Lisa slowly sipped the brightly coloured cocktail as she stared morosely into the swirling fog that consumed her friends on the dance floor. The flashing strobe lights were giving her a migraine, as was the thumping music.
It hadn't escaped her notice that she was meant to be having fun, but somehow, 'having fun' seemed an impossible proposition tonight. It wasn't as if she had wanted any of this but, as usual, Jenna hadn't listened to her.
"I don't want a fuss," Lisa had insisted when Jenna had pushed her to make a decision about the hen night.
"Oh come on β you're getting married!" Jenna said exasperatedly. "This is your final chance to let your hair down and have some no-strings fun!"
Lisa couldn't help thinking that she had NEVER had no-strings fun in her life. Oh no. She had met safe and boring Brian when she was eighteen and they had been together ever since. How tame was that?
"Ok," she had said in the face of increasing nagging from Jenna. "Maybe we can go out for a meal or something?"
Jenna had grinned triumphantly. "Yeah, great idea," she had said in a deceptively sweet voice. "Just leave it to me β I'll organise everything. You won't have to worry about a thing."
Famous last words...
Well, they had gone out for a meal, but instead of the quiet restaurant in town Lisa had envisaged, they had ended up two hundred miles away in the clubbing capital of the North, booked into a swanky hotel for the night and with a hot pink limousine at their disposal.
Lisa had had a heart attack when she saw the room rates. It was going to have to go on her credit card and she knew Brian would be furious at the unnecessary expenditure. She could almost hear him berating her frivolity and it made her feel quite sick at the thought of the confrontation that would surely come.
Or maybe that was the chicken madras she had washed down with several glasses of cobra beer?
"Having fun?" asked Jenna as she flung her curvaceous body down on the velvet banquette seat beside Lisa.
"I guess," said Lisa, barely able to hear her own voice above the pounding base beat.
"Well drink up 'cause we're moving on shortly."
Lisa looked at her curiously, but Jenna merely smiled in a mysterious manner and refused to reveal the next stage of her dastardly plan. Lisa could only hope that it involved a blissfully silent hotel bedroom, followed by sleep, very, very soon.
* * *
A large neon outline of a naked woman, glowing obscenely above the entrance door, strongly suggested that the club the limousine had arrived at was not for the faint hearted.
"Come on, girls," yelled Jenna enthusiastically, her short sparkly dress riding even higher up her tanned thighs now that she was extremely drunk. "Let's go party!"
Lisa tried to hide in the semi darkness of the back seat, hoping that everybody would forget about her, but Sharon and Tammy dragged her out of the hot pink car on to the pavement anyway.
"Here, it's about time you wore this," said Jenna in a slightly slurred voice. She rooted around in her handbag and eventually pulled a white bride's veil along with an L plate sign that she kindly pinned to Lisa's backside.
"Ouch!" shrieked Lisa when the pin jabbed her, but Jenna just laughed and yanked her inside the club before she had a chance to protest any further.
It felt like she was entering Hell. Dark red walls and black leather furniture complimented the subdued lighting perfectly. Everywhere she looked there were half naked women of every size and shape imaginable.
Shadowy men sat in secluded booths while dancers gyrated around poles and on tables. It was like nothing Lisa could have imagined, even in her darkest fantasies. Not that she fantasised about women, she hastily reminded herself.
Jenna, of course, was completely at home. She strode over to the bar and confidently ordered a round of drinks whilst exchanging a few words with a couple of the dancers who were standing nearby, apparently waiting for the invitation to entertain.
"I used to work here," she explained to Lisa's astonishment.
"What??"
Jenna grinned. "I paid my way through college by dancing three nights a week in here - made a fucking fortune!"
Now that she thought about it, Lisa realised she shouldn't be all that surprised. Ever since she had met Jenna, her friend had always pushed the boundaries of what was considered acceptable behaviour.
Lisa knew that her own life was totally vanilla compared to Jenna's, but it had never bothered her. She did however sometimes wonder why Jenna was her friend since they were complete opposites.
But opposites attract and in many ways they complimented each other perfectly. Lisa provided the steady grounding for Jenna's increasingly wild escapades and she was always there to pick up the pieces when it all went horribly wrong.
Like the time Jenna's holiday fling from Spain turned up in their office reception with a bouquet of red roses. Lisa had been the one to go down and patiently explain to him that Jenna no longer worked there, and besides, she was married with five kids. Poor Raul had been devastated so Lisa had spent the next four hours mopping up his tears in the nearby Starbucks. Yes, Lisa was a true friend indeed.
The girls took seats at a large table near the stage and Lisa cautiously sipped the evil looking drink Jenna had given her. It looked vile, tasted even worse, and more to the point, Lisa strongly suspected it was as potent as rocket fuel.
"I really ought to ring Brian," she muttered, feeling guilty at the thought she had only spoken to him once since they had arrived.
"Don't you dare," warned Jenna. "We're here to forget about men for one night."
"Yeah, fucking men," interjected Sharon.