Rose couldn’t see anything through her mask. The eye holes were minuscule; she could barely breathe. The cardboard pressed against her nose and the string pulled against her hair. She couldn’t have a panic attack now. She closed her eyes and dug her fingernails into the sides of her thighs, continuing to sway from side to side as the sounds of ‘Like a Virgin’ became slow and zombie-like. The smell of cheap cardboard entered her nostrils with every pathetic inhalation she attempted.
Then came the sound of cheers and Rose knew this was her cue.
She jumped back to attention, and started whooping in unison with her fellow drunk Pippas, her voice reverberating against the cardboard in front of her. Bodies were moving in her vicinity and Rose could hear Pippa laughing. She took this as a sign that she could now take the mask off and felt the air rush into her lungs. She sighed and rushed over to Pippa with the other hens to coo in the way she was expected to.
Jessie had allowed for exactly fifteen minutes of mingling before she was standing on a stool, clapping her hands in the air and shushing everybody.
‘Right, everyone. Please can I have your attention?’ She smiled knowingly, with an expression that both acknowledged her dominance and commanded submission.
‘It’s almost time for the first activity of the day. If you haven’t already, please help yourself to a glass of Buck’s Fizz; there are jugs dotted across the living room. I say glass, I mean a plastic cup. Sorry to all the eco-warriors out there, all the glasses in this house are crystal, ha!’
A simmering chuckle passed across the room.
‘Once you’ve done that, please meet me in the conservatory. See you shortly!’
Rose was pouring herself a plastic cup of Buck’s Fizz from one of the jugs laid out on the marble countertop. The drink might calm her down, she thought, as she quickly sank the entire cup before pouring herself another one.
‘Steady on, mate!’ boomed a new voice from behind her.
Rose turned around to find herself staring at a man’s bare chest. She looked up to find the face it belonged to, startled that a man had inveigled his way into this environment. He had a slick, clean face. Blond hair that had been gelled back and a glistening torso that must have been covered in oil.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘Not sure I’m supposed to tell you,’ he said grinning at her, all bug-eyed as he looked her up and down. Rose felt hyper aware that she wasn’t wearing a bra. She’d flung on the green T-shirt in such a rush, and her breasts weren’t really large enough to warrant one anyway.
‘Johnny!’ snapped Jessie, stomping up behind the half-naked man.
‘What?’ He turned around, bemused, pouring himself a glass of Buck’s Fizz.
‘You’re not meant to be here,’ she whispered. ‘Go back into the barn like we discussed.’
Johnny groaned. ‘I was just talking to …’ He turned to look at Rose, eyebrows raised. But before she could respond, Jessie had Johnny by the bicep and was leading him out of the room like an owner with a naughty puppy.
The first game was a secret one. Each of the hens had been given an individual dare to complete at some point during the party, but nobody knew what anyone else’s dare was. If you guessed that somebody had said or done something as a dare, you would win a shot of the ‘really expensive tequila’. Everyone picked theirs out of a hat. Rose’s made her heart sink the second she read it.
‘Perform a striptease at random and straddle the bride while singing the lyrics to “It’s Raining Men”.’ It was the kind of thing Rose would never do drunk or sober even if it was just in front of Luce. She would tackle it later, she resolved, when people were more drunk. Or maybe by then everyone would have forgotten about the dares altogether. She poured herself another Buck’s Fizz.
The next few hours passed mercifully quickly. There was a pub quiz where all of the questions were about Pippa’s various sexual encounters – ‘When did she meet “cone penis”?’, ‘Who could only come if she called him “big daddy”?’ This was coupled with a series of anagrams of names of the people she’d slept with, featuring clues such as ‘locked her in his bedroom to “protect his documents” when he woke up and forced her to climb out of the window’ and ‘got a nosebleed when he went down on her because he was a ketamine addict’.
Nikki seemed unfazed, laughing along at each of the sexual escapades that emerged through the course of the game. She would get on well with Lola. The next game was ‘pin the penis’, where every hen had to put a paper penis onto a life-size photograph of Mike – whoever was closest won the tequila shot. Although it seemed like everyone was made to do a tequila shot anyway, regardless of how successfully they pinned the penis.
Rose found herself slowly feeling more comfortable as the day progressed. This was probably helped by the Buck’s Fizz and that they went straight from game to game, meaning there was almost no time left for idle conversation with strangers (and people she didn’t like) in between.
Slowly, it transpired what people’s ‘dares’ were. Lizzie started to reply to people exclusively in song. They all guessed that one pretty quickly. Ruby did the worm out of nowhere in the middle of the living-room floor – that was also quite an obvious one. And during the ‘pin the penis’ game, Fran began to moan and soon broke into a full When Harry Met Sally-style orgasm. It took the room a while to work out what was going on. Grace was about to call 999 when Fran, sensing this, adjusted her wails to sound less pained. ‘Don’t call 999,’ Rose said. ‘I think this is her dare.’ Fran, whose head was tilted back by this point, stopped moaning suddenly. ‘Thanks, Petal, way to spoil the fun.’
‘Here’s your shot, Rose!’ said Jessie, handing her the tequila.
‘Thanks,’ she replied, knocking it back and slamming the shot glass down onto the marble table, staring defiantly at Fran, who stared furiously back at her.
As each dare passed, Rose became acutely aware that hers was by far the most daring.
Grace’s dare was to text Mike from Pippa’s phone with quotes from The Devil Wears Prada. She had a strict script to follow.
I need ten or fifteen skirts from Calvin Klein, the first message began.
So do I, Mike replied to much fanfare.
‘Oh, he’s good!’ chimed Ruby.
Then: Please bore someone else with your questions, and make sure we have Pier 59 at 8 a.m. tomorrow.
Another reply: What?
Remind Jocelyn I need to see a few of those satchels that Marc is doing in the pony, and then tell Simone I’ll take Jackie if Maggie isn’t available.
Are you on acid again?
Everyone looked at Nikki. ‘Oh, I don’t mind!’ she said, laughing.
Did Demarchelier confirm?
By this point, Mike had worked it out. ‘The Devil Wears Prada! Dammit.’
Everyone in the group was very pleased with him for getting this right.
‘Who else hasn’t done their dare yet?’ asked Grace when hers was wrapped up.
‘Obviously Rose hasn’t done hers yet,’ scoffed Fran.
