Hens Reunited by Lucy Diamond Read Free Book Online

pressed the button to accept the call. ‘Could you hold the line, please? I’m just going outside where it’s quieter,’ she said into the mouthpiece, walking quickly out of the front doors. It was dark in the street now, and getting chilly. ‘Sorry about that,’ she said. ‘Georgia Knight here. Can I help you?’
    ‘It’s Mum,’ came the reply. ‘I’m at the hospital. Bad news, love.’ Her voice broke into a sob. ‘It’s your nan.’

 
    Alices Hen Weekend
    November 2002
    Alice Johnson lowered herself into the pool and leaned back against the tiled surface. Jets of water bubbled up beneath her Lycra-clad bottom, pummelling her thighs, making her insides feel as if they were vibrating. Let’s hope they break up the cellulite before the wedding , Alice thought to herself, crossing her fingers under the water.
    She closed her eyes and inhaled the warm, faintly perfumed air, trying not to think about how many bottoms had sat there before hers. Bubble, bubble, pummel, pummel. Quite uncomfortable after a while. Like having your legs in a washing machine on the tough-stains cycle, she imagined. Still, she was forking out enough cash for this place, she felt obliged to kid herself it was perfect.
    ‘This is bliss,’ she murmured dutifully, wondering how long she’d have to sit there before she could return to dry land.
    ‘Mmmm, heavenly,’ Katie said, from across the jacuzzi.
    Alice wondered if there would be a jacuzzi at their honeymoon hotel. If there was, Jake was sure to want to have sex in it. He said all that spurting water turned him on. Mind you, anything turned him on. Just the word ‘spurt’ was probably enough to give him a semi.
    Jake seemed to think about sex every other second. He was fond of telling Alice how often she gave him ‘the horn’, as he so charmingly phrased it. Bending over to put a video in the machine – that gave him the horn. Rolling over in bed at night – that gave him the horn. Whenever Alice was in the shower – oh yes, that really gave him the horn. She’d have only just squirted the shampoo onto her palm (squirt – another word that did it for him) and he’d be in there with her, cock at a right angle, telling her that God, he just couldn’t resist joining her . . .
    It was flattering that he wanted to get her knickers down constantly, really. A compliment that he was always attempting to feel her up when she was getting dressed, or making a cup of tea, or trying to watch Coronation Street.
    All the same . . . it was exhausting. Would marriage calm him down? she wondered. Would being a husband tame the rampant horn? Somehow she doubted it.
    ‘Where’s Georgia, by the way?’ Katie asked drowsily. ‘I haven’t seen her for a while.’
    ‘She went off for her massage ages ago,’ Alice said, opening her eyes and glancing around the room for a clock. No clock. Of course. People here were meant to be relaxing, not clock-watching. Georgia had been gone a long time, though, Alice was sure. Knowing Georgia, she was up to something. She’d probably lucked in with a fit male masseur who was giving her a very special rub-down. ‘Any extras?’ Alice could imagine Georgia asking in that throaty purr of hers. No doubt she herself would get a skinny bitch for her massage, who’d sneer disapprovingly at Alice’s wobbly bits while Alice had her eyes shut. ‘God, I had a dumpy one just now,’ Alice could already imagine the woman saying to her colleagues afterwards. ‘Legs like marshmallows, no muscle tone whatsoever!’
    She tried not to dwell on that. Or on Georgia and her masseur, having a bunk-up in the towel cupboard.
    Actually, now that she came to think about it, Georgia was probably on the phone to someone from the paper. Alice was amazed that Georgia had come all the way out of London, to the Cotswolds, for her hen weekend. Originally she’d said no, sorry, she was too busy with work and Alice had felt crestfallen because she’d only invited Katie and