We normally had a "quick drink" after work on a Friday, and sometimes those quick drinks became full blown evenings out with my mates. The problem was a ten quid whip used to buy a couple of pints comfortably, and after two pints it was easy to go home. Nowadays £10 didn't quite cover two pints anymore, so the whip had increased to £20 which meant three pints, and after three pints the temptation was to continue, and that meant another £20, which meant that the "quick drink after work" became a piss-up!
Not that it was a concern to anyone but myself, I was single, lived on my own in a nice flat and didn't consider myself to have a problem with alcohol, I limited myself to a couple of occasions a week, giving rise to several alcohol free days, and managed to get to the gym at least two times a week. To be honest if I could have found a non-alcoholic drink I liked as much as beer I would have drunk it, but no matter what I tried, I couldn't manage more than a couple of them before I was fed up, and what I really enjoyed was the company of my mates, and that meant I had to drink beer!
I worked in an office in a medium sized town, and we had several watering holes, some were right dives, some were trying to be something they shouldn't, this wasn't the glitzy West End of London, but the ones we patronised were just pubs, good beer, reasonable food, not that we actually ate anything in them very often, and not too much loud music.
To be honest I hated loud background music in a pub, I went there for a good old chinwag, and to have to shout at each other was just not an attractive proposition, we always considered the music was there for the benefit of the staff, but one mate had this theory that the volume was driven by an cunning algorithm, the louder the music, the less you talked so the more you drank. It did make sense, sort of, but he was well into conspiracy theories anyway.
So there we were, six of us, looking forward to our first pint. The whip had been thrust into my hand and I approached the bar to get the beers in. It was pretty crowded, and there was a throng round the bar and I had to push my way through to get to it. I noticed a group of young women who seemed to be having a good time, all dressed as though they had come from work rather than dressed for a night out.
I found myself next to one of them who was ordering another round for them and groaned inwardly. My experience of women at the bar was that their drinks took an eternity to prepare, then usually they wanted to pay individually, and by card, however this one seemed different. She was clutching a wad of twenty pound notes in her hand and was rattling off the drinks to the barman, passing them over to her friends as they were poured.
She wasn't exactly my type, but had a nice face, framed by a bob of dark hair, and from what I could see a curvy body, topped by a pair of largish breasts. I tried not to get caught peering down her cleavage, but by the grin on her face as her eyes met mine, she knew exactly what was on display and what I was doing. "Hen night?" I asked as she waited for her change.
"No, that was last week, just saying farewell to the bride-to-be from work colleagues."
"Which one is she?" I asked, looking at the half dozen or so women.
She turned round to them, "Can't see her, must be in the loo. Beer after work or something else?" She returned the question to me. I was about to tell her when the barman returned and looked inquisitively at me, so muttered an apology to her and placed my order, handing the pints over as they appeared in front of me. We retreated to a free corner and continued our evening, plenty of banter flying around.
I was at the bar again getting the third round in. "We can't go on meeting like this," came a voice from beside me. I looked round, dragging my eyes up from that cleavage to her face.
"Why not?" I replied, "Seems perfectly acceptable to me. Boy meets girl...."
"Then what?" She interrupted.
"Ah, that depends on you."
"Come on Mike, where's those beers?" came a shout from across the room. I excused myself from her and started ferrying the glasses across, then returned just as she was ordering her round.
"This is our last one," she advised, "then they all want to go home."
"What about you?"
"I could perhaps be persuaded to stay a bit longer. If the offer was right," she added.
"Hold that thought," I replied, "and don't leave without at least saying goodbye." She gave me a mysterious look and we returned to our respective groups, but I found my eyes kept wandering over to her. She was certainly curvy, perhaps bordering on the chubby, but there was something about her that kept dragging my gaze back, and it wasn't just my beer goggles. I'd always had a bit of a thing about full-sized women and she certainly fitted the bill.
Once or twice she caught my gaze and smiled back before turning away again. Then I noticed some of her friends putting coats on and she looked pointedly at me. I nodded in response just as a cry came from my group, "Another one here or shall we move on?" The general consensus seemed to be to move on, something we liked to do as it provided some variety and also gave us the opportunity to put some breathing space between pints.
They started spilling out of the pub and I hung back a bit, "Catch you up boys, just need to have a piss," I called after them as the last one gave me a desultory wave and the door closed behind them.
"And then there were two." She said, coming to stand next to me, "I'll have a vodka and coke if you're serious about staying. Won't your friends miss you?"
"Probably not for a while if I know them."
She introduced herself as Jackie and we started to chat, she worked in town at an Insurance company and shared a flat with one of the other girls. I told her about myself, and then she offered to buy me another drink which I accepted.
She explained that she was a bridesmaid at the forthcoming wedding on the following Saturday and had really only agreed to come out with the bride to be sociable, having already been on the hen do. We continued to chat, then she looked at her watch and said she really ought to be going. I took the hint and drained my pint and we put our coats on, leaving the pub together.
"Which way are you going?" I enquired. She indicated down the street.
"Where did your mates go?" I had a rough idea, which was broadly in the same direction, so we set off together as I messaged them. It seemed vaguely chivalrous to see her home, well most of the way anyway, and she tucked her arm in mine as we ambled along. We came to a side street and she turned to me.
"This is me, I think I'll be OK now, unless you fancy one more for the road." She indicated a pub on the corner. I checked my phone, there was no response from my mates, and to be honest her company, with the prospect of something else, seemed a lot more attractive than several more pints with a load of drunken blokes.
"OK," I said, "one more, no more!" and we went in. Well it turned into several more, and I found we were getting on famously, she had a wicked sense of humour and the time flew by, drinks slipping down our throat like water. I noticed that she began to get a bit touchy-feely, her hand coming to rest on my arm and leg ever more frequently and I started to entertain some ideas about taking this further.