A night out

A Night Out
It was her 32nd birthday. No plans had been made as to where we were going as whenever we plan anything, it never works out.  I was to be at her house for 7.30pm. I wore black tight trousers and a grey low cut top with wings to hide my flabby arms. I had a black leather studded belt bought from Ted Baker and my new high wedges. I was smart casual. My hair took me ages to style; recently cut I was feeling and looking rather good.

I told my boyfriend I had a feeling that we may not even get out of her flat, we may not be going into town at all. From previous experience she might not want to go out with me if she felt second best. I can recall a time where I had spent ages putting on my eye make up and upon arriving at her house she told me she did not want to go out that evening because she couldn’t be bothered.  I know the real reason, I looked fine.

I arrived and gave her a birthday card, It was a pink card. All the other cards on her shelf were also pink. When I arrived we had a moment of whey’s, cheers and whoops. We danced a jig around her room and like children we chanted happy birthday to each other and kicked up our feet as if we were show jumping ponies.  We then opened the bottle of wine that I had bought from the shop earlier.
She was dressed more casual than me, blue baggy jeans and a white blouse. Her pink sandals were nice. I was surprised she wore the baggy jeans on a night out. Of course her hair and makeup was immaculate. She always looks stunning when she goes out.  A beautician by trade, she can transform herself into an Adonis by applying the highlighter and eye makeup correctly. We both moaned and complained about our weight, she grabbed her stomach and I pinched my arms. We outdid each other with who has got the largest size top, She had a few size 16s, I only ever bought 1.

By 9.30pm we had finished the wine, a half bottle of vodka and the half bottle of wine left over from the other night. We were feeling a little more relaxed than before. We had talked about where we were going, if we were going out at all as she had stomach ache, work colleagues and the local gossip of family and friends.

The taxi dropped us off at the bottom of town. We had wanted to try out a new bar. Angel had been talking about it for 2 weeks solid. I had been there before, I thought that it was more of an after work bar than a night time venue. Angel had said that the bar was really cool and really rich people would drink there. I told her not to get her hopes up. It was a cocktail bar, but at £9.50 a drink, the half bottle of vodka hiding in Angel’s handbag came in very useful. We ordered and drank 2 glasses of orange juice and whilst at the bar we murmured something about being designate drivers for the night so not to arouse suspicion of being cheapskates.

We sat outside so we could smoke and add more vodka to our drinks as required. The place was fairly quiet. It was on the outskirts of town, where all the new hotels are. We observed the other people, no cutting edge fashion here. Angel pointed to a group of girls drinking champagne. How pretentious she commented. I thought to myself so what but she insisted on making comments and staring at them. I explained if we had the money we would be drinking champagne but she wanted to put them down anyway. I was not bothered or even interested in what the other people were doing but that was Angel all over, always interested in other people and their status.

Being disappointed with the new bar, we left and walked back into town to a more lively part. During the walk, I listened to Angel making remarks about how rubbish the bar was, how expensive the drinks were, how she had never been to that part of town, how pretentious the girls were for drinking the champagne, how her colleagues had told her it was the place to be and how rubbish the bar actually was. This grated on me for a while but I said nothing. She rattled on like a broken record until we reached the next bar.

“Free in” the bouncers explained to us. Cool we thought. We went down the steps. The bar was in the gay area of town. We walked into the bar and it was stunning. There were thousands of bottles of champagne on the walls behind glass casing. This bar had the wow factor. We ordered Lemonade and Lime, a refreshing change from the orange juice. We went to the unisex toilets, there was a bouncer prowling around so we couldn’t both go into the cubicle together. We tried, but he was onto us like a dog with a bone. Angel topped up her drink first and then I emptied the remaining vodka into my glass. We left the empty bottle on the top of the toilet cistern.

We went straight to the 5 foot speaker and stood by it. There was a DJ competition here and the music was pretty good. We were feeling quite drunk and we danced a bit. We couldn’t hear much over the thud of the speaker. Angel was only repeating everything we had spoken about on the walk up anyway. We were feeling a little drunk, so I was going for gold with my dancing, laughing and stumbling about. I can’t dance very well anyway. I have always been told this. A few drinks down me and I was Justin Timberlake. We were the only people dancing. People were watching us. I wasn’t bothered. Give them something to laugh about.

A blonde haired guy came up to us and started to dance. I thought he might have been employed by the club but Angel said he wasn’t. He was waving his arms and drawing boxes. He looked about 19 years old. He tried to talk to us but we couldn’t hear what he was saying. We nodded, agreed and smiled. It seemed to work. He didn’t look drunk like us, his pupils were quite big and he had sweat on the brow of his head. He was with a group of lads and a girl. The girl was draped all over a guy. The lad kept staring. He told us that this was his ex girlfriend and that now she was with his mate. He didn’t like this much.

By the time we had finished the drink and left there were 15 people dancing. I was pleased. I was the first person to dance and within 1 drink, all these people were up dancing. It was now midnight. We walked out of the bar and decided to walk to the other side of town. There was a bar over there that attracts older people. We got as far as McDonalds. I ordered a cheeseburger. They did not sell cheeseburgers after 11pm so I settled for a quarter pounder with cheese. That was new, shows how long it is since I have been in town and eating McDonalds.  When we got the burger we realised that the bar we wanted to visit would be shut by now. We made a u turn and headed back towards the gay area.

I wanted to go to Fibre; Angel wanted to go to Mission. It’s her birthday, let her decide. Mission it was. I paid her in. £8 each. Cheap, I was expecting about £12 in at least. We walked down the long tunnel and into a room. We both looked at each other. We couldn’t believe it. We were the oldest people in there by at least 10 years. All the people looked about 18 years old. We went to the bar and got 2 JD and cokes. We slunk to the back of the room and lent upon the cream padded walls. Oh no, we thought, what have we done? The music was hard house, the people were all young and there was only 1 room open. 72 people in the whole place. The entrance ticket said we were the 72nd person. Angel began to moan. That first bar was rubbish and so is here. What happened to this place, where has everyone gone?

I tried to make the best out of a bad job. I shuffled my feet in time to the music and looked at all the other people. They were all dancing on raised boxes and seemed to be having a good time. They all looked like students. I watched the DJ for a bit and then we went to sit down. Angel said that we need to get sorted out and asked me to start asking people for a pill. I felt a bit embarrassed. I never went out unprepared and always had my own stuff. Before I could think of who to ask, Angel shouted a half cast guy. “Got any pills?”  she asked. He pointed to a huge obese guy wearing sun glasses and sweating profusely. “Oy!” she shouted, “got any pills?” “ £2.50 each” he replied. “OK, we’ll have 2.” We followed him to another room.

We got the pills and gave him a fiver. We chatted with him and his mates and they said they were from Harrogate. Angel was in her element. “Oh” she said, “we used to go out in Harrogate, we used to go out there 15 years ago. We went to Jack and Danny’s and Carrington’s.” The lads had never heard of the places she mentioned. I’m not surprised. 15 years is a long time for a club to keep open. They named loads of clubs in Harrogate, which we had never heard of either.
We chatted to these guys on and off throughout the night and they told us that the obese guy with the sunglasses wanted to be the person with the most pills in the club.

We took the pills, one each. They took ages to work so we went outside for a cigarette. A few people asked if they could buy a cig. I was glad that I had 2 packets of cigs. They were only £2.50 a pack so after handing out a couple of cigs, I had my money back. My pill came up when I was stood having a cig, I couldn’t speak properly as I felt sick, so I kept swallowing and concentrated on keeping the pill down. It would be such a waste if I threw it back up.

These 2 Asian guys came to talk to us. Angel said it was her birthday so they bought her a drink. They asked us where they can get some pills from so we sorted it out for them. We discussed how shit it was in there and how it had changed since last year. I was beginning to think this club was good, the music seemed to be good and the people were funny. It took a while to adjust to the 18 year old mentality but I was there now and loving it.

Back inside, the Asian guys lined up the Sambucca shots for us. Angel tried setting hers on fire but it didn’t work and she ended up burning her nose. After 2 more of these, we went back outside for another cig. My pill had calmed down now so I could talk a bit. The guys were from Bradford and were older than 18. They, like us, had not been out for a while and they said they were going back to Bradford because it was rubbish in here and not even busy. They wished Angel happy birthday again and they gave us another pill each. We took it without even looking at it. I wouldn’t have been able to see it anyway. We were gutted to see them go; they were older and easier to talk to than the average 19 years old.

Angel began to moan again about the previous bar, this place, the price of the pills and the broken record began again. I laughed to myself and suggested we go back inside. I coughed walking through the room and a bit of sick came out. I spat it on the floor, ignored it and carried on walking.

Angel was talking to everyone. She was having a great time. I was dancing and enjoying myself too. I didn’t need to talk to anyone; I was enjoying the pill too much. People came and went, talked and moved on. If people asked me, I said I was married. They wasn’t chatting me up or anything, just chatting. If the conversation steered onto that, they were put in their place.

Angel had lots of mucky handprints on her by about 5am. My pill was wearing off now and I was getting a bit bored. The club had about 20 people left inside and they were disappearing rapidly. My feet were killing. I saw Angel talk to this guy for a few minutes and then exchange telephone numbers with him. This guy was a drinker, he didn’t take drugs. Angel told him his eyes were like saucers and he looked off it. It made me laugh to myself.

My boyfriend had been calling me. I heard it ring when I was having a cig outside. 7 missed calls. I called him back. I told him I would be back soon. The guy who Angel was talking to passed me and was heading towards the exit. “Where is Angel?” I asked. “Dunno “ he said. My boyfriend put the phone down on me. I called him back. “Who was that guy?” he asked. “No one” I replied, “just some guy.” I went back inside and saw her talking to some one else. She was arseholed. It took me a good hour to get her out. I wasn’t tired and didn’t want to go home yet, but I have a boyfriend, I needed to get back.

We could be classed as binge drinkers by the amount of alcohol we consumed that night.  I have taught lessons on binge drinking to my students and am aware of the recommended limits.  By taking the pills it stopped me consuming as much alcohol. I was relatively sober by the time I had left the club; I thought at the time that I could have driven into town and back, to save on the taxi fares.
We jumped into a taxi, double fare home. The taxi dropped me off first. Angel had lots of missed calls on her phone. She called me the next day and told me she couldn’t remember anything. I told her that she had swapped numbers with a guy who didn’t take drugs. The guy was there with his sister and his mate. They were from Woodhouse. She met up with him a couple of days later and she explained it was like a blind date.

She went out with him and got really drunk. She slept with him. He was a lot younger, 19 I think. The next day she told me that he was really fit and had a lovely body. She also told me that he had the smallest package she had ever seen. She met him again but they didn’t do anything. He asked her to sit on it and she said that there was no point.

A couple of days later after going out, after I had recovered, my boyfriend got really drunk and accused me of kissing someone else. We argued and he kept me awake until 4.30am. I couldn’t start my new job the next day. I enjoyed my night out, but it wasn’t worth an argument and the loss of employment.  Drugs leave me in control and can turn the most rubbish night into something good. . Of course this night was a one off. The night was great and I felt like I was years younger. It made me think what I had been missing for the 2 years that I had drank myself into oblivion.