Anyway, Tristan had given Lucy a stack of money so she could buy a fancy dress for the engagement party on Saturday, but she’d been paralyzed by the thought of going into one of those terrifying designer shops on her own, so she left it until the last minute.
When she tearfully confessed that she didn’t have a dress and – worse – had been sitting on a pile of unspent cash, I bundled her on to the tube and off to Bond Street we went.
Now, I had zero experience in dealing with scary designer shops. Growing up, my mom bought all of our clothes from a store called ‘Slightly Irregular’, and Meghan and I spent our youth in ‘GAK’ sweatshirts and ‘Lewi’ jeans. Any item of clothing costing more than $20 was considered a travesty, and I’ve carried this thrifty tradition into my adulthood. Some of my proudest moments have been when people have complimented me on an item of clothing I’m wearing and I’ve been able to say, ‘Thanks, it cost three pounds,’ or ‘Thanks, I found it in a dumpster.’
Still, I was determined that we wouldn’t be cowed by surly shop assistants. And in order to do this, I figured it was best to pretend to be someone else.
‘Okay,’ I said to Lucy, pulling her towards Balmain. ‘Here’s the plan: we’re going to pretend to be rich people, so let’s choose our identities now. I’m going to be Lucia, an Argentinian soybean heiress with a checkered past. Now, who are you?’
She looked at me skeptically. ‘Can you do an Argentinian accent?’
‘Sí, of course!’ I said, rolling my ‘r’ with abandon. ‘Come on, who are you? Maybe a French countess? Or the daughter of a Neapolitan mobster?’
‘Lauren, this is bonkers! I can’t pretend to be some rich foreigner!’
‘Okay, how about a posh Brit? Like, an aristocrat or an Ecclestone or something. Seriously, Luce, it will make it way more fun and way less scary.’
She rolled her eyes, but I could tell she was getting into the idea. ‘Okay,’ she said, ‘I’ll be Tara Palmer-Tomkinson’s niece, Clara.’
‘Nice. Give me more.’
‘Um …’
‘Okay, I’ll do it for you. You were once photographed as one of Tatler’s “tweens to watch” but fell from grace after you were caught selling diet pills at Channing School.’
‘Love it.’
‘And now you’re marrying a sheikh and moving to Dubai.’
‘Yes!’ she said, eyes lighting up.
‘And you’re going to live in an exact replica of Versailles. We’re ready!’
We sailed into Balmain, giving the saleswoman a frosty nod.
I made a beeline for the cocktail dresses, pulling out a little black number. ‘Ay! Dios mío! Clara, you will look so beaoootiful in this dress!’
Lucy took the dress from me and inspected it with impressive disdain. ‘Darling,’ she trilled, ‘this is just too gauche for the Sheikh! He is a very elegant man, you know.’ Her accent was Patsy Kensit meets the Queen – I don’t think she actually moved her lips once – but it seemed to work. I saw the saleswoman’s sharply defined eyebrows raise slightly.
I thrust the dress back on the rack. ‘Ay, I know! He is a very – how do you say? – discerning man! And rich! Very rich!’
Suddenly, the saleswoman appeared at her side, birdlike little arms flapping in her perfectly tailored sleeves. ‘Can I be of any assistance, ladies?’
‘Ay! Sí, por favor! My friend here, she is marrying a very important man, and she needs a dress for the – how do you say? – engagement party?’
‘Lovely,’ she said, eyes glinting. ‘I’d be very happy to pull a few things for you. Please do follow me into the dressing room. Could I tempt either of you with a glass of champagne while you wait?’
‘That would be divine,’ Lucy said frostily.
Three hours, five shops and six free glasses of champagne later, Lucy had a gorgeous new Saint Laurent dress, a pair of Nicholas Kirkwood heels and a Prada bag to make grown women weep. We were triumphant (and very drunk) so we went home and ordered a celebratory curry, which we ate while shouting abuse at I’m a Celebrity in Lucia and Clara’s accents.
Eventually, the downstairs neighbor started banging on the ceiling with a broomstick, but it was good while it lasted.
17 November
Last night was Lucy’s engagement party and it was one hell of an event. Let’s put it like this: I’m writing this on the morning after from my bed, I’m still drunk off my tree on extremely expensive champagne, I’m completely covered in glitter and I’m currently pressing a pack of frozen peas to the welt on my ass from where a man in a gimp mask whacked me with a leather-bound table tennis paddle.
But that’s not how the evening began.
The party started promptly at seven, when the great and the good of England’s wealthy elite poured through the gilded doors of the Garrick. It was a nice-enough party: unending canapés, silent tuxedoed waiters topping up everyone’s glasses with Krug and Châteauneuf-du-Pape, and polite conversation amongst landed gentry. Cathryn and Michael were there, thank God, so I spent most of the evening huddled near them, prodding her for gossip about the other guests and avoiding the roaming hands of several distinguished gentlemen. You’d be surprised how handsy some of those old aristocrats can be.
I still had buckets of cards left over from my Victorian days, so I recycled them into Program cards by writing my phone number and personal brand message on the back of all of them (Rachel Greenwald, MBA, being a lot more direct than Mrs Humphry). I figured I could give them out at the party in the hopes of getting some more suitable candidates. I managed to give a few cards away, mainly to some of the younger partners at Tristan’s firm and a few dear old biddies keen to set me up with their grandsons (presumably they thought I was Upper East Side rather than suburban Portland).
Tristan made a very sweet speech about Lucy being the love of his life and keeping him young, and I only clocked a few raised eyebrows and disapproving clucks among the old hens.
And then, at the stroke of eleven, carriages were called and lots of wealthy dowagers and similar posh old people sailed out in a whiff of Penhaligon’s and salmon vol-au-vents, and Tristan climbed on top of a table. ‘And now, ladies and gentlemen,’ he yelled to the remaining few, ‘our evening can begin! If you’ll please make your way outside, taxis are ready to whisk us away to Vauxhall!’
A cheer went through the crowd and I started to worry slightly. I caught Lucy by the elbow as she tottered past.
‘What’s going on?’ I asked.
‘We’re going to Toppers!’ she said, beaming with pleasure.
‘What the hell is Toppers?’
‘Uh, it’s only London’s premier BDSM club! Tristan’s rented out the whole place for the night!’ She caught the look of horror on my face. ‘See, I knew you’d go all funny and squeamish if I told you beforehand! But don’t worry, love: I’ve brought you an outfit.’ She held up a cloth shoulder bag brimming with black PVC. She grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the exit. ‘Come on, you’ll be absolutely fine.’
And so began the second party. Lucy and I changed in the taxi, taking turns screening each other from the driver’s very curious gaze (though why we felt the need to be modest considering where we were headed, I’ll never know). First, Lucy peeled off her extremely expensive dress to reveal the corset I’d helped hoist her boobs into earlier and pulled on a pair of custom-made, black patent leather, lace-up, thigh-high boots that made me wince just looking at them.
‘You’re not going to wear any bottoms?’ I asked, looking at her be-pantied ass for all to see.
‘No,’ she said, ‘and neither are you.’ Out of the bag she pulled a black playsuit made almost entirely of mesh, except for a few key solid patches, and a pair of lipstick-red spike-heeled ankle boots.
‘What the fuck is wrong with you?’ I said, aghast. I tried to disentangle the various scraps of material so I could hold it up to myself, but eventually gave up and hurled it at her head. ‘There is no way I’m wearing that. It’s not even structurally
sound!’
Lucy plucked the playsuit off of her head and smoothed it out on her lap. She’d managed to make it resemble a wearable garment, though it was still a garment I had no intention of wearing.
She looked at me with her big blue eyes. ‘But, babe, it’s my night! And this is my nicest outfit – apart from the one I’m wearing, of course – and it will totally suit you!’ She shoved the playsuit at me. ‘C’mon, lovely. Please? For me?’
I knew I was beaten. ‘Fine, fine. But I reserve the right to keep my coat on all night if I want to.’
‘Deal,’ she said, scrambling to cover me as I wriggled out of my dress and (eventually, with much huffing and swearing and one brief panic attack when I thought I was trapped) managed to put on the playsuit. Thankfully, there was no full-length mirror in the car, so I couldn’t really see what I looked like, but I was definitely surprised to look down and see so very much of myself on display.
‘You look fabulous!’ Lucy said, gazing at my huddled, crumpled, mesh-strewn form.
‘After tonight, we can never speak of this again,’ I said as I wedged my feet into the ankle boots and hastily wrapped myself up in my coat like an unloved Christmas present.
The cab pulled up outside an old railway arch and Lucy let out a little squeal of glee as she pulled me out the door. ‘We’re here! Come on, let’s get you in there and show you off! The boys are going to eat you up!’
‘That’s what I’m afraid of,’ I muttered, clutching my coat closed and struggling to remain upright on the cobblestones.
The bouncers greeted Lucy by name and assured her that ‘Mr T’ was already inside.
‘Mr T?’ I said, collapsing in a fit of giggles. ‘Was The A-Team not aired over here?’
Lucy rolled her eyes and dragged me through the heavy red velvet curtains. We walked into a huge, cavernous space lit by bare red light bulbs. Hard house thumped out of the speakers. It was incredibly dark, but through the gloom I could make out forms in various strange and often complicated positions. A man was chained to a plinth in the center of the room and a trio of near-naked women were hitting him with what appeared to be brooms. A man walking another man on a lead strolled by us, stopping to give Lucy a kiss on the cheek.
Tristan was waiting for us in a side room. He was wearing a dog collar and something that looked like a black leather diaper. ‘Ladies, welcome. I live to serve,’ he said, gesturing towards a bottle of Dom chilling in an ice bucket and two champagne flutes. And, with that, he got down on his hands and knees. Lucy poured us each a glass, returned the bottle to the ice bucket, placed the ice bucket atop Tristan’s bare back and placed her stilettoed foot on the top of his head, pushing it down to the ground.
I heard him mumble, ‘Thank you,’ and watched her give him a little prod with her heel.
‘No talking,’ she said to his slumped form. She turned to me. ‘It’s showtime!’ she sang as she tried to wrestle my coat off.
I struggled against her. ‘Leave me alone! I don’t want to end up getting whacked with a broom!’ But Lucy was stronger than she looked and soon I was standing in the middle of the room in a mesh playsuit, wishing for death.
‘Babe, you look hot! Doesn’t she look hot, Mr T?’
A tiny voice rose up from the floor. ‘Permission to speak?’
‘Granted.’
Tristan twisted his head around and looked up at me. ‘You look wonderful! Just like Diana Rigg!’
‘That’s enough, Tristan,’ Lucy barked. She turned to me, thigh-high boots glinting dangerously under the lights. ‘Come on then!’ She grabbed my hand and tugged me into the main room. She was definitely in her element here and seemed to dominate the entire room as soon as she walked in. I was impressed, but also a little sad: she’d really moved on from our old life.
At first, I was mortified. I didn’t think of myself as a prude (I had a threesome and everything, remember?) but the idea of parading in front of a bunch of sexual deviants wearing only a brief suggestion of clothing was a little beyond my limits. My days of following a prostitute’s advice were behind me – I was meant to be a Harvard woman now!
After a few minutes, I started to chill out. ‘I wear less than this on the beach,’ I told myself, ‘and the sun is way less forgiving than a few red light bulbs.’ Besides, it rapidly became clear that everyone there had far better things to do than scrutinize me, i.e. get their mother-loving freak on. It was like some crazy sex carnival, with people whacking each other with things and pouring hot things on sensitive parts and getting themselves tied to various objects. I’d never seen so much polyvinyl in my life.
When the first person approached me, I was scared. She was a leggy Amazonian type and was wearing a red pointed bra and cape. She looked like Elizabeth Hurley in Bedazzled. I made a mental note to add that movie to my Netflix list while trying to slip away from her grasp unharmed.
But instead of poking me with one of her stilettos, she just pointed to my shoes and said, ‘Nice boots, dollface.’
‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘they’re hers,’ pointing my thumb at Lucy.
‘I should have known,’ she said, giving Lucy a friendly little goose. ‘Spill it: where did you get them? Because I need them in my life.’
Turns out, everyone in there was just normal, apart from the sex stuff. Sure, a couple of guys tried to tie me to things and one woman accidentally poured hot wax in my hair, but on the whole it was very much like a normal party. I met a pair of accountants who told me all about their trip to the Maldives while one of them spanked the other one with the UK tax manual; an overworked solicitor who professed his love of Chelsea FC through a gimp mask; a stripper-turned-make-up artist wearing a snakeskin catsuit who told me how to contour my cheekbones, and two very sweet gay men who took turns attaching clamps to each other’s nipples while telling me about the renovation work on their house in France.
By the end of the night, I’d given out almost all of my cards. They were all so nice and so open: I figured if anyone was going to know a suitable partner, it would be them, though I wrote ‘No Weird Shit’ on the card every time I gave one out, just as a precaution.
I left the party just at the moment the future bride and groom were climbing into the sex swing suspended above the room as the crowd cheered them on.
There are certain things you just don’t want to share with a room-mate.
19 November
Something has occurred. I am suddenly very popular.
My phone hasn’t stopped ringing for the past two days, with various unknown numbers lighting up my screen. Eighteen have left messages, six of which consisted of more than heavy breathing. I’ve had eight RSVP cards so far, each stating that they know someone perfect for me, and I’ve had three notes scrawled in dubious handwriting shoved under my door. Every time I go to the shop, the clerk tries to tell me about his brother-in-law in Malawi who’s apparently my soul mate. The plumber came round to fix the toilet and hung about for an hour and a half, eking out his surely cold tea sip by sip until I finally made up a fake appointment to get him out of the flat. After he left, I went to the shop for more cigarettes, only to be accosted by the shopkeeper again, this time brandishing a photo of a thin, melancholy man sitting atop a pile of gourds.
Apparently everyone knows someone who would like to have sex with me.
In a way, I guess that’s heartening. It would be way more mortifying if all of my direct mail marketing had been met with a stony silence. But it was also a little daunting: how the hell was I supposed to choose? I didn’t know any of these guys, and it wasn’t like online dating, where at least you could see a photo and check if they were literate. With this, I was relying solely on some vague acquaintance’s opinion of my attractiveness level and sexual preferences. Yikes.
I sat down and consulted my Program Expansion Grid, which I’d completed earlier in the week. Rachel Greenwald, MBA, thinks I’m being too picky. She thinks I should forget I ever had a type, and just settle for someone who ticks only a coup
le of boxes. And those boxes should be pretty general, as in, ‘Is he breathing? TICK! Marry the man, you desperate spinster!’ In order to open yourself up to the greatest potential, you have to identify what you consider to be attractive in a man and then broaden that opinion to extend to more men. Ideally all single, living men on the face of the earth.
Anyway, I drew up my Program Expansion Grid (or, as I like to call it, where dreams go to die) on Sunday while still recovering from Lucy’s engagement party. Sure, every woman has an image in her head of Prince Charming, but maybe we should be looking for Prince Acceptable instead. For example, my perfect man would be slim and muscular, my slightly less perfect man would have let himself go to seed a little, and Prince Acceptable would be able to find pants that fit him without going to a specialist shop. See? Just like every little girl dreams about.
Taking all this into account, theoretically all of my potential suitors could fit into the net, being male vertebrates. I decided that, in order to really commit myself to the Program, the best course of action would be to date all of them and, in the spirit of Harvard-level industriousness and because I was running out of time this month, I would date all of them on the same day.
I screened out the guys who had left me creepy heavy-breathing messages (they hadn’t left their numbers, anyway) and threw out a couple of the RSVP cards because I knew that, despite my clear instructions, the applicants were married and looking to swing.
In the end, I was left with fourteen possibilities. I got out my notebook and set about calling each of them back: the guys who answered the phone would get a date (a very short date, but a date nonetheless). After an hour and a half of at times excruciatingly awkward phone conversations, I had ten dates lined up over ten hours for next Saturday.
Ladies and gentlemen, start your engines.
Age, Sex, Location Page 27