"I think I may need a favour," said Ed Friar to his son.
"What can I do for you?" Nick Friar said, taking a drink from the beer his father had handed him.
"You seem to have turned me into a girl magnet."
Nick laughed. "I have?"
"Well, something has. Used to be I was invisible to anyone female under the age of fifty, but this last month or two, something's changed."
"Any particular girls? Apart from Louise and Gina, of course? And Kate Jones, for that matter..."
"One in particular. Her name is Rebecca -- Rebecca Allyn. She works in the files department next to my office."
"And you've pulled her."
"No, she's trying to pull me. It started quietly enough -- lots of her dropping by to talk to me, finding excuses, you know? But it's been getting more and more obvious. I think she undoes a button or two before she comes in now. Keeps leaning over the desk, asking about my private life, talking about what she wears in bed -- or doesn't..."
Nick laughed again. "Blimey. Well, like I say, it's amazing what a bit of confidence will do for anyone, and Louise and Gina certainly gave you that. Go for it, I say."
"I know you would, but there's a difference here."
"Uh-huh?"
"To start with, I have to work with her. Sure, we could get away with a quiet affair, but I doubt it'd stay that, and then things would just get difficult around the office. But more importantly, Becca is just eighteen. Yeah, yeah, I know that doesn't make much odds to you, but there's a difference between twenty-three-year-olds like Louise and Gina, who are old enough to know what they're doing, and a quiet little teen like Becca. She's obviously looking for a father figure..."
"What makes you say that?"
"The whole way she looks at me -- and frankly, her whole little-girl way of trying to flirt with me. I don't think she's very experienced, actually. I could get her into bed without much effort, but I'd feel like a shit, and god knows what she'd end up doing."
Nick took another drink and looked thoughtful. "Okay," he said, "I can suggest one or two things that might help -- but you'll owe me afterwards. Still, seeing as you've chosen to blame me for your sudden effect on women..."
****
Rebecca Allyn was sitting in the pub, sipping nervously at a half of lager, when the nice-looking young man leant over her table. "Sorry to bother you," he said, "but don't you work in the office just down the road?"
"Yes," she said, taken by surprise, "do I know you?"
"Probably not -- I don't work there myself, I've just been in and out of the place a few times. Thought I'd seen you once or twice, though. I was supposed to be meeting some people from there, actually, but they called me just a couple of minutes ago to cry off. I was already on my way in here and I thought I'd get a drink anyway."
"Oh,
damn
."
"You were supposed to be meeting them too?"
"Yes... Well, sort of. Something like that." Rebecca bit her lip hard, while Nick looked at her with a friendly smile. She hadn't actually been invited to meet anyone here, he knew, but his father had carefully made sure that she overheard a brief and completely spurious phone call that had implied that he's be here at this time, correctly guessing that her increasingly stalker-ish tendencies would lead her to try and engineer an "accidental" meeting.
"Sorry that your trip was wasted too -- they should have told you," he said. "As we're both on our own, mind if I join you?"
Rebecca waved a rather vague agreement, and the young man sat down at her table with his own drink and started chatting to her about TV and recent movies. Her replies were monosyllabic to begin with, but his charm was generally reliable, and by the time that he'd bought her a second half of lager, she was chatting at least a little.
Nick knew that he resembled his father just enough to, he hoped, appeal to a woman who liked Ed, without the relationship being obvious enough to give his game away. Anyway, Rebecca Allyn wasn't paying enough attention to suspect much. When they'd finished their second drinks, he offered to walk her home -- "As you're not doing anything else here" -- and she agreed. He suspected that she would be suspicious of any man who offered to buy her too many drinks -- it was too old and crass a tactic -- but the chance to walk and talk in the open air would look harmless enough.
(Not that he meant her harm, of course.)
She lived some distance off, but accepted his suggestion that they walk much of the way so they could talk some more. Before long, she was, if not pouring out her heart to him, then at least complaining about her boring job and then her lack of friends, which gave him the excuse to suggest a bite of food together. She agreed, calling her mother at home on her mobile to say that she'd be late, and they found a café.
Rebecca picked at a light meal, clearly not very hungry but not starving herself either. Once or twice over the main course, Nick noticed her looking at him in what seemed like an appraising fashion; then she seemed almost to decide something, and she fell on a slice of cake with some enthusiasm.
By coffee, maybe lubricated by the one small glass of wine that she'd suggested for herself, she was complaining about the man she liked who was ignoring her. Nick told her, sincerely enough, that any man who ignored her was an idiot -- he knew that his father was no idiot, just being kind to her, and yes, she was more than pretty enough -- and she smiled at him.
"Let's walk some more," he said as they left the café, "I'm staying near here, actually, but I ought to see you home."
"Maybe
I
should see
you
home," she said, and giggled.
"Maybe you should," he said, carefully treating that as a hint. When women flirted with him in ways that took them towards his bed, he made a point of taking them more literally than they maybe expected; it left them with the feeling that what followed was their idea. Which it was, really, after all, even if it was his too.
At Gina's flat, he let them both in and took Rebecca's coat to hang it up, then took her chin between finger and thumb, and kissed her on the mouth. She responded voraciously, pushing her tongue into his mouth and running her hands through his hair.
He broke the kiss but kept his arms round her. "Bedroom's that way," he said with a nod. She followed his direction, while keeping a grip on his arm all the way.
****
In a car across the road, Louise extracted her mobile phone and called a number. "Mission accomplished, I reckon," she said. "Bedroom light's come on, anyway. Now, mind if I come over there and take my mind off my boyfriend screwing another woman in his ex-girlfriend's bed?"
