch a girl stripping?’ asked Susie.
‘It’s not like stripping,’ said Clare. ‘It’s much more complicated than that. For burlesque, you don’t have to take all your clothes off. You just give a hint of what’s to come. Drives men wild. Far more wild than simply getting naked. Anyway, ladies, for your delectation and delight . . . here is Juicy Lucy!’
Clare threw the light switch so that the only light in the room was a spotlight on the makeshift stage. The music began. From behind the screen, Juicy Lucy stretched out a leg clad in a fishnet stocking. Diana’s eye was immediately drawn to Juicy Lucy’s shoes, a pair of fabulous sequinned courts in bright green with that giveaway red sole.
‘She’s wearing eight-hundred-pound Louboutins,’ Diana whispered to Nicole.
‘I’m not surprised, given how much she charges,’ said Susie.
; ‘I’m worth it, aren’t I?’ said Diana.
‘Every penny, love.’
Juicy Lucy was out from behind the screen now. She was dressed in a slinky green satin sheath dress that matched her shoes. She wore matching long gloves that climbed to her elbows. Her red hair (not naturally red, Diana observed) was piled up and secured with a diamanté-embellished clip. Hiding her face was a feathered mask in the shape of a pair of cat’s eyes. The only part of her face that could be seen was her perfect pout.
Juicy Lucy paced the stage to the sound of Shirley Bassey singing ‘Diamonds Are For Ever’. Her own sparklers may have been fake, but her confidence made them look expensive. She threw pose after pose that displayed her figure to its best advantage. The girls were mesmerised.
‘She’s got a backside on her, but she knows how to use it,’ Susie commented.
Slowly and sensually, Juicy Lucy began to remove one of her gloves. She whirled it twice round her head before tossing it lightly in the direction of her assistant. The second glove followed. Juicy Lucy removed the glove finger by finger, teasing each tight sheath away from its corresponding digit with her teeth. Diana noticed that there was glitter in the dancer’s lipstick too.
‘I’d worry about that getting on my teeth,’ she said to Nicole.
Juicy Lucy danced on, used to a female audience being more interested in the detail of her outfit than the creamy bosom that was barely contained by her dress. The dress slid to the floor with a swish, revealing a corset beneath. Juicy Lucy had a handspan waist, Diana noticed with some envy. Shirley Bassey reached a crescendo. Juicy Lucy threw up her arms in triumph and posed like a goddess in just a corset, those shoes and her mask.
The hen party gave a polite round of applause. Juicy Lucy’s assistant handed her a satin dressing gown. With her mask still in place, Juicy Lucy addressed that afternoon’s students.
‘Thank you, ladies. So as you see,’ she said, ‘sensuality is as much about what you conceal as what you reveal. You’ve seen a bit of what I do in my stage act. Now let’s set free the inner burlesque dancer in each of you. I’m glad to see you’ve all brought suitable shoes.’
Diana admired her own Louboutins. They may have been a plain, nude patent, but to her mind they had every bit as much va-va-voom as Juicy Lucy’s shoes. They’d have much more once Diana was up and dancing. She was feeling supremely confident after her champagne lunch that she was going to nail this burlesque thing. She couldn’t wait for Ben to see her dance on their wedding night. She’d need help to get out of her wedding dress, of course, but later, she’d slip a simple satin robe over her special wedding underwear and give him the show of his life. All thoughts of the stag-night strippers and that stupid girl in his office would be banished for ever. From that moment forward Ben would only have eyes for his wife.
‘Who’s the bride-to-be?’ Juicy Lucy asked.
‘I am.’ Diana got to her feet. She shook out her hair to give Juicy Lucy an idea of the calibre of raw material she would be working with.
‘Great,’ said Juicy Lucy. ‘We’re starting with you. Put these on.’ She handed Diana some gloves. ‘I’m going to show you how to take a pair of gloves off so that the only thing your husband-to-be can think about is the feel of your hands roaming all over him.’
Diana pulled on the gloves. They were made of something synthetic and felt cheap, but she grinned at her hen party and gave them a wave. She was going to show everyone how this should be done.
‘Move into the spotlight, darling,’ said Juicy Lucy. ‘You’re going to be there for the rest of the afternoon. It’s good practice for your wedding day. Don’t be shy. You absolutely need to own the stage.’
Diana performed a bunny dip for her friends’ amusement.
‘Now,’ said Juicy Lucy, ‘I’m just going to take this itchy mask off. Can’t see anything through these feathers. When I’ve got this thing on, I’m practically blind, which is a good thing when your audience is a drooling stag party.’ She took off the mask and handed it to her assistant. ‘So, this afternoon,’ she chatted smoothly as she pulled on her own gloves, ‘we are going to make you the kind of woman no man would ever want to leave. I’m going to show you the moves that have helped me get any man I’ve ever wanted.’
At last, Juicy Lucy turned to face Diana. The two women recognised each other in exactly the same moment.
‘Oh shit,’ said Lucy, Ben’s former workmate.
‘You fucking slag,’ said Diana.
And so the burlesque lesson turned out to be rather more entertaining for the other girls in the hen party than it was for the poor, betrayed bride-to-be herself. As soon as she realised Juicy Lucy’s real identity as ‘that fucking slag from the office’, Diana flew at the wannabe Dita Von Teese with her teeth bared. She grabbed a handful of Lucy’s hair and yanked it hard. Half of it – a hairpiece – came away in Diana’s fist. Lucy tried to save her lucky diamanté hair clip – a vintage piece that had belonged to her grandmother – but it fell to the ground. Diana grabbed for her hair again and would not let go. She dragged the poor girl around the stage until Susie and Nicole finally got over their shock and intervened, pulling the fighting women apart.
‘She’s not worth it!’ Susie cried.
‘You fucking bitch,’ Diana spat in Lucy’s face. ‘I’ll show you the fucking moves that turned the man you want into my fiancé. If you know what’s good for you,’ she hissed, ‘you’ll stay away from him. You’ll stay away from this town. You’ll go back to Australia, you fucking dingo slut.’
With that, Diana ground Lucy’s diamanté clip beneath her foot as a final gesture.
‘Let’s go for a massage,’ suggested Susie as she pulled Diana away from her rival. Diana swept from the room, followed by her terrified bridesmaids.
‘I’m so sorry,’ said Nicole over and over. ‘I had no idea. I swear I had absolutely no idea.’
As the last of Diana’s party left the studio, Lucy gathered up what remained of her costume. Clare hurried to help her.
‘Is that?’
‘The witch that Ben is marrying? Yeah. You can see who’s got the balls in that relationship.’
Clare reached to touch a bloodied patch above Lucy’s eye.
‘You could call the police and get her done for assault. You’ve got plenty of witnesses.’
‘I hardly think any one of those women is going to be queuing up to support me, do you? Besides, I just want an end to it. I had no intention of sleeping with another woman’s man. I’m mortified that it happened and I just want to put it behind me.’
‘You should at least tell him what happened.’
‘What’s the point? It isn’t as though he doesn’t know what he’s marrying.’
‘You’ve got to feel sorry for him really,’ said Clare, ‘spending the rest of his life with that.’
‘He made his bed,’ said Lucy.
Chapter Forty-Three
Meeting her rival face to face had really rattled Diana. The photograph on the company website – of course, Diana had looked when she first found out about the fling – had really not done Lucy much justice. In real life, she was far prettier and slimmer than Diana had imagined. Diana was not at all happy to find that out. Suddenly, Ben’s transgression seemed much more understandable. Lucy was a far more formidable rival than Diana would ever have believed.
‘I can’t trust him,’ she said to her mother and Nicole. ‘He said that he wouldn’t have any strippers on his stag night – that was bad enough – but he told me that woman had gone to Australia. He swore on his life.’
‘I thought he said she had just gone back for Christmas,’ said Nicole.
‘I’m sure that’s not what he said,’ Diana retorted angrily. ‘I thought she was gone for ever. She’s still here, Mum. She’s in Southampton. I could bump into her at any time. I don’t think I can guarantee that next time I’ll react so calmly. Perhaps I shouldn’t go through with the wedding.’
‘If you don’t marry Ben, then that
burlesque tart will have won,’ said Susie. ‘You’ve got to go through with the wedding.’
‘But how can I make sure he won’t cheat on me again?’
‘You make him aware of the consequences. Like Catherine Zeta-Jones and Michael Douglas. She got a clause in their pre-nup that said he had to pay her millions for every time he slept with another woman. Seems to have worked for them.’
‘Only because he’s nearly seventy, Mum. He was ready to settle down. What if Ben isn’t?’
‘He is, my love. Of course he is. He wouldn’t have asked you to marry him otherwise.’
But how could you ensure that a man wouldn’t stray? There was no point asking Nicole. She’d never had a steady boyfriend. And as they had a calming cup of coffee in the hotel bar, Diana studied her mother critically. Susie hadn’t managed to hang on to her man.
Diana’s mother had taught her that even someone with her looks should not take a man’s attention for granted. It wasn’t enough to say yes to a date. You had to make sure a man was properly reeled in before you let him ‘get fresh’ with you, as Susie put it.
‘Men don’t respect a woman who lets them have what they want without a struggle. I didn’t make your father struggle and look what happened to me.’
‘Mum,’ said Diana supportively, ‘Dad would never have left you if she hadn’t trapped him.’
The ‘trap’, as Diana called it, was her half-brother, Charlie. Charlie’s mother was Chelsea. Dave met Chelsea when he was fitting kitchens on the new-build estate where Chelsea worked as a sales rep in the show house. Charlie was conceived in the master bedroom, on a bed that looked like a double but was actually only three-quarter-size. Chelsea explained that scaled-down furniture was a trick building companies often used to make the houses they were selling look more spacious.
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