A Tale of Two 'Sit-Ins' - 1st Half

Before continuing with the ‘epic sagas’ of The Nightmare before Christmas and The Kate Escape, I’ll lay a bit more groundwork. In my home town there was nothing to do if you were under 18, unless you had a burning passion for estate agents. Therefore, my friends used to host house parties, which we called ‘sit-ins’, in which we’d go over to somebody’s house, drink their booze and leave them to tidy up in the morning.

As we were leaving our mid-teens behind us, our new ‘adult’ perspectives meant that these events had more edge. Drinking games started and this meant that somebody, or a few people, would lose their clothes. As a result of this, if you were hosting, it was your responsibility to your fellow male friends to get the best ‘ratio’, therefore any male acquaintances were turned away. This week two girls who was hosting, so there was no need to worry.

What my friends and I hadn't anticipated was that it’s socially acceptable for girls to shout at a guy to take his clothes off, but the opposite is treated like a police matter! They retained their clothes, while the boys, and in particular me, slowly got colder. One of my overzealous drunk male friends even felt the need to get naked when it wasn't his turn.

When I was down to my final piece of cloth, a new issue arose, if you’ll pardon the pun. It’s safe to say that my hormones hadn't levelled out yet. It was not too long before this event that I'd been terrified of doing presentations at the end of class. Merely sitting down for an hour could trigger something, which would then be revealed to my fellow pupils as I walked to the front of the classroom. I had visions of the kids laughing and making rhymes, like the time... anyway that's a different story.

Slowly, the girls, including Eleanor (Rene was also there, but Helen was conspicuously absent), were showing more skin, and so to avoid the inevitable embarrassment, I asked for a cushion, because, as I argued, it may have been possible to see up my boxer shorts. This excuse was deemed acceptable.

It was at this point that the parents of the host came downstairs (this was a strict violation of ‘sit-in’ policy – the parents must always be away). So, the father, who I had known for years, came into his lounge, saw me, seemingly naked, hiding my modesty with his cushion, with his daughters undressed in the same room.

It was a while before I would be invited back again, but next week's ‘sit-in’ was hosted by a close friend of mine, and things were about to get worse…

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