Satine's eyes fluttered open. She immediately screwed them shut again.
Even with her eyes closed tight, she was aware of light filling the room when all she wanted was deepest darkness.
Blearily, she opened her eyes again and looked around her. She remembered picking out this room when they had first arrived here yesterday but she didn't remember crashing back into it last night.
The room was as large and opulent as when she had first bagged it, determined that just because she was single and pretty much everyone else was coupled up, she wasn't going to be palmed off with some shabby box room.
What she had missed, though, when she had picked the room was that the windows were large and south east facing and the curtains seemingly entirely ineffective. She had clearly been just about together enough to shut them last night before hitting the bed but that didn't seem to make any difference. The whole room was filled with bright sunshine, barely filtered out by the thin fabric.
She just lay there groaning for a while, feeling woeful and woebegone.
With a huge effort, she rolled over and checked her phone.
She groaned again.
It was 6.02 AM. She had 3% battery.
Scrunching her eyes up, she willed herself back to sleep. This was ridiculous. She was definitely still awake at 2am last night and her head was throbbing wildly from last night's excesses.
It was no good though, she just couldn't block out the sunlight pushing up against her eyelids.
Bloody midsummer.
It had been beautiful last night. The light had lingered in the western sky until almost midnight as they'd danced and frolicked in the garden.
But this was just rubbish.
She was thirsty. The longer she lay there, failing to sleep, the harder her raging thirst was to ignore.
Eventually, she had no choice but to get up and look for something to drink.
She pulled the covers off her naked body. At least it was nice and warm in the sunshine, even as filtered through the ineffectual curtain. For a while, she just lay there basking in the sunshine.
There was a sexy, silky black nightie packed away in her suitcase but she had clearly been too wrecked last night to put it on. She had been alone anyway, so there didn't seem much point.
Although her room was large, it didn't have an en suite. The house was too old for anything like that to come as standard.
She had no choice. She had to leave the room. And that meant getting dressed, which seemed like quite a challenge in her current state.
For a brief moment, she contemplated creeping round the house completely naked. Surely no one else was as mad as she was to be up. It wasn't a thought she took very seriously though.
Luckily, there was a pretty summer dress sitting on the top of the pile of clothes in her suitcase. She slipped it over her bare body. There was at least a mirror in the room and as she checked herself, she was pleased with the effect, at least as long as she ignored the total mess of her hair.
The dress showed off her tits in a way she liked. They were only medium sized but she had always been pleased with them and thought they were nice and shapely. The dress just showed off a hint of cleavage. She didn't bother wearing a bra.
As terrible as she felt, she didn't rule out the possibility of bumping into Max somewhere on her quest for a glass of water. Her plan to spend the previous evening flirting with him outrageously had been derailed by too much champagne and a karaoke machine but she didn't rule out making a good impression later today. Ideally much later, though, once she had had more sleep, had a proper wash and done her hair.
She left the safety of her room and made her way to the bathroom at the end of the corridor. She gratefully splashed some water over her face and scooped a few handfuls into her parched mouth. There was no glass to get a proper drink though, so she decided to head downstairs and make for the kitchen.
The house was big and silent and solemn in the morning sunshine. Satine felt very clearly as though the house itself were sleeping and made great efforts not to rouse it. The music and the shrieks that had filled it into the early hours was replaced by this heavy, blanketing silence.
The kitchen was divided from the downstairs hallway by a heavy oak door, which creaked noisily as she pushed it open. The heavy flagstones felt cool under her feet.
There was a man with his back to her looking through cupboards at the far end of the kitchen. It was Max.
He looked up at the sound of the door creaking. He saw Satine and gave her the broad smile of someone genuinely pleased to see her. He looked like he was every bit as hungover as Satine but Satine still thought he looked gorgeous.
She also couldn't help notice that he was wearing the same blue shirt as last night but that it was open at the front. His chest looked firm and maybe even a little bit rippling beneath it.
"Hey," he said.
"Hey," she replied.
For a while they just stood there looking at each other, smiling goofily but not talking. Satine unconsciously twirled her hair. Neither seemed sufficiently together to say anything remotely sensible to the other.
"Coffee?" Max managed eventually.
"Yes, please," Satine responded enthusiastically, wanting to encourage him to more.
"Coming right up," he replied and then turned back again to banging through the cupboards. After a few moments of opening and closing cupboard doors, he turned back to face her again.
"One problem, though."
"No coffee?"
"No, not that bad. I've found a cafetiere and some coffee beans but nothing to grind them with."
"Don't worry. I can help you there."
Satine was happy to be able to help and particularly happy to be able to have an excuse to get closer to Max.
"Have you got a tea towel, a chopping board and a rolling pin?"
"Ur, yeah, I think so."
"Great." Satine moved towards him and stood just behind him as he gathered the items as she had instructed him.
It felt intoxicating being that close to him, the urge to reach out and stroke his back was so strong within her. She could feel herself becoming aroused just being around him. Mercifully, this had the effect of masking her horrible hangover.
"Now what?" he asked her.
Satine moved around so that she was sort of half behind him and half next to him.
"Put the tea towel on the chopping board. Now pour the beans onto the tea towel and gather it up like a bag."
"Got you. Like that?"
"Perfect. Now ... hit it."
"What?"
"Hit it. Smash it as hard as you can with the rolling pin."
Max gripped the rolling pin and held it dramatically above his head. He turned and looked at her.