Susie's Party

I was sitting in my apartment one day when I didn’t have much to do, wondering about Susanne Daley. I had met her a while back, and was wondering how old she would be now. The reason why she had entered my mind was a friend’s description of an incident that took place shortly before Susie’s fifteenth birthday, involving a jammed bathroom door. The Daleys didn’t live too far away from the apartment, I realised, and so there was a good chance that at least one of my two roommates would have met her.
As if in answer to my thoughts, at that very moment in walked Steve. Steve Benjamin was a funny guy, so naturally everyone liked him. It was only since we bought a flat together that I realised he had any kind of a private life – he usually seemed so open that it came as a genuine surprise. I had learned that he had all sorts of likes and dislikes that he was a bit embarrassed about. I wasn’t sure, but I thought he might already have heard the story of Susie.
‘Hey Steve,’ I called, as he dumped his jacket near the door, ‘ever met a girl called Susie Daley?’
‘Susie? Sure, I know about her.’
‘Know what about her?’ I cleared a space for him on the sofa.
‘Ah, you know. She’s a nice girl, she’s very well brought up, very pretty, prone to accidents.’ He gave a chuckle.
‘Oh yeah?’ So he had heard. ‘What sort of accidents?’
‘Well, they started back when she was, ooh, around twelve years old. I remember it well, I was doing a week at the school, to get a bit of work experience before I went to college, and I was sitting in on a class just making sure the dumb ones were reading right, that sorta thing. Anyway, Susie’d had her hand raised for a long time, the teacher was deliberately ignoring her, so she suddenly jumps up and runs for the door. The teacher asked me to keep an eye on her so I followed at a safe distance and found her,’ he gave a slight laugh, ‘the poor kid, tugging with all her strength on the door to the girls’ room. It was totally locked but the conviction was incredible, it was pathetic. There she was, wrestling with the door, and a cute little puddle forming around her feet.’
I laughed. It was cruel I knew, but what made me laugh was the comparison to the previous story I had heard about her. I wondered if this was a regular thing with Susie. ‘So does this happen often?’ I asked.
‘Like I say, that was the first time I heard of it. It’s happened a few times since.’
‘Ever been there?’
‘One time, yeah. Robert – you know Robert, right?’ I nodded. Robert had been the guy who told me the first story about Susie. ‘Well he was invited to Susie’s birthday party, and because I was with him at the time and Susie kinda knew me I was invited as well…’
The story was told to me in a round–about sort of way, but it soon became clear that we both found the stories of Susie Daley to be in a strange way interesting. We were really able to laugh about it and it didn’t seem strange, as it had done with the previous story, for me to press for more details. So here’s the story as I remember it.
When Steve got into the hall where the party was being held, the first person he met had been a tall man, in his late thirties, with some blond hair but mostly bald. He had a furrowed brow and a slightly hooked nose, and his eyes seemed quite small. Steve told me he’d looked quite shifty, like he was watching carefully each arriving guest. Steve caught his eye, and then quickly looked away. He figured this was a friend of the family.
Then he saw Susie. Because it was her party she was dressed up – it had been her fifteenth birthday the previous week and she was still into the idea of dresses, so the one she was wearing was quite classic in its design. The skirt was very slightly wide and reached down to her ankles, and it hung loosely in bunches around her shoulders and looked very nice. It was made of a blue silky material.
Susie was talking to some friends, but she saw Robert and waved to him straight away. The two of them walked over, and Robert introduced Susie and Steve properly. They sat and talked for a while, and Steve asked who the man he had seen was. Susie wasn’t sure, she had assumed he was an uncle or someone her parents knew. She’d heard his name was Ross, but that was all she knew.
Susie then noticed that she had a full glass of water to drink. Someone must have given it to her earlier and she hadn’t paid attention, because now it was sitting on the table in front of her. She shrugged and downed it – she said she was quite thirsty and in fact this was about the eighth glass she had drunk so far tonight. The potential outcome of this was quite clear, and within the following hour she had begun to show signs that she had to make a polite exit for the bathroom. But, she didn’t want to do that. Instead she held right on, so that she could continue the conversations she was having with her guests. She had started to talk to everyone now as they assembled around the large table in the middle of the hall.
I forgot to mention the hall. It was quite large, not perfectly rectangular but close enough, with a couple of corners hidden away to incorporate the shape of the bar that made up part of one wall. There was a relatively small dance floor set up next to the main dining table, which was laid out with food. This had been thought through quite well by whoever was paying for the party.
Steve had noticed by now that Susie’s left knee was jigging up and down. Why he had noticed this he didn’t tell me – his interest must have already been on Susie by that time. It meant of course that she needed to go, and you could tell that from the look on her face. Forced smiles. Most of the guests had fallen for them.
Finally, after a further half hour, Susie managed to break through the conversation. Rising quickly from her seat, she blushed and said, ‘you’ll have to excuse me a while, I have to g…’
But she was interrupted. Next to her, her father stood up and tapped on his glass with a spoon, giving an approving mutter of ‘quite right’. Mr Daley was a stout English gentleman of real Dickensian quality, round in most places and quite red, with a half–ring of black hair above his ears and only slight wisps on the top of his spotted head. He was a very respectable man, and quite wealthy, certainly comfortably so.
‘My daughter and I are unanimous,’ he announced to the guests, as Susie slowly and reluctantly sat down again next to him, ‘it is time to begin the meal. Thank you to everyone for coming, and tuck in!’
At that moment the food arrived, carried in by three or four waiters – all friends of the family, so not expensive. Everyone soon had their plates full of roast meat, potatoes and peas, and were eating up happily. Only Susie wasn’t smiling as she began to eat. Steve looked down at her legs again and saw that one was pushing up against the table – it was quite a low table, and it seemed Susie hadn’t the room to cross her legs. After a few moments of this she gave up.
Sausages, carrots, gravy. She shifted her weight slightly and the muscles in her legs tensed. Steve suppressed a chuckle. Cauliflower, stuffing, Yorkshire pudding – the full English meal. Susie smiled weakly at those who spoke to her, always keeping her mouth full. Her knees jogged to a silent rhythm. Steve ate happily, feeling more and more full with each bite. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, thirty minutes – Susie glanced around her and squirmed in her seat. The puddings were almost finished now. Conversation, relatives, forty minutes, fifty. Susie pushed back her chair slightly, crossed her legs and slid forwards again. She ran her fingers through her chestnut hair as it hung down beside her cheek. More drinks. Some from a bottle, gluk–glukking into wine glasses, some from a jug of water, flowing more freely. Susie’s eyes darted this way and that and she bit her lip. Conversation. Stories of previous years. Sixty minutes, seventy. The friends were having fun, the family members even more so.
Eighty minutes. Susie suddenly pushed back her chair and rose. ‘I’m really sorry,’ she said, ‘but I absolutely have to go just for a minute. I really want to see how this dress looks one more time. I only get it for the day.’
“Good excuse,” Steve thought to himself as he watched her hurry to the door. She turned the handle quickly.
And it didn’t budge. She turned around and looked at everyone. Steve raised his eyebrows – what had happened? She drew in breath; her knees trembled.
‘I’m very sorry, miss,’ said a voice from above her suddenly. It was the middle–aged man, the shifty–looking one from before. Steve was sitting just a few seats away from Susie, so he could hear what the man said clearly. ‘My name’s Ross, I’m the guy who owns this place. I locked the door by accident, it’s a habit, you know, you go through a door, you turn the light out, and in my case you lock the door. Here.’ He handed her the key.
She thanked him and turned the key in the lock. It snapped in two.
‘What…!’ Susie held up the broken end of the key.
‘Oh, man!’ Ross exclaimed, peering into the keyhole and poking at the end of the key with a fingernail. ‘It’s stuck in there! The damn thing must be so old it’s rusted clean in two!’
‘Where’s the other way out of here?’ Susie asked.
It seemed like an eternity passed before the inevitable answer came. Steve had time to think several thoughts and notice a number of things going on around him. He supposed the brain must work more quickly when you’re anticipating something.
‘There is no other way out, this is the only door. You wait there, I’ll get it fixed.’
Susie frowned and quickly returned to her seat. Her legs rubbed together at the top as she walked back. They were hidden by the skirt of her dress of course, but Steve could tell. She sat down, and tried as best she could to join in the conversation, all the while glancing behind her at Ross as he fiddled with the lock. Someone suggested she must be disappointed not to see the dress, and Susie took a moment to remember what they were talking about.
Ninety minutes. One and a half hours. Susie wasn’t doing very well hiding the fact that she was desperate to visit the bathroom now. Her teeth were pressed together the whole time and her eyes were darting here and there. Her fists were clenched. But for all that it seemed to Steve that he was the only one to have noticed. He was the only one to have seen the way she had been grabbing at the material of her dress and scrunching it through the fingers of one hand. He was the only one to see the other hand disappear under the table.
Steve dropped his fork. People turned to look at him – he had surprised even himself. Susie hadn’t even noticed.
‘I’m sorry,’ Steve said, ‘let me get that.’
He pushed back his chair and bent down under the table, reaching out for the fork. As his head ducked under, a thought appeared in his mind. It was so simple. He looked to his right. There, at the end of the table, were the legs of Susie Daley. The dress had been pulled up so far that he could quite clearly see all the way up her legs to the light blue panties, where Susie’s hand was holding on tightly. Pressed up against her, the fingers shifted constantly, trying to find the perfect grip to hold back the rushing liquid that must surely be beating its way out. He grinned to himself, and appeared back on his seat again. Susie’s eyes were closed.
The chatter of the guests became a meaningless slur. There was an icy tension in the air, Steve could feel it if nobody else could. They all continued talking and laughing, all of them, while at the end of the table was a girl in absolute anguish. As he looked at her Steve suddenly felt an enormous pity towards her. Her eyes were filling with tears as she found herself trapped in one room with almost everyone she knew in the world, and quite a few she didn’t, desperate to get out of it. If she couldn’t leave the room soon, Steve knew, she would embarrass herself in front of almost every person involved in her life. She looked as though that moment was soon, in fact she looked as though it should ordinarily have already passed. Her face was quite pale as she looked at everyone, assessing which would laugh, which would scoff and which would be sympathetic.
‘Is something wrong, dear?’ asked Mrs Daley, Susie’s mother. She was sitting to the right of Susie, dressed up but not as neat–looking as her husband, more of a mother than a businesswoman. Susie tensed up as she realised someone was looking right at her, someone who knew her well, who could read her like a book.
‘Wh–what do you mean?’ Susie stammered, her voice a soft mew.
‘You haven’t touched your water!’
Susie’s eyes flashed with fright as she noticed the full glass of water on the table in front of her. Her legs bounded beneath the table, so much so that her head shook slightly. Her mother had returned to her conversation, but if Susie didn’t drink it soon, she would notice. With a quivering hand she reached out. Something had to be done. Steve couldn’t just sit there and let her go through this if he could possibly do anything to help.
So he did the first thing he thought of. He nudged the plate of vegetables in front of him, pushed it slightly to the right. It in turn pushed the next plate, which bumped into the glass of water. For a moment it hung there on its edge, Steve wincing with embarrassment at his rash action, before it toppled over to the side and emptied its contents onto the table.
Susie looked over at Steve, their eyes meeting perfectly. Her expression was of confusion. Did Steve know of her plight, the look said, did he do that to help? Steve looked back at her calmly, trying to communicate that he was with her on this one and that he would do anything he could to help her. Susie suddenly looked away as her mother stood up, laughing slightly.
‘Clumsy old you,’ she said, dabbing at the spilt water with a napkin, ‘you’re lucky none of that went on your dress. Quite a lot of it’s made of silk, you know, and if even a splash got on there it’d show up for the rest of the night, I warned you before we went out to be careful didn’t I? The colour runs, that’s the trouble, a little drop of water could spell disaster.’
Susie’s arm tensed. Steve knew she was squeezing herself with that hand. She was running out of time. She was breathing in short breaths as she watched her mother tidy up, unable to help her because that would mean letting go. Steve grimaced as he thought of what she was going through – he’d been there himself, of course, everybody had, but it looked as though there was no way out for Susie. She was surrounded by people and the door was locked.
Steve looked over at Ross, who was poking at the keyhole absently with one hand, but his eyes were on Susie. Steve felt a little angry – did this man know what was happening? Was he keeping her in there deliberately? He certainly wasn’t concentrating on his job.
And there was poor old Susie. She was trying her best not to cry, she was doing quite well, but Steve could see her arm tensing and un–tensing as she squeezed harder again and again, and he could see her shifting in her chair, and the way her eyes were moving so quickly and the way her lips were pressed together and sucked in at the middle.
“Susie will run out of time,” Steve thought, “it has already happened. She has only seconds left.”
If she let go, even a little, it would show up on her dress and everyone would know. That was what Susie must have been thinking at that point. She had no choice but to hold on, except of course that wasn’t going to work any more. She was already pressing hard with her fingers and squeezing her legs together, and that was all she could really do. If it got any worse, which it was beginning to do no doubt, she’d lose control.
‘Hey, Ross,’ Steve called suddenly. Ross seemed to snap to attention. ‘Any luck with that door? I could do with a visit to the restroom.’ Steve was surprised at himself for calling out like that. But, something needed to be done and, knowing how open Steve usually acted, nobody seemed to have noticed.
Except for Ross. He gave a slight frown, almost glowering at Steve with his tiny beady eyes for a split–second, then turned back to the door, which opened almost immediately.
‘There,’ Ross said, and walked awkwardly and pointedly over to the wall to let Steve through. As Steve stood, he looked over at Susie for a moment to let her know now was the time. She closed her eyes, drew in a deep breath, and let go with her hand. She stood, and almost whispered, ‘I’ll be back in a moment, I’m just going to go and see the dress.’
‘Do hurry, dear,’ Mr Daley said, munching on some chicken, ‘or your food will get cold.’
Susie rushed over to the door in small, hurried steps, and Steve held it open for her to go through. He made sure it closed fully behind them as they started down the steps to the lower floors.
‘Thank you,’ Susie gasped, clutching at herself with both hands as she hobbled down the stairs, using one hand to occasionally steady herself on the hand rail.
‘No problem, you just get yourself to the bathroom. Do you know where it is?’
‘No,’ Susie’s voice was just breaths now, ‘you?’
‘No, but we’ll find it, it’ll be just down these stairs.’
It was not. The stairs led down a long way, as the party was being held in the hall on the top floor of a fairly tall building, and these lower floors were obviously used mainly by staff as they were unheated and undecorated, with stone walls, no windows, very basic light bulbs dangling on wires, and uninviting doors, each one leading to a dark corridor or purposeful room that looked like they shouldn’t be in it.
Suddenly Susie stopped, and fell back against the wall, her eyes tight shut and her teeth clamped together. Her hands began to work hard, squeezing and rubbing, and her knees rubbed together tightly.
‘Are you going to make it?’ Steve asked, looking around. ‘Nobody can see.’
‘I…’ Susie stopped talking and bent double, bouncing gently off the wall as she struggled. Then she stood up, her eyes still closed. ‘I’m okay, let’s go, quickly.’
On they went, down and down, flight after flight of cold, dark stairs. Suddenly they came to the bottom floor, the last tiny, square space before they would have to turn back, or face the street outside. There was one single door coming off this room, and it was marked ‘TOILET’.
‘Oh thank God,’ Susie panted and burst through the door, half–stumbling. It was a small corridor, with two doors, one marked ‘GENTLEMEN’, the other ‘LADIES’. Susie flung herself at the door, and it didn’t open. Startled, she pushed at it again, but it didn’t move. She quickly raced around to the men’s door and pushed – that one didn’t open either.
‘Hey,’ she shouted into the doors, ‘is there anyone in there?’ But there was no reply.
Susie stamped her foot and scrabbled with her hands to get a good grip, to help stem the flow for just a second. Her legs were jogging on the spot, and her breathing was frantic.
‘Is–is there anything I can do?’ Steve said, unable to tear his eyes away from the spectacle before him, but Susie couldn’t hear. Unable to get a good enough grip with her hands, she suddenly and unexpectedly popped her arms into her dress and lifted the whole thing over her head.
‘Hold this,’ she gasped, throwing it at Steve, who held out his arms and caught it. Standing in her underwear, Susie turned and banged on the door with both fists high above her head. Her sobbing was the only thing to break the silence as she ran in a small circle and finally came to a stop leaning her back against the wall as a steady clear stream cascaded from her suddenly drenched underwear and sprinkled down onto the floor about her feet.
Steve could only stand and stare. He told me that Susie banged her fist on the wall in frustration as she let it all flow, but that she did let it all flow. She didn’t even try to hold anything back. Of course, in those days she was still a kid, but we both happened to know that she was sixteen now and stunning, so Steve didn’t mind telling me that she had looked very beautiful that day, despite what had happened to her. He said, ‘You know when you’re looking at real beauty, and I was. There’s just something that tells you, a confirmation light comes on somewhere in your brain and it makes you just want to smile. There’s a lot of boys lust after young Susie, and it’s a shame, because she’s too beautiful for ordinary lust.’
One last thing Steve told me was that as he and Susie were leaving the room, after Susie had hidden her soaked underwear behind a thick pipe on the wall, they had bumped into the strange–looking guy, Ross. He had said he was cleaning up, and he did have a mop in his hand, but it was strange, Steve said, that they found him right there on the second flight of steps. Like he’d followed them. He hadn’t, of course, but when you’re in a situation where you’re trying to keep something secret you get suspicious about anyone. The rest of the party went like a dream, and Susie’s food didn’t get cold, which surprised even her. When Steve left he got a special wink from Susie, and since then he hadn’t really seen her, but that day had pretty much stayed in his memory.
I’m now determined to find out more about Susie Daley. Like I said, last I heard she still lives not too far away from my apartment. Maybe I’ll see her around.
GeneZ