Authors: Portia MacIntosh
‘So this is really what’s going on, you two just sharing a bed, both sleeping at opposite ends?’ she asks.
‘Of course,’ I tell her honestly. ‘Is that why you’re here? To try and catch us shagging?’
My sister shakes her head – not to say no, it’s because she disapproves of my language.
‘I told you I wouldn’t and I haven’t,’ I tell her. ‘Leo and I are just good friends. Really good friends,’ I add.
‘So you keep saying,’ my sister replies, ‘but the two of you seem way closer than just really good friends.’
‘And yet we sleep at opposite ends of the bed,’ I remind her.
‘Exactly, you’re more like a married couple than Dan and me,’ she laughs. A joke! My sister is being friendly with me suddenly. ‘And if you sleep with the guys you don’t care about, maybe this is what you do with the ones you do really care about.’
‘Shut up,’ I laugh. ‘So, what’s the plan for today?’
‘You tell me,’ she replies, smiling widely.
‘What do you mean?’ I ask.
‘My hen party, duh! You’re the head bridesmaid, it’s your job to arrange something. You have arranged something, haven’t you?’
‘Of course I have,’ I lie.
‘What?’
‘It’s a surprise, silly.’
I’m not sure if my sister is buying it, but she’ll go mad if she knows I have overlooked this small detail. It never even crossed my mind that she expected me to sort this. Not only because I live in another country, but because I would have thought her actual friends would want to do it.
‘So what time should I be ready for?’ she asks.
‘Ten,’ I reply, and my sister frowns. ‘Sorry, I meant eight.’
‘Coolio,’ she replies. ‘I can’t wait to see what you’ve got planned.’
‘Neither can I,’ I say to myself as soon as my sister is out of earshot.
***
‘Morning, gorgeous,’ Leo says as he gets back from his workout. ‘Just going to have a shower.’
‘Can I borrow you for a minute,’ I ask, beckoning him over to the bed.
‘You know it will take more than a minute,’ he jokes. ‘You sure you want me any closer? I stink and I’m covered in sand.’
‘I’ll risk it,’ I laugh.
Leo does as he is told but he doesn’t sit down on the bed, he just hovers next to me.
‘What’s up?’
‘You can’t tell anyone, but I didn’t realise it was my job to organise Belle’s hen party, so I haven’t sorted anything. She thinks I have. Have you arranged Dan’s stag do?’
‘Of course,’ he replies. ‘But we’re friends and he likes me.’
I laugh.
‘I don’t know what to do. She brought me a coffee and as far as I can tell it wasn’t poisoned, but do keep an eye on me for the next few hours,’ I joke. ‘Honestly, Leo, she seemed so happy and excited. Despite the way things seem, I do want her wedding to go well, and I do want to make her happy.’
‘I know you do.’ Leo goes to hug me, before remembering that he’s filthy. It was a nice thought though.
‘Even if I do find somewhere to go, I don’t have any of the usual tacky hen party junk you’re supposed to have. I need inflatable men and L plates.’
‘Look, don’t panic. Let me grab a shower, and then I’ll get my mum on board, she’ll be happy to help. She can go buy your inflatables while you sort somewhere to go.’
‘Are you sure she won’t mind?’ I ask.
‘I’m certain. I’m her only son, she can’t say no to me,’ he laughs.
‘Leo, thank you so much.’
‘What are friends for?’ he asks, pecking me on the forehead before heading off for a shower.
I’m not used to having a friend like Leo, but I’m glad that I do. If I can just find a venue, then we’ll be sorted. Today was my last proper chance to get any work done before the wedding, but I guess it will have to wait. I’ve got a hen party to plan.
***
The plan that Leo and I came up with should have been foolproof, but when a suspicious Nancy pressed me for the name of where we were going in front of Belle, I had to think fast. As luck would have it, when we were out with Josh and Max the other day we passed a pub called The Cock Inn, and for some reason the name just stuck with me.
‘Oh how funny,’ Belle’s friend Heather said at the time, thinking it was going to be some sort of smutty, hen-friendly joint, but now, as our party barge through the doors of The Cock, it’s no laughing matter.
The place is quiet, and filled exclusively with men much older than us. The only real noise is coming from a particularly drunk older gentleman who is performing an excruciatingly bad rendition of Elvis Presley’s ‘Always on My Mind’ with all the seriousness of an X Factor contestant.
‘Mia, this is an old man pub,’ Nancy moans.
‘Don’t be so quick to judge,’ I snap. ‘I’m told this is the place to be when it gets late.’
‘And which opportunistic rapist told you that?’ she scoffs.
‘Anyway,’ I ignore her comment. ‘I’ll get the drinks in,’ I say, trying to inject some cheer into my voice. ‘What’s everyone having?’
At the hen party tonight it’s just me, Belle and her friends Nancy, Heather and Beth. Thankfully the older female relatives decided that they would sit this one out and I daren’t petition for my oldest cousin, Hannah, to tag along. There is not much in the way of eye candy here. This is clearly no place for tourists, it’s a cliquey local pub for local people, and the old pint-drinking fellows don’t look too pleased to have us here.
‘Hello,’ I say brightly to the man behind the bar. ‘How are you?’
He snorts, and the patrons propping up the bar share a laugh.
‘Anyway,’ I continue, ‘what kind of wine do you have?’
‘Red or white,’ the man laughs as he scratches his chin through his big, shaggy, grey beard.
I think for a moment. There’s no way we can go anywhere else, not without Belle realising I never had anything planned in the first place. I don’t know where else we could go, and I don’t fancy my chances roaming the streets trying to find another venue when it could be just as bad as this place. I need to stay in Belle’s good books and for now that means making the most of this place.
‘I’ll take a couple of bottles of each, please,’ I reply, flashing him my biggest smile. The barman does as he is told – well he’s not about to turn away money, is he? But I am no sooner sat at the table with the rest of a party when a beast of a man approaches us. He’s the tallest man I have ever seen, or maybe he just seems it because he’s very intimidating-looking and I am sitting down. He has messy, dark hair and a bushy beard, like so many of the other men here. He smells awful, like tobacco and soil, but I’m not about to tell him so.
‘Hello,’ I say as cheerily as I can.
‘Hello,’ he replies. ‘What’s five young ladies like you doing in a place like this?’
‘It’s my hen party,’ Belle offers bravely.
‘I guessed as much when I saw all the cocks,’ he replies, causing Belle to wince at his choice of words.
When Leo had said his mum would go out shopping for hen party supplies, I hadn’t expected her to come back with such penis-based stuff. I was thinking L plates and silly hats – and maybe a token, understated penis of some kind because my sister might be OK with just one, because it’s practically tradition. What Maria came back from the shops with were penis-shaped straws, shot glasses on necklaces, headbands with dicks on and a variety of name badges that say inappropriate, and not even remotely clever things – my own says ‘My name is Mia and I like big dicks’. My first instinct was to take everything outside and burn it before Belle saw, but she walked in on me bagging it up and she was delighted with it all. I suppose she’s less of a prude when it’s a wedding tradition.
‘We’ve been talking, and we think you should leave,’ the big man says. ‘This is no place for little girls.’
‘We’re not as little as we look,’ I joke. ‘We’ll be fine.’
‘No, you’ll be leaving now, and you can leave your drinks here.’
The girls begin to gather their things, but I’m not going to be forced out of a public place so easily.
‘You don’t look like much of a wine drinker,’ I reply.
‘I’m not,’ he laughs, ‘but we’re keeping it, and you’re going.’
‘When we’re done,’ I reply firmly, although as cool and calm as I may appear on the outside, I’m terrified on the inside. It seems like a great length to go to, just to stay in Belle’s good books. I imagine she’ll like me even less if her hen party turns into a bar fight.
‘It’s not worth it, let’s go somewhere else,’ Belle pleads with me.
‘You want to listen to her, Mia,’ the big guys says, clocking my name badge. ‘You like big dicks, do you?’
Every bone in my body is telling me that the right thing to do is get out of here as fast as possible. But I don’t.
‘Well, I don’t like you,’ I reply. ‘And I can see why they call this place the Cock Inn.’ There are mixed reactions from the room. Some of the men look shocked, some laugh, the man singing karaoke has stopped to see how things play out and my own friends are just staring at me with their mouths’ wide open.
The big guy stares at me, cocking his head as he thinks things over.
‘You think you’re tough, don’t you.’
‘I’m tougher than you,’ I reply, because there’s no turning back now. ‘Why don’t you want us to stay? Is it because my girls and I could drink you and your beardy boys under the table?’
‘You really believe that, don’t you?’ he laughs, and all his friends laugh with him.
‘I do,’ I reply confidently.
‘Well let’s make this more interesting,’ he suggests. ‘We’ll have a competition. If you win, not only can you stay, but I’ll pay for your drinks all evening.’
‘And if we lose?’ I ask.
‘You’d better hope you win,’ he warns.
I can hear Belle, Nancy, Heather and Beth all begging me to back down but if there’s one thing I hate, it’s men who think they are better than women.
‘You’re on,’ I reply. ‘But I’m picking the poison.’
‘Whatever the lady wants,’ the big bloke replies mockingly.
I grab my bag to head out to find an off licence, because if we’re doing this, we’re going to drink something I know we can handle, not the old man bourbon he appears to be cradling in his hand.
‘She won’t be back,’ the big guy laughs to his friends.
‘I will,’ I reply. ‘You can keep these four as insurance, they shouldn’t give you any trouble.’
Now, I’m not stupid. I know that, despite Belle and her friends’ best efforts on a Saturday night, they are not hardened drinkers, and that while I have a tolerance for alcohol that would be more suited to a rugby player, there is no denying that these men would probably be able to outdrink us based on body size alone… and yet I refuse to be beaten. In situations like these you need to think outside the box, so it got me thinking, it’s not how much we drink that will help us beat these guys, it’s what we drink.
The girls looked visibly relieved when I arrived back with my bags of booze, I think it might have crossed their minds that I might leave them here.
We are currently having a team talk – me and my girls at one side of the room and Jimmy and his guys at the other, over by the guy on the karaoke machine who is still singing Elvis tunes, only now he’s on to ‘In The Ghetto’. Jimmy, I found out, is the name of my massive opponent. I found this out when he told me his team were called ‘Jimmy and the Bastards’. Despite my best efforts to get my team motivated, I’m not having much luck. When I told them we needed a team name, Belle suggested ‘Terrified’ and ‘Dead Meat’ but neither seemed suitable.
‘Listen,’ I whisper to them, ‘I have bought the most sickly-sweet drinks I could think of. It might be the kind of junk we knock back all weekend but there’s no way these guys will have the stomach for it.’
‘Do you think so?’ Belle asks curiously.
‘Look at them, they’re all drinking beer or bourbon – do you really think they can chain drink Kapop Shotz like we can?’
Kapops are a popular brand of alcopops here in the UK, but Kapop Shotz are super-strong vodka-based shots in ridiculous flavours like candy floss and toffee apple. For girls who like to get smashed but don’t particular enjoy the taste of alcohol, they’re perfect. What I’m hoping is that big, tough guys like these won’t be able to stand them.
‘OK, I hate to admit it, but maybe she’s right,’ Nancy reasons.
‘Of course I am! Come on, Belle, what do you say? Don’t you want a hen night to remember for the rest of your life? We can find a club, go dance around our handbags until we get bored or we can stay here, show these motherfuckers who’s boss and let them pay for our drinks all night while we abuse their karaoke machine. What do you say?’
As I deliver the last line of my speech, the girls are all standing – excited and ready to kick some ass. I feel like a king addressing his army before a big battle.
Going up against us we have Jimmy and his four bastards. They have laid empty shot glasses out on the table, a row for each competitor.
‘Go on then, what silly girly tipple have you got for us?’ Jimmy asks, and when I produce the brightly coloured Kapop Shotz bottles from my bag, he bursts out laughing. ‘That’s what you’ve brought? Liquid sweeties? I almost feel bad, we’re going to crush you.’
I look at my teammates expecting to see terrified faces, but they look cool, calm and confident.
‘F you,’ Belle shouts. ‘The sooner we start, the sooner we’ll see who the winner is.’
‘We will,’ Jimmy laughs.
‘And I look forward to you paying for our drinks all night,’ Belle adds confidently, and it makes me smile to see her enjoying herself.
The barman pours the brightly coloured liquids into the lines of glasses in front of each of us.
‘Here’s the rules,’ he starts. ‘When I say go, you go. The winner is the first team to finish and if anyone throws up, their team loses.’
We all nod in agreement to the rules.
‘OK, go!’
We all knock our first shot back in unison.
‘Fuck me, that’s sweet,’ one of Jimmy’s bastards gasps.
‘Just get on with it, you big girl,’ Jimmy yells back.
As we all carry on knocking back drinks I can’t help but notice that the boys seem to be going through them faster than we are, but Jimmy looks like he is struggling.