by Shari Low
She was definitely in the relationship equivalent of Siberia and he was obviously intent on a prolonged stew while contemplating how he should react to her crime of grievous bodily spontaneity.
This was classic Darren. Throughout their whole relationship they’d had very few falling outs, but when they did it was always Ginny who had to make the first move to reconciliation. The longest she’d ever lasted was thirty-six hours after she found condoms in his sports holdall. Not a crime in itself, but taken in conjunction with her monthly prescription for contraceptive pills, it did look a bit suspicious. In the end, though, her gut told her he was telling the truth when he said they’d been part of a goodie bag given to everyone who attended a health and fitness exhibition.
So she’d called him and apologised, and he’d loved her enough to put it behind them. She could trust Darren, she knew that. After twelve years together you just knew a person. And that’s why, as she pressed the green button on her phone, she knew he was going to be a little on the irritated side.
‘Hi.’
‘Have you lost your mind? What the hell are you doing?’
Make that incandescent.
‘Babe, I’m sorry, but…’
‘Sorry! Ginny, you upped sticks and left without even telling me! How could you do that?’
‘I’m sorry, but…’
‘I mean, how would you feel if I did that to you?’
‘You’re right, Darren, I’m sorry, but…’
‘And it’s even worse that I have to look at the smug fucking face of that smug fucking pal of yours…’
Oh, this was bad. Twelve years and she could count on the fingers of one trembling hand how many times he’d sworn at her.
‘Darren, I’m sorry, but…’
‘So come home and stop being so bloody ridiculous. I’m booked solid all day tomorrow so just get a taxi from the station.’
‘No.’
It took her a few moments to realise that the word had actually come from her mouth–she’d been on such a good roll with the ‘sorry’s.
‘What?’
‘I’m sorry, but…no.’
Her heart knew that it was time for the truth–time to own up, be honest and admit to him what was really going on. However, her mouth went for subterfuge and duplicity.
‘Darren, I can’t. Roxy would be in so much trouble if I left. I’ve promised that I’ll stay here for the rest of the month, and even though I’m hating every minute of it I have to stay. I promised.’
‘You promised lots of things to me too, but that doesn’t seem to count.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Darren, it’s only for three more weeks. Stop being so dramatic–you’re starting to sound like Roxy.’
Light. Blue. Touch. Paper.
‘What? How can you compare me to that self-centred, spoiled brat?’
And that’s when it hit her. Darren and Roxy were so similar they could have shared a womb. Both Alpha personalities. Both self-centred. Both expected everyone else to fit into their world. And because Ginny was by nature such a laid-back, acquiescent person, it had always just seemed like the easiest option to go along with them.
The eternal engagement, the excruciatingly uneventful relationship, the blind acceptance of everything he said–she’d been dancing to Darren’s tune for years.
When it came to both Roxy and Darren, she honestly couldn’t remember ever having refused them anything.
And even her mother…She’d never left the library because the truth was that her mother liked having her there and she didn’t want to upset her by leaving. She was planning a huge wedding because her mother wanted one. And she’d never left home because her mother didn’t see the point. And, frankly, Ginny didn’t feel strongly enough about anything to fight her own corner–as long as everyone else was happy she was content to be the poster girl for non-confrontation.
She was, she realised, a doormat. A spineless doormat.
Well, no more. This was the first time she’d ever done anything for herself and she’d be damned if she was cutting it short to please Darren. Didn’t she have the rest of her life to spend with him?
‘Ginny, if you don’t come home you can forget it. Forget the engagement, forget the wedding, forget everything.’
‘What? You can’t be serious,’ she replied with a nervous laugh.
His voice dropped a few notches, from blind fury to tired and irritated.
‘I am, Gin. I’m serious.’
Strangely, and for the first time ever, Ginny was heading in the other direction on the pissed-off-o-meter.
‘Wait a minute–so you can go to week-long sports camps, you can go for golfing weekends with your buddies, you can cycle across Uzbeki-bloody-stan just because you feel like it, you can nip over to La Manga with clients, you can go anywhere and do anything you bloody well like, and I never complain, but the first time I do anything, ANYTHING, by myself you practically call out the National bloody Guard to drag me back! You’re right, Darren, you’re absolutely right–let’s forget it!’
Ginny disconnected the call and slammed the phone down on the table, causing the battery cover to fly off, ricochet off the sex-aids cupboard, shatter and crumble over the top of one of the costume boxes. Shit, it’d take her ages to fish all the bits out of the feather boas.
Argh! She could feel her heart pumping sheer bloody fury around her veins and the hairs on her arms were standing on end in protest. Her first instinct was to call Roxy. She had to talk to her. Roxy would know what to do–although given that this situation involved Darren, chances were Roxy’s solution would include suggestions involving male genitalia and electric currents.
Perhaps it was just as well the phone was trashed–wasn’t it time for her to stand on her own two feet? Even if they were encased in her best friend’s shoes.
And anyway, Ginny realised that if she called Roxy it might just give her an excuse to charge to the rescue, reclaiming her flat, her job and her life in the process. And even in her emotional turmoil, Ginny wasn’t sure that she was ready for that.
No, she had to face this, embrace her feelings and deal with it–and right now she was dealing with a feeling of utter fury.
And, weirdly, it felt great.
‘Are you okay? Sorry, couldn’t help overhearing.’ Sam’s shoulders filled the open doorway.
She leapt to her feet.
‘I’m sorry, Sam, I’m just coming back to the desk now, I’m really sorry, I’m just, I mean, coming, I’ll just, the desk, shit, no one’s at the desk…’
‘Do you ever breathe? In. Out. Come on, do it with me. Government employment regulations state that breathing in the workplace is mandatory.’
Ginny attempted a smile, terrified that Sam’s sympathetic face would give her that last little push from ‘barely holding it together’ to ‘crumble’. She couldn’t cry in front of her boss. Not even her only-for-another-three-weeks-temporary-boss. He’d have her out of the door before she got halfway down the Kleenex box.
She sniffed her first sniff as a single woman in twelve years.
‘Sorry, Sam, it’s just…’
‘Boyfriend stuff?’
‘Apparently that’s ex. Ex-boyfriend stuff.’
Oh. My. God. Darren was her ex. Another first–she’d never had an ex before. But then, she’d never had chickenpox, tripe or a sexually transmitted disease before, and she wasn’t keen on embracing any of those either.
Okay, two choices–go and jump on the first train home or stay here and finish out the month.
‘Do you need to go home? The News of the World has cancelled Tilly’s story–the MP she was shagging pulled some strings–so I could call her in to cover. Or maybe even Roxy…’
‘No, no, it’s fine. I’m absolutely fine.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘Positive. I’ll just, er…’
A familiar bleep sound emitted from the intercom on the desk.
‘…go and answer that phone.’
; To hell with tears, to hell with Darren, to hell with pleasing everyone else–she was a confident, together woman with a six-foot-tall government minister who liked to wear nappies at the door. Ginny Wallis had a job to do.
‘One. Two. Three. Shoot.’
The girls licked the salt off their hands, knocked back the tequila and slammed the empty shot glasses on the bar. At least that was the plan. Since Ginny had raised her normal evening alcohol consumption from two white-wine spritzers to three glasses of Bollinger and six tequila shots, she licked her glass, missed her mouth and tipped the alcohol over the bar, from where it promptly ran into the lap of her Roland Mouret. She now looked like she had really good fashion sense and a really bad incontinence problem.
After Darren’s Oscar-winning performance in the category of ‘Severely Pissed Off Fiancé’, it hadn’t taken much persuasion for her to join the others for that night on the town. And apart from the tequila incontinence she was having a great time.
She had to admit there was a thrill about it. They’d headed for their regular haunt in Soho, a fabulously trendy club called Nude. The whole ‘naked’ thing had definitely become a theme in her life lately.
There were twelve of them–all girls, all gorgeous, all dressed to kill. Imagine the Pussycat Dolls, without the vocal talent, then multiply it by two. As they bypassed the queuing masses and headed straight to the front door, Ginny couldn’t help but notice thirty metres of ‘irritated but curious’ craning their necks to see who they were. Somehow she thought they’d be a bit disappointed if they realised they were being usurped by the librarian from the Farnham Hills Community Centre.
As the bouncers on the door offered familiar smiles, greetings, then swiftly parted to let them through, she felt a little surge of adrenaline. Tonight she was one of the in-crowd and it felt great.
Inside, they made their way straight to the far side of the futuristic steel and glass bar, where a thick red velvet rope drew a line between the anonymous clubbers and the VIP section. On the left-hand side of the barrier was the equivalent of airline economy class–everyone packed in, slightly sweaty and pretending they didn’t mind that they hadn’t managed to blag an upgrade. On the right-hand side of the barrier, first class: space, great service, and huge comfy seats. Ginny and her tequila partners had their finely toned posteriors on the firm upholstery of half a dozen cowhide barstools, while the rest of the group mingled around them.
Ginny did a spin on her stool just to check out the rest of the room. Weird. When they’d first come in she hadn’t noticed anyone that particularly floated her boat, but strangely, as the night went on, several of the guys nearby were starting to look fairly attractive. Another few tequila shots and there was every chance that she’d be surrounded by fine specimens of manhood.
Not that she’d be interested, of course–but that didn’t mean she was immune to the thrill of being ‘in demand’. She’d lost count of the number of bottles of champagne that had been sent over. And she’d already been chatted up twice, air-kissed by a fit hunk from a jeans commercial and asked if she wanted to go for a spin in some bloke’s Ferrari.
It seemed the Seismic girls were top of every horny, red-blooded male’s ‘Want List’, courtesy of the fact that they were smart, stunning, and spent eight hours a day perfecting their sex techniques.
The whole scene was shallower than her shot glass. The old Ginny–engaged, grounded, disciplined Ginny–would have been uncomfortable, intimidated and disdainful about the utter superficiality of it all. That, of course, was presuming she somehow managed to persuade the bouncers that tracksuit bottoms and a bobbled hoodie was the kind of dress code that every trendy club wanted to encourage. The new, single, impulsive, swanky-hair-do Ginny was bravely putting her heartache aside (what was her ex-fiancé’s name again?) and relishing every fabulous, hedonistic, decadent, tequila-soaked moment of it.
‘I’m glad you came with us,’ Destiny grinned.
‘Me too!’ Actually, that’s what Ginny meant to say–what came out was ‘Meeeeshooo.’
Destiny threw her head back and laughed, then hopped off her stool.
‘Come on, let’s dance.’
Ginny looked around her–the place was mobbed. Or was that just the very confusing positioning of mirrors on every wall? Nope, it was definitely chock-a-block and she couldn’t see the dance floor so it must be over the other side of the club. She wasn’t sure that she wanted to move–getting off the stool would be tricky, navigating the throng of clubbers would be a nightmare, and then shuffling on the spot on a crowded dance floor was a one-way ticket to bruised ribs and crushed toes.
‘I think I’ll just sit it out,’ she yelled back.
Destiny smiled as she shrugged and repeated the suggestion to Ceecee, a breathtaking, tall Arctic blonde who spoke five languages, carried herself like royalty, and liked to whip her customers until they needed TCP and a cold compress to numb the pain.
Ginny watched, expecting them to slip off their stools and disappear into the sea of faces. Suddenly, there was a movement, everything went dark, and then there was the extreme discomfort of a heavy pressure on the top of her head.
Shit, she was having a blackout. Too much alcohol? Salt overload? Or maybe her drink had been spiked. Her stomach churned–hadn’t her mother warned her about this? She’d be sold for fifty quid and locked in the basement of a psychotic Eastern European madman by the end of the week.
‘Sorry, hon, just be a minute.’
Suddenly the darkness cleared and Ginny realised that she’d just been used as a prop so that Destiny and Ceecee could lever themselves up onto the bar.
There was a deafening roar from the crowd as the girls strutted to either end of the steel surface, each stopping at a silver pole on opposite corners of the bar top.
Ginny groaned. Crap–they were going to get thrown out. The last time anyone climbed on the bar in her local (actually it was the only time anyone had ever climbed on the bar in her local) it had ended with thirty-six smashed glasses, a broken ankle and a caution for breach of the peace.
Ginny waited for the bouncers to descend. So much for her glamorous night out–not only had she been dumped by the love of her life, but now her arse was about to hit the pavement. If her Mouret dress got damaged there’d be hell to pay.
So it was a bit of a surprise that the DJ suddenly turned the spotlights towards the bar and demanded that everyone give him a ‘Hell yeah!’
‘Hell yeah!’ yelled the crowd, drowning out Ginny’s ‘What the hell…?’
And as the throbbing beat of Justin Timberlake’s ‘SexyBack’ filled the room, the girls made eye contact, winked at each other, then slowly, seductively, peeled off their dresses in time to the beat, revealing nothing but sheer, sexy, elaborate shiny underwear. And for the rest of her life, Ginny would always remember that her first thought wasn’t horror shock, or embarrassment–it was ‘wow, the sparkly thong has a bra to match’.
As Destiny grabbed onto the pole with both hands and used every single perfectly formed muscle to shimmy up to the top of it, it was obvious that many in the room felt two other things rising. One was their temperature…
Now Destiny was clutching the pole between her thighs, while arching her back so far that her head almost touched her feet.
Over on the other pole, Ceecee was performing exactly the same movement in perfect synchronisation. They curled their heads back up, and then used their arms for support and leverage as they stretched their legs out so that their bodies were almost at ninety degrees to the pole.
Ginny was entranced, and thankfully the shock had cleared her vision so she was no longer seeing everything in duplicate. This was the strangest day of her life. How had she managed to go to work this morning, get chucked, get drunk, and now transport herself to the set of Coyote Ugly?
As she slowly moved to the throb of the music, she was, however, experiencing some new sensations of an entirely different kind. Something felt…well, weird. Strange. Unusual.<
br />
The girls had dismounted and were now strutting boldly towards each other, every movement oozing pure sex and lust.
Ginny adjusted her posture. Mmm, definitely a strange kind of sensation going on.
As the girls met in the middle, they slowly, provocatively, removed their bra tops. The place erupted as the crowd split into four camps: straight guys cheering with excitement at the sheer sexiness of it; gays guys cheering with excitement at the sheer theatre of it; some women loving the sheer celebration of female sexuality; and the feminists searching for a lighter to burn their bras then torch the poles in sheer disgust.
And Ginny? Sheer…surprise. Surprise that another new sensation had suddenly come to the party. And what a party. It took her tequila-soaked brain a little while to catch up with the rest of her anatomy, but finally Ginny realised that she was experiencing the same feeling she used to get for a couple of minutes roughly four times a week, and only then if she really concentrated. She was…horny!
Yep, her drink had definitely been spiked. She was Ginny Wallis–she didn’t do lust, desire and uncontrollable urges. She did conservative, sensible and control-top tights.
She slid off the bar stool and made her way to the door. Fresh air. She needed some cool fresh air to clear her head and give her nipples a physical reason to be standing out like her mother’s bunions.
Just as she stepped outside the door into a chaotic throng of Friday-night revellers, a black cab pulled up and three merry Scotsmen, all kilts and hairy legs, poured out of it. They had about as much chance of getting into the über-chic club as she had of waking up tomorrow morning and discovering that she could speak five languages and whip posh blokes into submission, but she decided not to rain on their tartan parade.
‘You need a taxi, love?’
The taxi driver hung out of his window, eyeing her expectantly. She must look like she’d had enough for one night. And even in her befuddled state, she recognised that she probably had. She clambered in and gave him Roxy’s address. Fifteen slightly sobering minutes later, as they pulled up outside the door, she did a mental inventory: