The Dinner Party That Almost Wasn't...

I hate it when I forget what I wanted to say...

I know I've been meaning to tell you about the Infamous Train Journey that my Mate and I took a few years ago. We were going to a party of some older friends of mine who I'd known for many years; since I was a kid my parents have camped at one of only four legalised nudist beaches in the State where I'm from- and so nudity is no big deal for me, especially coming from a family with three sisters and nudist parents- although I didn't go naked, in public, myself until I was twenty three and myMate convinced me that tan-lines sucked.

The first time I skinny-dipped was the beginning of the end of my love-affair with swimmers; I've only ever owned one pair since then, and only because I was staying a flash resort in Cairns- and that doesn't happen every day. As soon as I walked from the ocean that day I knew that I would never swim clothed again, it was so freeing and exhilarating. But it was still an awkward moment as we left the churning surf and wandered up to the nearby campsite, where some twenty or so other naturist families and couples routinely camped over the Christmas and New Year period.

You mustn't forget that this was the first time we had nudied-up, either, but thankfully my naturist friends kindly made no jokes or comments about our deathly white arses. We had a lovely three days of camping, getting burnt and drunk and avoiding the stinky Port-a-Loo during the worst heat of the day, and though our bums were white when we began, by the end of our little holiday we had earned our 'P' plates and were no longer learners.

She made friends with the people that I kad known for so long, some of them since I was a skinny ten year old kid, and so when a few of them invited us to go to a party they were having we thought very little about it, except to wonder how we would get there, and what we would, or rather, wouldn't- wear.

We caught the train at three past six, and then realised that we should have caught the one that departed at six past six, as it gradually dawns on us that this train is headed non-stop to No Where and not to the other small country town where we were meeting my friends...

I begin to panic. Shouldn't we just stay on this train and wait for it to make the return journey, or do we risk going into town to ring our friends and arrange for them to pick us up at the nearest railway station? Can't we just go home? I mean, shouldn't we just try and get home rather than trying to fix this little fuck-up?

It's important that we don't get out of My comfort zone, but my Mate thinks it hilarious and one big adventure. I try and tell her that I have panic attacks when I am on trains that are going the wrong way (oddly enough, this has happened to me more than once) because I worry about not being able to get home to what is safe and familiar, even though I am so adamant that being home is one of the worst places to be.

Did I forget to mention that I also panic when I have to drive across level crossings if they start the signal and I am only half-way across? No? Well I do that, too. It takes me ages to calm down. And there was this one time, at band camp, that I was helping my Sister and her pramful of children onto a train and it started with me still on it. I freaked out- pushing past all the real passengers saying 'I'm not on this train; I'm not on this train'- in a high manic voice until someone stuck me with a needle and instantly calmed me down. But that's just another fabricated story right there...

I think what Really happened was someone kindly forced the doors open for me and I escaped just before the train ran out of platform.

But This time Lozzie drags me, unwillingly, from the waiting train that can reverse the jinx, and we go into the only pub on the main street that's still open, though it's still only early on a Friday evening, because she needs to use the toilet. Badly. I don't care about that- I care that the train is about to leave and I'll be stranded in this strange town with only twenty bucks to my name. It's alright for her, she doesn't have a kid who'll be left motherless after I've been murdered by those skate-boarding children on the other side of the road.

She tells me that she has diarrhea and can't wait any longer, so I reluctantly wait outside the pub as she goes- she's taking forever; she doesn't care- and then I make her run all the way to the train station when she's finished, ignoring her belly-ache pleas. I doubt that She'll care that I just related that little fact about her weird bowel troubles that night, either, as she specifically asked me to mention it in the speech I made at her twenty-first birthday. Come to think of it, I'm pretty sure that was the same night that her mother began to dislike me also...

We make the train with about thirty seconds to spare and have organised to meet our friends at the half-way point, and so continue on to the 'dinner party' as planned. Crisis averted. We keep on getting drunk on the train and I relax at last- because even if we can't get to the party because of some other unforseen reason at least we are able to get home now. See; I told you I have no sense of adventure.

The train was only two carriages long, and we remained the only passengers until the third to last stop, where a group of about ten young men got on- all yahooing and carrying on. It's obvious they've all been heavily drinking, but these aren't your regular-looking party-goers. These look like they might have just stashed their blood-stained baseball bats in the derelict men's toilets at the station they just embarked at. Lozzie ignores my instincts and chats to them, albeit cautiously. We're pretty drunk ourselves, having almost finished a four litre cask of cheap crap. I'm pretty glad to pull into the crowded station that signals the end of our trip- it's a busy night for a change because there is a Steam Train Festival in the morning...

Our first clue that we were actually going to a Swinger's party should have hit us when we first saw what our friends were attired in when we greeted them on Platform Two- because they were both wearing silly pink bow ties with no shirts, and small black shorts, as if they were male Playboy bunnies. Or at least Old Bucks. They asked us if any unusual passengers were on the train, because they had just heard on their CB radio that the police were looking for a large group of men who were potential murder suspects. Now I don't like to judge, but I have a feeling that I had seen who they were looking for that night, and apparently as the story goes, the Police swooped on them at the next station. I never found out the whole story but I'm sure they were the same guys as were on the train. They just had an awful feeling about them.

As for the party that we had been so keen to attend- we had a lovely dinner, and then watched, shocked, as the Fortieth birthday cake was eaten off the birthday girl's pussy- by all of them men and by most of the women. Not that I'm adverse to that sort of thing- I just hadn't suspected that these middle-aged acquaintances of my Parent's weren't either. And who knows? If they had been a group of hot strangers who were closer to us in age there might even have been a different outcome to this story for Me.

My Mate, drunkenly, succumbed to a few of Someone Else's husband's suggestions, while I got even drunker and worried about her in the spa. Before we went to sleep that night we locked the door to the room we were staying in and giggled like loons for hours, and were both really quite happy to get going for home in the morning- despite our killer hangovers, because all things considered- it had certainly been a weird one.