Free Boyfriend in a Dress by Louise Kean

didn’t think the doormen were going to let us in, until Nim convinced them that we were all bisexual, apart from Jake, who was a red-blooded male, and that we would all be chucking around a lot of money. If it hadn’t been January, a quiet month for lap-dancing clubs apparently, I don’t think they would have let us in. They could tell we were just there to giggle, and would be spendinghardly any cash, but they needed anything we were prepared to give.
    Jake was the most uncomfortable from the start. He couldn’t look at any of the women parading around in their underwear, or sliding down poles, while we were there. Somehow our presence made him feel sleazy, we knew that, and he couldn’t leer at women with his female friends around. But we adjourned to the bar, and just whistled from a distance, paying for extortionately priced drinks on our credit cards. We were playing some stupid game that Jules had got from a guy she’d been seeing – you have to name somebody you would have sex with, and then the next person has to name somebody they would have sex with, but their first name has to begin with the first letter of the surname of the person you have said you will have sex with. I started with ‘Jeremy Paxman’ – I would – and Jules, who always panics, because you have to drink as you think, said,
    ‘Pope John Paul.’
    ‘You disgust me,’ Nim said, weeping with laughter and wiping the tears from her eyes, while I tried to stop my drink coming out of my nose.
    ‘Is it me? Is it “P”?’ Amy, my big sister, asked – she had loosened up since earlier, relaxed with my friends and not hers.
    ‘Yep – let’s try and stay away from leaders of world religions from now on though,’ Nim said, and Jules apologized again.
    ‘Paul Newman,’ Amy said after a gulp of drink. She was clever, and married, and measured. She was what I hoped I would be in a couple of years’ time, but I knew I never actually would. She didn’t take shit from people, but she was lovely as well. I took shit from some people and not others, but lost my temper a lot more often. It’s like she left all the bad genes in my mum’s womb for me to suckup when it was my turn two years later to burst out into the world.
    Nim started to drink and think, but was still laughing about the Pope exclamation, and sputtered out her drink as she said,
    ‘Nigel Lawson.’ We laughed again, and then fell into a quick silence, as the mental image refused to dislodge itself from all of our brains. We all seemed to neck our drinks quickly, at the same time.
    I turned to the bar to order more drinks from a topless smiling woman, who stopped smiling when she saw us in our work clothes. Instantly I felt bad, like I was ridiculing her place of work, her work itself. I knew she thought we were smug and patronizing, and I avoided her stern eye as I handed over another forty quid for five drinks. Jake came back from the toilet, looking concerned.
    He whispered something in Amy’s ear, and I saw her jaw lock slightly, in anger, and she nodded. I turned to pick up the drinks and pass them around, and caught Jake mouthing something to Jules, but they both stopped guiltily when they saw me looking.
    ‘Hey, I’m tired, shall we go?’ Jules said suddenly, smiling at me, and picking up her bag.
    ‘I’ve just got another round of drinks in!’ I said, feeling confused.
    ‘I don’t think I can drink any more,’ Jake said quickly, grabbing his coat.
    ‘Well, you could have told me that before I paid out forty quid,’ I snapped, starting to lose my temper, as an uneasy feeling crept up my back and tension spread across my shoulders, stiffening my neck.
    ‘What?’ I said to them all, suddenly feeling sober.
    Nim looked from me to them, confused, and Jake and Jules gave each other ‘meaningful’ looks. It was Amy who spoke.
    ‘Jake thinks he saw Charlie over there, with some guys.’ She pointed in the direction of a large group of noisy men on the other