An hour in, and Irene moved the conversation to challenges for patrons. All they had to do was donate a small amount of money and we would complete their challenge, within reason, obviously.
Lu98: Dan, teach them all yoga. $3.
Fifi: I’ll add $5 to that.
He taught us basic poses as further donations came in. The others were tipsy, and Nathan fell on his face, which resulted in fifty dollars of donations to him. I managed to stretch my muscles in the right places but couldn’t hold myself as steady as Irene and Jules.
Reneeleanie: Karaoke!! $10.
Irene laughed and set up the machine. She tossed a songbook at me and my heart began to pound. Jules leaned over my shoulder.
“Let’s do one together,” she offered.
Relief flooded through me as we chose a Jonas Brothers song and waited for Irene to finish sincerely bellowing out Mariah Carey. I kept one eye on the laptop screen as she went through her performance, and watched the donations flood in. Ten dollars here, twenty there, even the odd one-hundred-dollar donation. Afterwards, she sat on the floor next to the screen and thanked each donor, blowing kisses to her fans. I knew that this was how other influencers interacted with their followers but seeing it happen in real life was a whole other bizarre experience.
Once we all went through the humiliation of karaoke, Nathan was challenged with telling the viewers what he thought of each person there. Cheezemonkeys informed him bluntly that he had to be honest.
“Dan’s cool. Possibly a bit thick.” Nathan shrugged.
“No thicker than you,” Dan retorted, seemingly unbothered by the dig.
“Irene is hot,” he continued. “But you’d get sick of her shit within a month.”
“You would never even get a month, my darling,” Irene said, grinning so wide it showed her teeth.
“Jules is so woke she’s in 2021.”
“And you’re in 1982.” Jules sipped her champagne and delivered daggers.
On the screen, the donations poured in. Many of the viewers praised him for being honest, for speaking his mind, and for calling out bullshit. Others jumped to the rescue of Irene, Jules and Dan, sending their own donations and vilifying Nathan.
“Don’t worry everyone,” Irene said. “Nathan has decided to be the bad guy. He’s a boy craving attention. Well, now he has it. Shall we do the next challenge?”
“Wait, I haven’t mentioned Cath.”
My fingers tightened around the stem of my glass. I’d guessed that Irene was trying to move the challenge along before Nathan got to me. And from the delightedly mischievous expression on Nathan’s face, I knew he had a devilish insult to throw at me.
Irene sighed. “Fine.”
“Virgin,” Nathan said.
A deep flush of red blossomed on my cheeks. My hand flew up to block my face from view of the cameras.
“Fuck you, Nathan,” Jules said, putting one arm around my shoulder. “Fuck you. That was nasty.”
Nathan laughed and shrugged. “They said be honest.”
“Not cool.” Dan shook his head. He reached across and yanked Nathan’s champagne out of his hand. “I think you’ve had enough of this.”
“Well, now you’ve pissed everyone off,” Irene said. “But, Cath, you’re getting donations now. And you’re much too pretty to be a virgin.”
It was a patronising comment, we all knew it. Part of me wondered if she’d said it to curry favour with the viewers. I glanced at the screen to see how they were reacting. The ticker was moving so quickly I could hardly read the responses.
Forkie: Woah, that was harsh.
Cheezemonkeys: LMAO!!!!!!!!
AliceAkarthis: We love you Cath. You’re beautiful inside and out, unlike Nathan. He’s a dick inside and out. $60.
Yorkiefan: No, Nath. Too far. $10 for Cath.
Reneeee: Aw, I feel bad for her. $10.
Susan87: Anyone else now shipping Cath and Nathan? LOL!
“Cath, there’s a challenge for you if you’re interested,” Irene said.
I placed my glass on the coffee table and brushed my hair back. “What is it?”
Every one of my nerves jangled. Nathan’s voice rang in my mind. Virgin. Virgin.
“Mayaforlife would like you to tell a ghost story.”
Everyone’s eyeballs shifted in my direction. The last thing I wanted was extra attention on me. But at least it would stop them from trying to figure out if it was true, if I actually was a virgin. And there was, of course, the perfect story ready and waiting. I nodded to Irene, and the room grew quiet.
“Actually, as I was coming here, my taxi driver told me the story of Sfântul Mihail and why it was abandoned in the 1940s. Do any of you know what happened?” I asked.
Everyone shook their heads apart from Irene.
“I know part of it,” she said.
“I doubt you know everything,” I continued. “Because the crime was so shocking, much of it was kept out of the press. And with communism on the rise, the murders were overshadowed.” I waited for a moment, to allow the word murders to sink in. “You know that this building is at least two hundred years old, and you know that it was once a nunnery. Even back then when the nuns lived here, years and years ago, there were dark rumours about the building’s origins, about this place, built and used as a holy sanctuary for those who had lost their way; those who needed guidance.
“And between these old walls, for many, many years, most of those women found the support they desperately needed. But what they didn’t know was that there was an unwelcome guest among them. A malign presence waiting for an opportunity to strike.
“It was in the tower that the nuns often heard the terrifying sound. A low groaning that couldn’t be human. A hidden evil, growling through gritted teeth, its hackles raised for a fight. No one in the nunnery wanted to ring the bells anymore. Only Sister Elena was fearless enough to climb the many steps up the tower and ring the bell. That was until the day her cold, bloodless body was found at the bottom of the belfry.
“The stubborn mother superior did not want a scandal. Despite the fact that Elena’s throat had been ripped open, she had the death hushed up as an accident, claiming that the ill-fated woman tripped and fell. Shortly after, the bell was removed from the tower.
“But soon, several of the sisters claimed to see the silhouette of a tall man lurking in the cloister. His figure was seen in the dark annals around the monastery, in the surrounding forests, up the mountainside, skulking in the graveyard. The word strigoi was whispered among the most superstitious, and they hung garlic around the doors.
“For a while, the tall man didn’t appear, and the sisters lived in peace. Their isolation had always been a blessing and a curse, but now they felt safer again. Some of the nuns decided to maintain a vow of silence, others grew fruit and vegetables, and every day they prayed, giving gratitude for their good fortune, and for God helping them stay protected against evil. The strigoi stayed away.”
“What’s a strigoi?” Dan asked.
“It’s the Romanian word for vampire,” I replied. “A summer went by, and then an autumn, and then a winter. The sisters aged. Mother superior died suddenly in the night and they buried her in the private cemetery east of the church. Her grave is covered in moss, but it’s still there, and her bones are, hopefully, at rest.