Bright Young Things (26 page)

Everyone gives each other looks. Anne says nothing.

‘All right,’ says Emily. ‘You have to run around the island five times, naked.’

‘Fine,’ says Paul. ‘I could do with some fresh air.’

‘We’ll all have to go outside with him,’ says Emily.

‘It’s freezing,’ says Thea.

‘Don’t you trust me to do it?’ he says.

‘We could always give him a different dare,’ suggests Jamie.

‘I think you should give him a different dare,’ says Anne.

‘Me too,’ says Thea.

‘But that’s not the rules,’ whines Emily.

‘If anyone lies we’ll send them outside,’ says Jamie. ‘How about that?’

‘All right,’ says Emily. She points at Paul. ‘You have to show us your cock, then.’

‘Is that my new dare?’ asks Paul.

‘Yeah,’ says Emily.

‘I don’t want to see his cock,’ says Bryn.

‘I do,’ says Thea.

‘Get it out, get it out, get it out,’ chants Emily.

‘All right,’ says Paul. ‘Prepare yourselves.’

Anne’s more disappointed than she thought she would be about not kissing Paul. She wonders why he’d rather have done the forfeit than kiss her. It’s all very puzzling. It’s probably because he doesn’t want to, although after all that sexual tension between them before . . . There’s a chance he wanted to defend her honour, which, while not necessary, would have been incredibly sweet.

So now he’s about to get his cock out.

Anne’s excited. She’s never seen a real penis before. She’s seen loads in magazines and on porn sites on the Internet, but never in the flesh. She wonders how big it will seem, and whether the ones on the Internet were normal, or bigger than average, or what. She read somewhere that the average size of an erect penis is about six inches. That seems a bit small. She hopes it’s bigger than that.

‘Come on,’ says Emily. ‘We’re waiting.’

Thea’s waving her little finger around, obviously not expecting much.

In a way, Anne can’t believe Paul’s actually doing this, but then again, this game of Truth or Dare has become very relaxed indeed. Anne’s sure she’s not the only one caught up in the whole anything-could-happen feeling that’s going on. Thea’s calmed down a lot and seems to be – hold your breath – actually enjoying herself. Jamie’s also letting his hair down, bless him, and even Paul’s being a little less evasive and detached from everyone. No one seems scared any more either, which is cool.

‘Paul’s unbuttoning his trousers. Underneath, he’s wearing boxer shorts.

‘Is this some sort of strip tease?’ asks Emily.

‘Come on,’ says Anne.

‘Tell me when to open my eyes,’ says Bryn.

Jamie also looks away.

‘Fucking hell,’ says Emily, when Paul eventually pulls it out.

‘Why is it erect?’ asks Thea.

‘It’s because he was thinking about kissing Anne,’ says Emily.

‘It’s actually because I’m an exhibitionist,’ he says, smiling.

‘Are you?’ says Thea.

‘No,’ he says. ‘Can I put it away now?’

‘No,’ says Emily. ‘I want a proper look.’

Anne can’t take her eyes off it. She guesses its length at about nine inches.

‘Is that big?’ she asks Emily.

‘I thought you looked at porn,’ says Emily.

‘I do, but it’s not the same as real life.’

‘It’s big,’ says Emily.

‘Thank you,’ says Paul.

He pulls his boxers up over it, making a kind of tent, and then does up his trousers.

‘You can look again now,’ Thea says to Bryn and Jamie.

‘You all sounded pretty impressed,’ says Jamie, jealously.

‘You’ve either got it or you haven’t,’ says Paul.

‘Time to move on,’ says Thea. ‘Who wants more wine?’

Everyone except for Anne says they do.

‘Paul’s turn,’ says Anne.

‘Jamie,’ says Paul. ‘Truth or Dare?’

‘Truth,’ says Jamie.

‘Have you ever had a rape fantasy?’ asks Paul.

‘That’s gross,’ says Thea.

‘What do you mean?’ asks Jamie, going pink.

‘Have you ever fantasised about raping someone?’

Jamie seems embarrassed. ‘I, uh . . .’

‘It is a pretty normal fantasy,’ says Emily.

‘I kind of have,’ says Jamie. ‘I’m sure all blokes think about it sometimes.’

‘We want more than
kind of
,’ says Emily. ‘We want details.’

‘Within reason,’ says Paul.

‘I’m not sure I want to hear this,’ says Thea.

‘It was a particular person,’ Jamie says. ‘A celebrity.’

‘You wanked about raping a celebrity?’ says Anne. ‘Which one?’

‘Promise you won’t think I’m disgusting,’ he says.

‘We already do,’ says Paul. He sees Jamie’s face. ‘Joke,’ he adds.

‘All right. It was Princess Diana.’

‘Eugggh,’ says Thea.

‘Before or after she died?’ asks Paul.

‘Before, of course. I’m not that sick.’

‘Why Princess Diana?’ asks Anne.

‘It was something about all those clothes and gowns and tiaras and things,’ says Jamie. ‘And the fact that she was supposedly untouchable. The fantasy always had me working as a waiter at some function she was attending, and somehow cornering her outside by the bins. I liked thinking about pushing her up against the bins and pulling up all her long, satin skirts and petticoats—’

‘She didn’t wear satin skirts and petticoats,’ says Emily.

‘She obviously did in Jamie’s fantasy,’ says Thea.

‘And she’d be getting all dirty and struggling . . .’

‘But she’d want it really, right?’ says Paul.

‘Yeah,’ says Jamie. ‘In the end. After I made her get down on her knees—’

‘Was this one of your favourite wank fantasies?’ interrupts Emily.

‘Yeah,’ says Jamie.

‘I like this,’ says Emily. ‘Everyone’s being really honest.’

‘Lady Di,’ says Bryn. ‘Fucking hell.’

‘My turn,’ says Jamie.

‘Who do you pick?’ asks Thea.

‘You,’ he says. ‘Truth or dare?’

‘Truth,’ she says.

‘Right. What’s the most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you?’

‘The most embarrassing thing?’

‘Yeah. That’s right. What is it?’

‘Um . . .’ Thea looks like she’s thinking hard. ‘Oh, God.’ She’s obviously remembered something. ‘I can’t say this one.’

‘You have to now,’ says Emily.

‘Or it’s naked and around the island,’ says Paul, pointing outside.

‘Five times,’ says Anne.

‘Yeah, yeah, I get the picture,’ says Thea.

Anne doesn’t know too much about being drunk, but she can see that the wine is making Thea much more relaxed, and therefore much more likely to say something she will regret. Of course, Anne’s more than familiar with the concept of embarrassment; it just doesn’t bother her. She does embarrassing things all the time – either deliberately, or just by accident – and she never gives a fuck. One of her favourite hobbies is buying pop singles from her local ‘cool’ record shop. They really hate it when she gives them 911 or S Club 7 CDs to process. She enjoys telling jokes that other people don’t find funny, saying inappropriate things, and singing badly when other people are listening. People hate uncomfortable silences; the moment when a conversation just stops because the people don’t have anything else to say. Anne loves those moments.

‘It was in Russia,’ says Thea.

‘This is going to be the
most
embarrassing thing, right?’ says Emily.

‘Yeah,’ Thea says. ‘But you will find it gross.’

‘Cool,’ says Paul. ‘Carry on.’

‘All right. I was twelve, and I was on a school trip to Russia.’

‘You went on a school trip to Russia?’ says Jamie.

‘Yeah. We learnt Russian at school as well as French and German.’

‘Do many schools do that?’ asks Jamie.

‘No,’ says Thea. ‘In fact, one of the funny things about the trip was that the other kids who were there at the same time as us were all from private schools. There were some boys from Marlborough and some girls from another posh fee-paying school in London. The boys were weird. They seemed to think chatting to grammar school kids like us was educational in some way. Anyway, we all spent the first half of the trip in Moscow, and then we were due to go by train to Leningrad for the second half of the trip. When I was twelve I didn’t have very much confidence for various reasons, and although I wanted to hang around with the cool kids who were smoking and drinking cheap vodka in their rooms every night, I ended up going around with this girl called Gillian. She was fat and ugly and unpopular, but since she was the only person prepared to act like my best friend for the trip, I decided to stick with her. I really hated the food we got there, and being hassled by Russian kids all the time, wanting to buy our jeans – although, in truth, my jeans weren’t cool enough for them to want; it was the kids who had Levi’s who got all the hassle. In fact, all my clothes were completely unfashionable and everyone used to laugh at me. Anyway, so there I was with my crap friend and my unfashionable clothes, and I really wanted to go home, but my foster mother had paid loads for the trip and I was determined to enjoy it. But on the day before we were going to go to Leningrad, disaster struck.’

‘What happened?’ asks Jamie.

‘This is so embarrassing. I’ve never actually told anyone this.’

‘Go on,’ says Emily. ‘We won’t laugh.’

‘Oh, you will,’ says Thea. ‘We were all packed up to go to Leningrad on the night train. That morning, we had to get dressed, pack an overnight bag and then give our suitcases to the teachers. The teachers were really strict and said that we couldn’t get anything out of our suitcases until we got to Leningrad. I don’t know why all this was done so early in the day . . .’

‘You probably had to check out of the hotel early,’ says Emily. ‘You know, they always kick you out at eleven or so if you’re not booked for the next night.’

‘Oh,’ says Thea. ‘I suppose so. Anyway, so this hotel we were staying in was about sixty stories high, and that evening I was on the ground floor, having just come back from some sight-seeing trip in the city, when I realised I wanted to go to the loo. This is totally embarrassing . . . Basically, I got that feeling that I had to, you know, shit really urgently. God, I hate talking about this. So anyway, I asked someone where there was a toilet, and they said it was on the fiftieth floor or something, so I had to go up there in the lift.’

‘Wasn’t there a closer loo?’ asks Emily.

‘No,’ says Thea. ‘Russia was a bit weird like that. Or at least, that’s what I remember thinking. I mean, there was so much weird stuff there, from the food to the shops and everything else, that I just didn’t question the fact that I’d have to travel fifty floors or so to get to a toilet. On reflection, maybe I’d misunderstood what the person said, or maybe they were even joking. Whatever. Anyway, when I got into the lift, I realised that the kids had been fucking around with it again. It was one of our favourite Moscow tricks. The lifts were so old and crap that we’d found that, say you punched in floors forty-nine, one, forty-seven, two, twenty-five, eighteen, in that order, the lift would travel to them in precisely that order. So if you wanted to get to floor eighteen, you’d have to wait while it went up and down to all these other floors first. Even I’d thought this was funny before, when we’d been messing around, but it’s not so funny when you’re dying for the loo and the lift just won’t go to the floor you want.’

‘What happened?’ asks Emily.

‘I shat myself,’ says Thea.

‘Unlucky,’ says Bryn.

‘Euugh,’ says Paul. Emily kicks him. ‘Ow,’ he says instead.

‘There’s more to the story actually,’ Thea says. ‘The really embarrassing stuff’s still to come. Do you want to hear?’

Everyone nods.

‘All right. Well, it started, you know,
happening
in the lift. I tried so hard to stop it, but I couldn’t. People were getting in and out the whole time, on all the floors the lift was stopping at on its way to the fiftieth. They were all giving me really funny looks and the lift was starting to smell. I mean, I was holding it in as much as I possibly could, but some was coming out. Then, once it was definitely coming out, it became a question of trying to keep it in my knickers and not let it slip down my jeans. When it got to be too much, I had to get out of the lift and try to walk up to the fiftieth floor. The other problem was that by this point, some of the other kids were hanging about. Our train was due to leave for Leningrad in about twenty minutes, and we were supposed to be meeting down on the third floor to be checked in by the teachers before going to the station. I needed to try to clean myself up, and fast. Eventually when I got to the toilet, it was engaged. I stood there waiting for five minutes, and while I was there, one of the Marlborough boys came to talk to me. I’d forgotten that their rooms were on that floor. I remember that there was a rumour going around that he had a crush on me, and I’d been waiting for him to talk to me for ages. But I certainly didn’t want him to see me like that. First I tried to hide, and then when he found me and started chatting I must have acted like such a dickhead. I was blushing red and I must have really smelt, too. As soon as the loo was free I just dived into it and left this bloke standing there. Of course, by the time I got inside, I didn’t even want to shit any more. I’d been totally and completely caught short. So I set about trying to clean myself up. It was so horrible. I was only twelve, and I’d never had to do anything like that before. It was also the first time I’d stayed away from home and it all just made it a lot worse.’