Beer crates in the kitchen are balanced high like an Egyptian monument, a proud testament to indulgence. I’m a girl who likes a couple of beers, just to get the night off and running. After that though, it’s spirits all the way. Dave stands guardian over a plastic bin of punch wearing a hoody and aviator sunglasses on account of getting horrendously stoned the night before. He’s happy enough to preside over the mysterious green intoxicant like a school dinnerlady stirring a vat of baked beans.
For some reason a weedy little bloke sent by the letting agency to do odd-jobs and minor repairs is hanging about with his bag of tools and an irritable expression on his face. I consider enquiring as to how much longer he’s going to be but decide against it; after all, I don’t want to risk offending him since once the party’s over the damage inflicted on the house will likely keep him in work till the end of term. And besides if he wants to linger on the periphery of the party in the hope of undetected ingratiation that’s his choice.
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The house is filling up, people I know, people I don’t, it’s all the same, it’s all good. Joe has his Macbook set up in the living room, the speakers emanating a grimy bass beat that’s provoking the door frames to shiver uncontrollably in the mould of the inner walls. A couple of lairy fuckers that I don’t know are spraying cans of cider around the dining room in a fit of hilarity but I’m too exhilarated at the moment to get at them to stop. I see my best friend Lucy who’s come straight from her evening shift at Pizza Hut. She wastes no time at all spieling on about a new trainee pot-washer, “my god, sooooo fit!” and their amorous glances stolen over dirty dishes stacked high with discarded pizza crusts, and how she’s so not going to fuck him, and I lap all this up in between promoting the necking of sambuca shots. In any case Lucy’s invited the guy along to the party and says we might see him later.
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The house is like a lung taking a deep intake of breath, as people edge and squeeze their way into the slightest recesses of the house, crushing their bodies into the hard surfaces of the house fabric, rubbing shoulders with the clinging damp. The living room is thick with a purple sulphurous smog, sweat particles cascading like Niagara Falls from the throbbing ceilings.
In the kitchen someone has laced the punch with some kind of acid, and everyone in there is starting to display signs of crazed reaction. Dave has an inane grin painted to his face as he drains bottle after bottle of booze into the punch bowl. Some guy is bent over the kitchen top, staring with wonder into the microwave as though it were a portal into a whole other world. There are shrieks from the dining room as some poor unfortunate in his smashed state has resorted to primal masturbatory urges and whipped his cock out in the middle of a game of Arrogance. His mates grab him by each arm and forcefully remove him; his fist still pumping his flaccid cock resiliently.
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Much later and no one seems familiar, no one is recognisable any longer, all light fittings have been cruelly destroyed, the only light source now proliferates from the cheap disco-balls in the living room and the blue neon light above the kitchen sink which by now has been clogged with several different expulsions of vomit from persons unknown.
An hour or so earlier I had been joining in with one of the drinking games in the dining room and, like most people, been getting increasingly pissed off with a girl called Kate who insisted on amplifying her pointless and banal proclamations with bursts of shrieking laughter. I couldn’t help but notice how, during one such outburst, the blood flowed straight from her face and her cheeks suddenly ballooned outwards like a hamster’s. I couldn’t be sure of the cause of this spontaneous facial inflation until I spotted a small trickle of vomit escape her pursed lips. Whilst the lads continued the game with unabated enthusiasm, I think I was the only one who watched with mild horror out of the corner of my eye as Kate proceeded to slowly re-ingest the mouthful of puke in long agonising gulps like a reluctant child forced to eat vegetables. It wasn’t long after that she staggered to her feet and left the room in silence.
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Jonathan is holding court near the stairs, regaling a small group with his favourite topic – the musical brilliance of Led Zeppelin – ranting with such passion as though he were championing a fledgling local band. He lecherously details to a wide-eyed young girl the ‘legend of the red snapper’ whereby a hapless groupie was pleasured using the previously-mentioned fish as means of penetration. He laughs at the beauty of such misogynistic hedonism as he is lead upstairs by the girl, throwing me a conspiratorial wink and carrying behind his back a pre-packaged mackerel from Tesco that he defrosted earlier in the day.
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The crowd seems to have changed, as though those who were the first in have since conceded defeat and retired, allowing the more youthful and exuberant to enter and take their place. I’ve been hounded for seemingly hours by two guys who are both gagging for some action and whilst I am too, I hate having to decide between them. I keep yielding to one’s demands, necking in a dark corner of the laundry room until I think we’ve lost the other, only for him to pop up like a malignant spy, almost as if from out of the barrel of the washing machine or neatly camouflaged amidst the shadows of the coat-rack. In the interest of diplomacy I agree to a three-some.
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Mid-morning is fully awake by the time the house stirs. There is some lo-fi drone being playing on the laptop and odd bursts of slow conversation coming from the remnants of the lounge. Statements and odd quips are made and then hang like dead air before floating into nothing like dandelion seeds. When I stagger downstairs, rubbing my head in a useful attempt at exorcising the alcoholic demon from inside my dehydrated brain, I have to stifle a laugh at the living room scene.
Dave and his coursemates are bunched up on the sofa with eyes some acid-fuelled abyss, nodding sagely as ‘Fantasia’ plays out on the TV in painful Disney technicolour. Dave’s mouth falls agape slightly as the agile mushrooms dance with effortless fungi composure on the screen. In the kitchen the walls are stained with red wine like a slasher film, bodies are slumped in comatose disarray all around the dining table and propped up against the fridge. I search around the hygienic wasteland that is the draining board for a reasonably clean glass and hurl back a pint of tap water.
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Sloppy pizzas are ordered in and shared around as the collective try to wean themselves back into some sort of conscious state with greasy cheese and pepperoni. The laptop volume has been gradually increased in increments throughout the day and my head is already pre-empting the thumping bass beats like some kind of physic tinnitus. Fresh-faced revellers have descended, which injects the fragile victims of the night before into a state of resilience. It’s not long before the house is pulsing like a struggling organ with the dirty blood of the party.
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The house is on fire to the old-school tunes of acid house. A living room full of Bez imitations march in time to the rhythm, whilst the dining room is thick with the stench of sweaty, lustful eroticism. In the darkness I can make out four or five couples fucking in this improvised orgy, whilst in the kitchen Dave and his mates – as though inspired into action by ‘Fantasia’ – are struggling to open a jar of mushrooms that some guy called Malcolm has procured from somewhere, in a desperate attempt to keep their colourful detachment from reality flowing like a rainbow stretch across the parameters of their own internal skies.
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There’s screaming in the living room as some Stella-fuelled prick launches a pint glass at the melting wall, shattering the glass into a million fragments over the gyrating collective. I pause from my own fevered dancing and laugh as I see Dave’s mate Malcolm on the floor in the throes of a shroom-frenzy; apparently trying to headbutt his way through the skirting boards, as if attempting to re-ingratiate himself with his rodent brethren from whom he was unwillingly reincarnated.
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The next day and those remaining, like stranded expedition members on a mountain-side, are close to tears at the realisation that all booze supplies have been pillaged and the entire house is dry. A brave volunteer by the name of Darren is equipped with currency and dispatched outside where he makes his way to the nearest off-licence, playing the role of hero for the cause of the party’s survival.
Due to some commendable foresight, however, vodka jelly had been left in the fridge to set earlier and I can only watch with worried bemusement as Dave attacks it with a shoehorn, using this primitive tool to spoon it greedily into his foaming mouth in alcoholic desperation of Withnail-esque proportions.
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I am in dire need of a shower but find the bathtub has become a reservoir of urine and vomit over the course of the last few days. My efforts to unblock the plug-hole appear unsuccessful and the rancid smell from the vile cocktail is enough to propel my exit from there altogether, defeated and still filthy.
Meanwhile a colossal cheer erupts as Darren returns from his travels like a triumphant explorer from exotic climes, bearing a fresh suntan, tales of wonder and, more importantly, fresh supplies of beer, vodka, gin and whisky. He is the prophet by which the party can continue its predictable downward spiral.
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By sometime the next week the house walls resemble a diseased liver, whereupon tumours and cirrhosis have taken a debilitating hold. Down in the living room, numerous dishevelled and undressed casualties are entwined in an impromptu and spontaneous sexual union. My upper thighs and genital region have now been endowed with crimson sores, and I almost expect to see a local news correspondent come treading fearfully over the vast wilderness that is the sodden carpet, reporting on a serious venereal epidemic.
I force myself up and head to the wreckage of the kitchen. As I fumble around for an unbroken glass I hear a faint scratching sound coming from the broom cupboard where, as far as I’m aware, we keep no brooms. As I unlock the catch the door swings open and out crumples the ashen and withered body of the odd-job man. He crawls a few yards and then pulls himself up, dust clinging to his aged face like a dungeon prisoner.
“Fucking students” he mumbles before ambling to the door and out to freedom.
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