A handful

I am in the pub with someone who's asked me to look over his dissertation. The couple at the next table ask if they can borrow my phone to ring a taxi. "Of course," I say. Especially as you're really pretty, I didn't. Mid forties. I've seen her round.

The taxi is a long time coming and we get into some pleasant chit-chat. It eventually arrives and Fit Bit and Bloke leave. I get back to correcting my friend's dissertation.

After a while I look up and am surprised to see Fit Bit standing alone at the bar. She's twiddling her foot round on her heel. Tight jeans, and a grey woolen wrap-around top that considerately stops at waist level. "I'm going to see if I can get her to sit with us, K---is that alright? Better than looking at you all afternoon." I hurry my drink so that I must go to the bar.

"Did the taxi get lost and bring you back then?" I say. She's got a lovely south Lancashire accent and I mentally repeat the sound of some of her words for the pleasure it gives me. "You could come and sit down if you liked--I'm sure you've had an exhausting journey." I get a little conspiratorial look from the woman standing the other side of Fit Bit. I smile secretly back, enjoying being interpellated in that way.

Me and Fit Bit get on easily and chattily. She swears like a docker and recites, using the looped and repeated narration technique common in drinkers, the details of how she had to come back to the pub as she had left her bag behind. It was still there, unmolested.

K has lost interest and hardly joins in; I am reminded that three can an awkward number socially. With my usual sensitivity in these matters, I ignore him, selfishly enjoying flirting with Fit Bit, getting to the Needlessly Frequent Forearm Touching Stage. She excuses herself to go to the loo.

"Fucking hell, she can talk," he says. "I don't mind that," I say. "She's fit though isn't she? Lovely tits." "Hmmm, not my type," says K, and directs my attention to a leggy young girl with a figure like a plank. "Oh God no," I say. "It'd be like shagging a xylophone."

She comes back and we launch back into chatting, me slightly wishing K would fuck in the general direction of off and have a go with Miss Plank. Suddenly, I look up and her rather large and rather bald boyfriend has been teleported to our table. He says something I can't make out in a disgusted voice. "Ahh," she says, waving her arm dismissively. "Fucking..." And he walks out.

The atmosphere sinks. I look up to see a couple of people watching our drama unfold, which now, without context, might look illicit. "Never mind," I say, "Let's have another drink. Pint of Guinness is it?" "Yes, and I want a Jagermeister."

K leaves and I breathe a guilty sigh of relief. Fit Bit gives me the background to her boyfriend's grumpiness. "I know I'm a handful sometimes," and the thought of standing behind her and stroking her breasts flashes across my mind, wondering what her nipples would feel like flicked under my splayed fingers. "But it's all control, control, control. I left my last boyfriend because of that and I'm fucking sick of it."

She shakes her head, as if to stop herself, and bids me a sudden and quick farewell, which takes me aback. I look downwards and gather my things, because I can feel "Well there you go son, that didn't quite go to plan did it?" being broadcast on all frequencies.