Please note, this story contains no sex, so if you're only after wank material, look elsewhere!
* * *
Lucy knew from the moment she opened her eyes that something was out of kilter. The splitting headache pounding inside her temples louder than a road drill was a bit of a giveaway; the light in the room was also different somehow: softer and less intrusive.
She feebly attempted to move, but her head hurt too much, so she lay back down and tried to piece together the events of the previous evening. There was the party—she could remember that at least. Thereafter, it faded into an alcoholic blur of worrying proportions.
It had been a mistake to venture out. She could see that now. She should have known better than to go to the damned party when it was bloody obvious Gary would be there, too. Gary who had led her merrily up the garden path for three bloody years before telling her,
"It's not you, Babe, it's me—I can't commit right now, so I think it would be better if we had some time apart..."
The fucker.
The faint sound of a running shower intruded into her thoughts and she froze. Shit. She wasn't alone. Frantically she tried to recall talking to any strange men last night, but her mind was a total blank. Deciding that the pain of movement was a necessary evil, Lucy sat up and made a concerted effort to take in her surroundings. A first cursory glance told her she was most definitely not at Megan's house. The décor was too bland for one thing and the room was too large for another. It had to be a hotel. Where on earth that hotel might be located was another story, although this was somewhat overshadowed by the more pressing question of who her roommate was?
Then she looked down and saw to her dismay she was naked.
Double shit.
Could it get any worse?
Her clothes appeared to be strewn around the room like confetti. One lone stocking hung from a chair and her bra was draped across the television like a garish Christmas Garland. All the evidence strongly suggested she had done the one thing she tried not to do where at all possible—drink vodka.
It was always the same. Wine, beer, or indeed any other drink—she could handle, but for some reason vodka was a one-way ticket to sin and suffering. The last time she'd overindulged on Absolut, she had met Gary.
And look where that one ended.
It was no good. The realisation Quasimodo's twin brother was almost certainly about to emerge from the bathroom like a bad smell catapulted Lucy up from amidst the ruins of the king-size bed. She grabbed her clothes, flung them on in no particular order, and legged it.
*
Megan fixed Lucy with an expression of unbridled horror. "What on earth happened to your head?"
"I don't know!" wailed Lucy, still trying to piece together the events of the previous evening. "I was hoping you could tell me."
She had gone over to the initial crime scene in the hope that her friends might be able to fill in the frustrating gaps in her memory. But so far, all she'd done was provoke a gale of laughter, followed by some serious lecturing.
Lucy was still smarting from the ordeal she'd had in the hotel. The fact she had put her blouse on back to front had drawn unwanted attention during her great escape. An elderly man, on his way back to his room, had nearly had a cardiac arrest when he entered the lift to see Lucy frantically trying to fasten her bra whilst shoving stockings into her tiny sequinned purse.
To her everlasting shame, Lucy realised she probably resembled a hooker on the run from a disgruntled client, but there was no way she was hanging around to face the music with her hit and run. These things always ended in tears. She was still trying to block the memory of the last one-nighter she'd had, way back when she was in her first year at college.
He had seemed pretty normal at the time, rather attractive in fact. Unfortunately, the morning after revealed her vodka goggles had been somewhat fogged around the time she'd gone to bed with the man-with-no-name. Brad Pitt had morphed into Fred Flintstone—with a bad oral hygiene problem.
Lucy shuddered at the recollection. Oh no. This morning had been a lucky escape. Now all she had to do was make sure there were no other behavioural issues to deal with, and then go home for some sleep. Not that Megan was helping. She was too busy throwing herself whole-heartedly into the role of Lucy's erstwhile mother.
"For fucks sake, Luce, we had no idea where you'd buggered off to! Matt was on the verge of calling the police!"
Lucy raised one eyebrow in disbelief.
"Oh ok, maybe he wasn't that concerned, but even so!"
Lucy knew damned well Matt would have been far too busy making eyes at Sara to even notice what planet Lucy was on, let alone care to where she had disappeared. Megan's brother had a crush the size of Africa and it was growing larger by the day. It was just a pity Sara wasn't interested.
Poor Matt.
"If only I could remember what I did," Lucy sighed. She picked up a dirty glass from the table and stared mournfully into the dregs of some foul looking green liqueur.
"Last time I saw you, you were knocking back the Absolut like it was lemonade."
"Ohhh," Lucy groaned, "Why didn't you stop me?"
"I tried, but you told me to fuck off." Megan folded her arms and scowled. "I was only trying to help," she said grumpily.
"Yeah, I know you would have been, I'm sorry," Lucy quickly apologised. "I was just in a shit mood." She gave Megan a ghost of a smile. "I do remember that much at least."
Megan's expression softened marginally. "Yeah, I'm, sorry too. For what it's worth, I told Matt not to invite Gary, but he didn't get my text until it was too late."
"Doesn't matter. What's done is done, now." Lucy stood, rubbing her temples as her headache continued to throb like a thrash metal band on acid. She winced when her fingers brushed across the lump on the side of her head. "Whoever I ended up with last night will probably forever remain a mystery. Good riddance to bad rubbish. Ok, I'm off home to catch some sleep before I go to Mum's for tea."
The thought of charred roast beef, followed by lumpy semolina, did nothing to lift her spirits. It was almost as bad as trying to recall exactly what she'd done last night.
*
Lucy's phone blipped just as she raised her hand to knock on her mother's front door, and she frowned.
It better not be Mum asking me to fetch some bloody milk.
Unfortunately, the screen told a different story.
About last night,
Gary had texted.
