Your girlfriend

I feel a bit odd, as though I'm not quite in the world. I had a bottle of Riesling before I went out and the drinks and other refreshments flowed liberally yesterday, since Kitty and Melissa are in town.

In their hotel room, Kitty asks my opinion about a dress. It's a lovely, flattering black and red dress to below the knee. Selfishly, my only slight disappointment was that she wore a vest underneath it to reduce the depth of the neckline, but it's close-fitting and it shows her off well, especially her narrow waist. Kitty's being chatted up by her plumber at the moment. Her nine-year-old daughter, intending a compliment, said "You should go out with him mummy. He shows that he doesn't care about looks."

We powder our noses and go out for a drink to wait for Melissa. There's a big mirror in the place, and so, facing away from them, we watch a little drama where a man is being unpleasant and trying to force himself on a woman at the bar, something he stops when a miniskirted girl with a torso like a stack of tyres reappears; on a sofa, a badly dressed man is wasting an attractive blonde woman, more interested in his mobile phone. The place is trying hard but feels a little bleak and I'm glad when Kitty says that we could move to the Stonewell. Of what we talked about, I have no recollection.

Melissa walks in, a picture of monochrome sophistication and understated sexiness. Her beautiful long hair, neither brown nor ginger, is falling over the wide straps of a knee length dress in a fairy thick grey fabric, with a three inch glossy black border at its bottom. Off to one side round her waist she's tied a long, black belt. I can't help an unexpressed, boastful thought, thinking of being seen with them.

In the morning, I find an abandoned message to Trina on my phone, detailing the ways in which she wouldn't have got much sleep last night if she'd been here, before trailing off, unsent.

I thought I was going to be doing my first session at Really Late by myself on Wednesday but there was a Venezualan woman sitting in with me. We talked about cultural dislocation and the different ways in which male-female relationships are played out in our respective countries, but I prefer working with 70s Pop Magazine Pinup Woman, with her chatter and long hair and tight jeans. I've got to go on a domestic violence awareness course, just a basic one, for receptionists like me. I like working at Really Late: it tries to induce goodwill into the world. I just hope my rather varied criminal past, once it emerges, will not mean a premature retirement.

My Belgian Beer Tasting is all booked now, so if you're in the area on Tuesday 23rd October at 7.00, come along to the Pizza Margherita and I will share what I know about Belgian beer, with examples.