She stands at the busy bar and waits to be served. It is nearly closing time and she wants that last drink before she leaves. Three different bar-staff work frantically to serve the last orders. A giant hulk of a man, young and fresh faced, takes her money and leans across the bar to take her order. Vodka, she requests. She has already noticed him looking down at her cleavage and follows his eyes to make it clear that she knows what he is doing.
He returns with her drink and hands over her change. Yet again, his eyes stare down at her breasts. His hand lingers above hers for longer than is necessary and she tired of his obvious weakness.
"Don't do that!" She snaps at him, but he doesn't hear her over the background noise.
He pulls a face.
"Don't do that -- it will get you into unimaginable trouble!" She speaks up and this time he hears her.
He smirks in her direction, not taking heed of her warning. She shrugs her shoulders and turns away from him, downing her drink in one go.
Looking for her friend she realises that some young lad has struck lucky this evening. She finds Candy strewn across the man's lap, practically eating his face. She smiles to herself. Good for you!
Having caught her friend's eye momentarily she makes her way outside to have a cigarette. Most of the stragglers have moved off already and the smoking area is empty. She sits on a nearby table and draws in the warm heat of burning tobacco.
To one side, she notices a shadow moving in the doorway. Without looking directly, she knows it is the barman. He's keen, she thinks to herself. Poor bastard.
Candy finally emerges, still wrapped around the young buck, and suggests they all go off to someone's house for after-hours drinks. She knows what this means. Candy wants to fuck this guy and she will need to go along to make sure her friend doesn't get into any trouble. Reluctantly she agrees.
All three of them pile into a taxi and travel a short distance along some country lanes until they pull over at a large country house. The young man directs the driver and they pass the main house, stopping outside a large barn to the rear. There is a light on inside and she feels a little unnerved. Candy is too drunk to realise that they might be walking into some sort of trap. They are in the middle of nowhere and she already knows, without looking, that neither of their mobile phones will have a signal here.
The young man, although clearly drunk and horny, seems genuine enough and they all depart the taxi. She's not sure anyone has paid the driver but moves away. She certainly isn't going to pay. The young man, called Lee, leans heavily against the outer door of the barn and drags it open upon its rusty runners. Candy is talking to her, secretively, about how lovely Lee is, how he has said so many nice things to her already, and she thinks her luck might be in tonight. She tells Candy that she's pissed and moves on into the barn.
She expected the barn to be full of hay, straw or farm machinery, but instead it contains a run down old Land Rover, what looks like scrap metal and a series of work benches. She concludes it must be some kind of workshop. Interesting, but not ideal.
Lee scampers off somewhere like a docile puppy and soon returns with a handful of beers. She cracks one open against the edge of a workbench and paces around the barn looking at different machines, the likes of which she has never seen before. She imagines the place full of sweaty workmen, noisy and dirty and is pleased all is quiet in the dead of night.
"Everything alright, Lee?" A gruff voice echoes through the barn.
She turns and laughs to herself. It's the hulking barman standing in the doorway. She has been set up. Candy catches her with a pleading look in her eyes and she nods, silently agreeing to keep the barman company for a while so Candy can get her fill from Lee. It isn't he first or the last time that she's had to accommodate her friend and they would surely have a good laugh about it tomorrow.
"This is Ben," says Lee, drawing his mouth away from Candy just long enough to speak, "he said he liked the look of you in the pub."
