Halloween Hubbub

I hadn't been intending to attend an old friend's Halloween party this week, but it just so happened that I was travelling through his town - well, city really; it has a cathedral - the weekend he was throwing it.

It would be good to see him again, even if it wasn't my intent. I had last spent significant time with him in my teens, only catching him for fleeting drinks here and there in the intervening years. I travel a lot for my work, and it makes it hard to keep lasting friendships.

I wouldn't know anyone else there, but in my line of work, you had a lot of practice with small talk and keeping shallow conversation going. I had been called 'charismatic' by a few producers, and even 'charming' by more than a handful of women: enough so that I almost started to believe it myself, no matter the awkward, gangly, pimply, kid I still saw myself as.

It had been a long time since I had been that kid though, I had to remind myself. I wasn't old yet, but I wasn't the kind of 'young' that people mean when they say 'young'. The schoolfriends I kept in touch with had families, and they fed me stories about some of our wilder peers even having grandkids now, and we're only in our thirties!

It wasn't just age, though, that had changed. Although I had the 'nerd' aesthetic down to a tee, I didn't have the brains you associate with it. I barely got out of a vocational college and didn't even attempt uni. It was after college that I had decided I needed to change.

I found that people's perceptions of me were more important than any qualification or skill that I had. People I met in college who were dumb as a bag of rocks walked into well-paying jobs because they were handsome and dressed well. A couple of years of hard work proved that point to me. I got the first job I could, spent all my money on going to the gym, buying clothes tailored to me, getting proper haircuts, and travel.

I learned to drive, but before I had a car, I would cycle, walk, ride trains and catch buses wherever I could. I began to drop into pubs, bars, clubs, museums, galleries, and any public venue where it wouldn't seem too weird to have a stranger start talking to you. I talked to people. Looking back on it, I was right to be too embarrassed to do it in my hometown, because those first few months would have made me a social pariah.

But, over time, I learned.

The travel, even from inconsequential journeys to local towns and cities, broadened my experiences and showed me more than I had seen in life up until that point. As I started seeing my skinny arms painfully slowly inflate, I gained confidence. I realised that I could talk absolute bollocks, but if I was confident, people would mostly accept it.

And with all my travelling, I started reading to pass the time. While working out for hours a week, I started listening to all sorts of music, and even audiobooks that one of my mates burnt into some kind a file and shoved on my iPod.

Anyway, I digress. Seeing old friends makes me nostalgic.

I was here on business: meeting a lady in a hotel in the centre of the t-... the city. We would have some fun, take some videos together, and I would see if she was interested in working with a producer. If not, we'd both have some new content anyway, and I just wouldn't get a commissioning fee.

Her friend had booked and paid for my hotel. It was mine for the whole weekend, but I wasn't seeing her until Saturday evening, so I had Friday to myself. I was planning to hit the local pubs for a bit, before getting an early night in preparation for an early run the next day, but happened to bump into my old friend on the way to check in.

I knew he had moved here, but hadn't expected to hear from him, let alone even see him. I think it was my look of shock that caught his attention, as he almost walked straight past me.

Our conversation was brief.

"Stan?" I stuttered, words falling out of my mouth without my permission.

"Huh?" The man looked at me in confusion for just a second, until his eyes seemed to focus, widen and then his face lit up with a beam. "Oh my god! Liam? I always forget!"

"Forget?" I tilted my head but was caught off guard as he pulled me into an awkward embrace.

In my youth, I was lanky and gangly. My early adulthood had filled me out, and years of eating well and exercising had done wonders, making me 'tall' rather than 'lanky'. Stan, however, was not tall, and his embrace almost caused the top of his head to crack into my chin, until I managed to veer away.

"You know, the changes, Liam! It's good to see you! I'm in a bit of a hurry now, but are you staying here?" He eyed the hotel doors.

I debated whether to tell him, but something made me nod, "Yeah, here tonight."

Stan's grin split his face from side to side, and he had to push his glasses back into place as he spoke.

"Come to mine tonight! Emma- well, we're having a Halloween get together tonight. You've met Emma, right? Anyway, it would be great to see you there, it's mostly her friends, so it would be great to have backup. Do you still have the same numb- what am I talking about, of course you do, we talked a few weeks ago!"

I was amazed how much he had seemingly managed to say in a single breath, so it took me until he gave me a quizzical look, to respond.

"Yeah," I accepted, once again betrayed by my own words.

He beamed again, "Great! Get a costume, obviously, but I'll text you the details! Oh, it's so good to see you, Liam."

"You too," I said, as he turned abruptly and hurried along the street.

There's my world-renowned charm at play. What was that? Maybe five confused words to one of my oldest, if distant, friends.

He reminded me the wizard from the Wonderful Wizard of Oz as he flounced down the street. I'm not sure entirely why - maybe just that he was short, not quite slim, and balding, maybe the way he seemed to react to everything with an almost childlike wonder, or maybe I just had some memories mixed up in my mind and he was just a jolly fellow.

So, it seems his girlfriend, Emma, had organised this party, but Stan seemed happy enough to go along with it. It wouldn't hurt for me to go; it was the weekend before Halloween, so I should probably do something. I could always say I've got an early meeting or something.

Emma. I had met her a couple of times during my fleeting catchups with Stan over the last couple of years. They seemed good together: Stan had grown up from a nerd into a pretty average guy with a good job, and Emma seemed pretty average from the little I'd seen her. I thought she had straight, mousy, hair that probably reached midway down her back, with hazel eyes, freckles, and glasses. She wore kind of frumpy clothes; not baggy, but not flattering and kind of boyish. She never seemed particularly friendly when we spoke, often seeming distant and even sometimes a bit meek.

By the time I had checked in, Stan had already sent me a paragraph of text about what time the party started, where it was, who was going to be there, and what to wear. The last part concerned me the most.

I'd spent a lot of time in the States over the last few years, and their Halloween was a spectacle. If I was back there and looking for a costume on the Friday before the big night, then I would pretty much be shit out of luck. Well, in my limited experience, which was, frankly, fairly limited.

I put it out of my mind as I surveyed my room. It was more than decent. It was a room, not a suite, but a big one. The bed was soft and luxurious, the fridge had a good selection of spirits, and the bathroom was separated from the bed by a strange pseudo-room with a closet and desk, with essential kettle, coffee machine and selection of drinks. The two bedside tables and console below where the TV hung on the wall would be fine positions for the camera, and if my lady friend's friend decided he had to come, then there would be enough room for him to hold the camera or get out of the way in the pseudo-room.

I'd have to let her know that I had arrived and approved of the job they'd done with picking this room.

I had a few hours to kill; I wouldn't arrive at the party until it was well underway. A group of middle-aged kitchen standers wasn't my crowd, but at least they'd be a bit more fun once they had some drink in them. Assuming they were drinking and not just there for the houmous and carrot sticks. So, I went to the hotel bar.

***

It turns out I was shit out of luck.

Trying to find a costume at six o'clock on the Friday night just four days before Halloween was not a smart idea. I considered just showing up as I was, but I didn't want to stand out as much as I thought that would make me. I also considered tearing up one of my shirts and rubbing a bit of make-up on me to look like a zombie, but... I didn't want to part with the only designer shirt I had on me.

One of the shops I checked, in desperation, had some red body paint and a plastic trident, which gave me an idea. One of my guilty pleasures in the colder months was fluffy pyjama bottoms, of which I had brought a brown pair to the hotel with me. Combining these would be a budget demon costume.

So, when I turned up at the party at around eight o'clock, carrying a bottle of wine and a plastic trident: I was painted red, wearing pyjama bottoms, and topless. Unfortunately, It was pissing down, and I well expected my 'costume' to be ruined before even setting foot in the house.

The drive was shorter than I expected, being less than ten minutes from the hotel, even though we left the town centre to a more rural location. Not only was the drive shorter, but the house was larger than I was anticipating too; detached and looking like a giant white barn on the corner of a road full of other white barn houses. I knew it was the right place immediately by the two dinosaurs and Spider-Man smoking under a veranda in the front garden, while muted music and conversation spilled out from the open front door.

The first thing I noticed as I stepped into the house was that this wasn't all just a group of Facebook mums here to drink prosecco: the very first guest I saw inside couldn't have been more than mid-twenties and seemed to be dressed as some kind of sexy cat, her costume so tight that it may as well have been body paint.

I wandered through a couple of busy rooms, looking for Stan, Emma, or anyone I knew really, but by the time I made it to the kitchen, I had kind of given up - I'd find them eventually, may as well enjoy myself. I dumped the wine I'd brought into a pile of other bottles of alcohol, picked out a bottle of some kind of hipster IPA and started back to what I thought was their living room.

Before I had exited the kitchen, a woman walked in with an empty bottle and smiled at me.

"Hey," I said, smiling back.

She was closer to the crowd I had been expecting: average build, mid-thirties with tired eyes, but her costume leaned closer to sexy than scary - a short, tight, white, blood-spattered caricature of a nurse's outfit that exposed a lot of bra, and a lot of light brown thigh.

"Oh, you must be Stan!" She exclaimed, continuing before I had a chance to speak. "Matching costumes: how cute! And you're much prettier than Ems told me."

"I-" my protest was cut off, even as the nurse turned to pour herself a drink.

"She said you were lurking around somewhere, and that she'd introduce us when the time was right," she continued, pouring a hefty amount of vodka into a plastic cup. "Oh, I'm Dani, by the way. I'm sure she's mentioned me."

"Uh, Dani-" I was once again cut off as she linked her arm through mine and pulled me towards the stairs.

"I'm sure you've been looking for her all night, but with so many people in your house then even I've lost the girls a couple of times."

"I'm no-"

"-but she said you were probably gaming with some of the dad squad anyway. Did you meet Paul, by the way? He's my husband, and we'd love to do lunch together sometime. Ems keeps batting us away, saying how you're always busy with work, but..."

I gave up trying to interrupt. If her stream of consciousness ever ended, then I'd have to explain I wasn't who she thought. I wasn't surprised Emma had been avoiding lunch with her; as attractive as she was, she was annoying as hell, and Emma struck me as the quiet type.

After an eternity of being dragged through the house as she let out an unbreaking torrent of words, the woman... Dani... I think, pulled me into another living room that had a totally different aesthetic to the one downstairs. This one was filled with women, and only women.

"Hey girl, look who I found!" Dani said, without skipping a beat.

They all looked at me with expressions of confusion and unrecognition. I didn't recognise a single one of them.

The women were all hot, and all wearing revealing costumes. The sexy cat from earlier in skin-tight spandex perched on the edge of a seat, her black hair tied up to allow her costume to expose every curve of her tight body. A mandatory Harley Quinn, sat on the edge of a chaise longue, next to what I guessed was a woman dressed as an angel. Finally, opposite the chaise sat a mummy whose bandages seemed to just about cover her expansive breasts, her bum, and her thighs; her short black hair seemed to be perfectly cut to frame her painted face. They all seemed to be between their mid-twenties and mid-thirties and were definitely more risqué than the majority of the guests I'd passed downstairs.

"You undersold us all on how cute he is, girl!" Dani giggled, squeezing my arm.

One of the women shifted; the angel, her expression flipping from confusion, to surprise, to something. My brain shifted and I suddenly recognised her.

This was not the Emma I had remembered. She was not of average build, with mousy, frizzy, hair, glasses, and frumpy clothing. She was slender, athletic even - judging by her toned stomach, with either an extremely convincing white-gold wig, or bleached hair. She did not wear frumpy clothing, but instead wore what looked like little more than white and gold lingerie, with white and gold wings, a golden halo and a translucent sash kind of thing seemingly connected to her stockings and panties. Even her eyes looked brighter, seemingly green, rather than the brown I remembered.

She was hot.

In my stunned silence, I'd missed my cue to speak. But the cat hadn't. I bet you're wondering why I started this story with how charismatic I was, when I've barely managed to string a sentence together at this point. Me too.

"Cat got your tongue?" She purred, laughing at her own joke. "He is as awkward as you said, babe, even if he's way hotter."

"I'm n-"

"Oh, Stan, where are your manners?" Emma said, rising from the chaise thing she had been lounging on before.

She stepped right up to me, and kissed my cheek, whispering, "Play along."

"Couples costume; so cute," the mummy said, before looking down at her phone.

"Stan, these are the girls. I know you've wanted to meet them for a long time. You can probably put names to faces, but as they're all dressed up then I'll give you the benefit of the doubt..."

She introduced them and, for some reason I can't explain, I went along with her, responding and greeting each one. Due to the circumstances, I almost immediately forgot who was who, tagging them instead by their attributes and costumes.

The big breasted mummy barely looked up from her phone to say, "We've met before."

I chuckled nervously, but Emma froze up as the other woman continued, "Valentines when you moved back here. Same restaurant. You were lugging around that monster bouquet."

"Oh..." Emma spat out a laugh. "Yeah... your boyfriend at the time said he would give you something bigger when you got home..."

The other three women seemed to find that hilarious and laughed uproariously. The nurse had to sit down on the sofa she was clutching her sides so hard.

"Inside joke," Emma explained, not joining in with the laughter.

"Inside you, maybe," I winked at her.

The mummy looked up, her blue eyes meeting mine, and smirked, "Although, Stan was less... athletic when I saw him last."

"He's been exercising a lot," Emma explained, face appearing to pale slightly, although her expression barely twitched. "I told you: Working on himself."

The mummy smiled and looked back down at her phone as the other women slowly regained their composure.

"It's been nice to see you again, I can't say you're looking the same either," I smiled. "You were wearing slightly more last time."

"Slightly!" The Harley Quinn laughed. "That sounds about right!

That set them off again, and Emma seemed to relax.

"Why don't you sit and relax with us, Stan?" The mummy asked, gesturing to the chaise thing that Emma was sitting on when I entered the room.

"Yeah, come on, baby," Emma said, biting her lip and leading me to the seat. "Let me show you off for a bit, before you go back to your friends."

From here, I could see, partially, why the women were all so merry. An empty bottle of vodka lay in the middle of the floor, with several shot glasses littered around.

"Oh, were we meant to hide this?" The nurse asked, almost gasping. "I know you say-"

She cut herself off, looking mortified. The cat and Harley took one look at her expression and spat out laughter once again. Even the mummy grinned, looking up from her phone and shaking her head.

"Oh, you bitch!" Emma cried, obviously feigning outrage.

"I guess the cat's out of the bag," the cat said, causing her to laugh even harder.

"Yeah, Ems wasn't always the sweet little housewife you know," the mummy smirked, locking eyes with Emma. "Do you know what they called her in college?"

"No, but I would love to," I grinned.

Emma made an obvious movement to grab my arm and gave me an irritated look as if to say 'no', but I smiled at her.

"Actually, Stan, why don't you go back down to the play pen?" Emma chided me, her singsong voice a mix of mock and real irritation. "Your friends are probably missing you..."

The other women all squealed their disappointment as I got to my feet almost immediately after sitting, but I felt like whatever game Emma was playing would be up if I stayed much longer... Although... I was interested where this was going; maybe she wasn't as boring and straightlaced as I had assumed.

"They can cope without me for a bit longer," I grinned openly at Emma, before sitting back down and looking at the mummy. "I feel like I should know this kind of stuff about the woman I live with."

I felt her eyes burning into me, "Grace, Stan doesn't care about the silly past."

The mummy bit her lip, but raised her eyes to me once more, "Emma could take shots like nobody else back in the day."

Was that it? I wondered. Why would Emma be so against me knowing that, me, or the real Stan? The other girls snickering had me thinking there was more to it. I didn't think Stan had an issue with drinking.

"Yeah," the nurse agreed. "Seems like she would be taking them every weekend in college."

The girls all snickered again, and Emma stood up and opened her mouth to say something.

The mummy, Grace, I think, cut her off, "She would take them all."

"Grace! Girls!" Emma protested, her fake wings swinging precariously as she swung to face each speaker.

Harley took a turn to speak over her, "Oh, it's all in the past, Ems. He'll find it hot! Guys have a one-track mind."

'Find it hot?' I questioned in my mind.

"She could take all sorts," the nurse continued Grace's sentence from before. "Whisky, vodka, cum, gin."

The girls snickered again, with Harley full on crumpling in laughter.