At the bar most of our participants were waiting. Mat and Lex were doing their best to keep up with the various demands. Penny had removed her Brookes hoody to reveal a grunge style T shirt. Matt wondered if Lex had been a bit hasty to hand out judgement when he had said
"Can you come and help me? There's a bunch of posh twats downstairs."
Penny and Felix (tied at the feet and wrists) replaced Benedict and Esther at the front of the queue. Suddenly Matt saw that in fact Penny was sporting a James Blunt T Shirt. Lex was vindicated.
After some pathetic hand gesturing, presumably to attract the bar staff's attention, Felix barked;
"Gin and Tonics."
Matt had almost reached the Bombay Sapphire when;
"Oi mate. D'you do Hendricks?"
"Nah, sorry."
"What about Tanquery 10?"
Matt looked blank.
"No. Sorry."
Eventually Matt and Lex managed to serve all of them.
"They piss you off too?"
"Yeah" answered Lex. "They all wanted to pay by card even though I explained to the first ones they couldn't - S.O.B.s."
Unaware of the petty gripes and insults being thrown around our participants had all gotten various large drinks and taken up residence on one of the sort after window tables. The table's previous occupants for some reason had taken leave when Benedict sat near them. Between telling Esther to drink faster he was proving his alpha male status by drinking two shots to her every one.
Blue Collar Workingman leant over and said something to Lex at the bar. Lex approached their table.
"Er, is it OK if you don't have ladies tied to you in the gents toilets? We've had complaints."
Drunk Boy replied "What-evs" and began unwinding the wire used to bind himself to Drunk Girl. "I need a slash", he explained to nobody in particular. Lex had already walked off in disgust. As Drunk Boy walked off towards the loo he gave a wink to Toby.
Toby was Drunk Boy's wing man and had been aware of the Rohypnol when the annonymous blisterpack had arrived in the post a few days earlier. He turned to Drunk Girl. After being temporarily freed she was conversing incessantly with Penny and Lolly. Toby realised that now would be a perfect opportunity to slip it into Drunk Girl's drink. Where had Drunk Boy put them?
None of their 'hilarious' pastel golf trousers had pockets. Despite the mess the last tequila had left between his ears he remebered they'd given their wallets and phones to their respective golf partners. Drunk Boy was with Drunk Girl. Surreptitiously he looked under the table for Drunk Girl's bag. The tablets must be in there. He spied two identical brown and gold Louis Vuitton handbags. He knew that one of them was Drunk Girl's.
He started rooting through the first one. In the dim light he used his fingertips to try and feel for the tablets. To his surprise he found what he was after reletively quickly. Within a few seconds he managed to squeeze two or three into his hand. He looked round. As he let them drop into Drunk Girl's glass nobody was playing the slightest bit of attention to what he was doing....
ILLUSTRATION BY MAT.
