Hen Night

OK I know I promised to do a continuation of Two! No More Than Two! but this is too good to pass up (yes, folks you are gonna be subject to intimate details of my dreary life once again).

Firstly it's 4.07am in the morning. Insomnia, insomnia, insomnia. Except that this time, har har, I have a good excuse. I was at my cousin's Hen Night. And just made it home past three (they were playing Corinne Bailey Rae's Put Your Records On which is like one of my favourite songs, so I stayed in the car until it finished)

Anyway, that's neither here or there. I digress because I'm Indian and it's in the blood.

Anyway, you know what Hen Nights are like. Lots of drink. Embarassing forfeits. Total humiliation of the bride to be (Praby I love you, but I can't help it, I have to write about this).

Anyway, we had dinner at Italiannies and then adjourned to Laundry Bar for drinks. And ahem, other stuff. Before we adjourned, Addy handed out slips of paper for each one of us to write out a task for Praby (known to the rest of the world as Eve) to do.

I didn't know what to write, so I chewed the end of somebody else's pen, looked around, scratched my nose, winked at a cute waiter, scratched my knee, told a joke about monogamy (hahahahaha, it was funny but you had to be there), smiled around at my various friends, all in a vain search for inspiration. The rest of them were scribbling like it was the lotto or something.

And then, in the words of Oprah, my great AHA moment! (OK I know she doesn't use it in this context, but I don't care). If I had been in the bath, I would have taken off, tearing down the streets ala Archimedes, screeching EUREKA, EUREKA, EUREKA!

Anyway, my darling Praby, who already had two glasses of Shiraz in her (which should have driven her tipsy but she was too apprehensive to be tipsy, wondering what horrors lay in store for her), said, Jenn, you are my cousin, you are supposed to protect me. And I smiled in that serene fashion I have (you should ask somebody about it, I look like a Zen Mistress with that smile), nodded very calmly and intoned, yes, yes, I love you.

Her face took on an unhealthy pallor.

She was looking so worried that my heart misgave me. Don't worry, I said, taking her hand. She looked a little relieved. It's gonna be as bad as you imagined, I said. She smacked me.

Then we adjourned to the Laundry Bar. She was off the, ahem, facilities, with a few of the other girls (why is it that women always have to do group pees?) when I tapped Cindy on the shoulder (I had only met her tonight but we got along like a house on fire because we shared an interest in the same books and both love that James (is it James?) Blunt song) and she had seen what I wrote on that fatal piece of paper.

"Let's go scout out the place, pick a cute guy and ask him," I said.

I figure that reporters are about the most open people in the world. We can go up to strangers in nearly any situation and ask them anything. It's part of the job. (OK, so how many times a week do you have sex? No fixed number? How about an approximation? I'm doing a survey for the NST)

Anyway, we did a round and the dearth of cute guys at Laundry Bar was heartbreaking. Finally Cindy spotted one standing by himself and bopping to the music.

"Ok that guy over there, across my shoulder, the one with the full head of hair (we had been looking for a bald guy as Praby likes em bald) what do you think?"

He was cute, not my type, but cute, so I moseyed on over, only to find that Cindy had not followed me. I turned to see where she was and she waved at me, as in, you're on your own from here, babe. Can't believe you're doing this.

(When a girl you've never met before suddenly gives you flowers, that's Impulse)

I smiled up at this cute guy and asked if he would do me a favour. He looked a tad apprehensive. I said it was my cousin's Hen Night (he looked even more apprehensive and said, shit, I don't like the sound of this)...and asked if he would mind being smacked on the butt as that was one of her "tasks". He burst out laughing and agreed. Introduced himself as Jimmy (Jimmy, if you're reading this, thank you, and although she is getting married, the rest of the single women in the group thought you were very cute and wanted your phone number except that it is not polite to ask for a guy's phone number after you've smacked his butt)

Anyway, once Praby had come back, the night began in earnest. First, there was the unveiling of the cake. OK girls, if you live in KL and want a naughty cake for a Hen Night, you can't go wrong with Just Heavenly. It's in Bangsar, and their creations are truly artistic.

When my very modest cousin lifted the cover off the scrummy cake, she beheld a naked man, on his side, covered with a red cloak. The words: "Lift and Enjoy!" What she had to do was remove his cloak, and bite off his penis. (Something every good wife-to-be should know how to do).

She was mortified. "Lift your hair, bend over, come on," screamed Audra.

"Do it slow," Addy chortled.

Praby could not bring herself to do it. But the chanting grew louder, with everyone shouting encouragement and so she had to bend over and get on with it. Once she had chomped off his itty bitty member, saying in quite a surprised tone, "yum, that was nice", it was time for the presents.

There was extremely sexy lingerie (one had all this beads hanging off, ala part of a belly dancer's costume). We asked her to do a dance for Bruce and take pictures for us to see and she gave us this "yeah, that's gonna happen..." look. Then there was this book, Sextasy. It had pictures. Enough said. There was also a thong for Bruce. We wondered if she could photograph him doing a Chippendale's table dance. She didn't think so.

When she had unwrapped the last present, the flaming Lamborghini arrived. I don't know if you've ever had one of these babies, but it is potent. You're basically drinking a fiery concoction (it is burning and you use a straw and suck it up) and after that...

Anyway, after the killer drink (remember, she had also had red wine and white wine and sangria by this point), it was time for the games...yay!

The first forfeit was to go up to the manager of the place and tell him she was smitten with him and was thinking of leaving her husband-to-be. The manager was not around at that point, so we asked her to pick again.

The second one asked her to find a guy and ask him to wear her necklace for a few minutes. The guy she asked refused, but Praby put it on him anyway and he had to submit to being a little manhandled. It was at this point I realised that she was well and truly drunk. (My sober, serious and inhibited cousin would never have done that to a stranger)

Then she picked MINE! YAY!

I hauled her off unceremoniously to screams of NO! NO! NO! to go look for Jimmy. He wasn't standing where he had been before, and I hadn't really memorised his face. I was wondering if I would have to pick some other guy when Cindy indicated a guy sitting quite near us.

Grinning, I dragged Eve up to him and said: "Smack his ass!"

Drunk as she was, my little cousin was mortified. She continued to resist weakly as he stood up obligingly to let her get on with it. So I took her hand and smacked him with it. He extended his hand to her and said, "All the best".

What a nice, nice guy! Why oh why hadn't we gotten his phone number?

Anyway as I was leading her back to the table, Praby sighed: "Gosh, he was SO cute!"

"Cindy picked him," I said generously, giving credit where it was due.

"What do you mean picked him?"

"You didn't think I was gonna let you smack a stranger's ass did you?"

Cousins. They're so good to each other.

Anyway, the night wore on, and Eve got progressively drunker. She reverted to a sort of infantile state, her head lolling on the table, unable to hear what anyone was saying.

"What? What? What? Can we go home? Please, can we go home?"

Adeline (whose job it was to send her back) agreed, and Addy and I saw them to the car. Praby couldn't walk straight and kept wailing...but I have a wedding to attend tomorrow, how am I gonna go in this state?

I said, oh just show your mother the lingerie and she will understand. And Praby said, I don't even have to do that. She only needs to see the naked man with his penis bitten off.

And we all laughed immoderately.

She got home safely.

And will probably be bleary-eyed and hungover at her cousin's wedding today.