Last Orders

"We should do something special for Matt's last night."

Matt was the bar manager at the pub where I worked. I was a nineteen-year-old student at the time, and I'd been working at the pub for about six months. I'd gotten to know Matt fairly well. He was a bit of a rogue and a player, but he was intensely likeable, with an easy charm that made you forgive most of his indiscretions. Plus, of course, he was a twenty-something guy with a handsome face, which made him seem like the most desirable catch in the world to me, a somewhat naïve country girl who had never lived in a big city before.

I wasn't the only girl in the team with eyes on Matt, though. His charm seemed to work on most of the ladies in the bar staff, and I had a particular rival in my usual shift partner and best frenemy, Alison.

Alison and I got on famously, but we had a certain sense of rivalry in our professional lives. We measured our victories in attention from desirable male customers, and especially in tips from the same. We were, in our own esoteric rating system, both level pegging (although each of us would have argued that we were ahead of the other) and the competition was heating up.

We both had our individual ways of getting one over on the other and trying to win the game. Alison had her bright pink hair, her tattoos and her tendency to wear skimpy clothing, all of which brought her a lot of attention from male patrons, and pleased looks from Matt. As for me, I had a brunette girl-next-door charm of my own: and I had 'the girls'. My genes had been kind to me and I was blessed with a truly curvaceous figure, complete with 36DD chest. While Alison often resorted to showing a lot of (tattooed) skin to edge up in our daft game, I didn't even need to wear low cut tops. A tight t-shirt or sweater and a winsome, faux-innocent smile were all I required to find my tip jar overflowing with gifts from awe-struck lads.

I think, looking back, that was why Alison enjoyed our little game. She certainly had no intention of picking an easily-beaten rival. When we first met, and she saw the effect my sweater treasures had on the men we encountered, she seemed to decide instantly that I was both a suitable best friend, and a rival worthy of her time and effort to compete with. And, for that matter, I was flattered to be considered such a worthy opponent. Alison was twenty-two, worldly-wise and the funniest lass I had ever had the pleasure to know - while she'd turn on the charm for every male customer, the things she'd say behind their backs had me in stitches, and her sharp tongue was perfect for emasculating any of the boys we worked with on the rare occasion when they'd make the mistake of trying to up their own flirting game and bag a night with one of the barmaids.

"As if I'd shag anyone who couldn't do any better than work in this dump," she joked to me in explanation after once again sending one of the boys back to the kitchen with his tail between his legs. Needless to say, she was all-too-aware that neither of us were currently doing any better career wise, but to Alison, that wasn't the point. No man was worthy of a roll in her bed unless he had some cash to flash or something about himself to elevate him above the parade of drippy students and hipster losers who marched through our doors every day - although as long as they gave her compliments and tips, she was happy to treat them like they were Hugh Hefner when she served them.

So when Matt the bar manager arrived with us, she instantly tallied him up as someone who might be going places someday, and was a lot more receptive to his charming ways than she had been with any previous King's Arms employee. Matt had a nice car, owned a flat in town, went to the gym regularly and of course, was earning more than the rest of us. That was aphrodisiac to Alison, and it was actually hilarious to see her transform from sharp-witted harridan to employee of the month whenever he had reason to speak to her.

Of course, Alison wasn't just relying on being Matt's favourite team member to give her a chance for a hook-up with him; she'd been flirting outrageously from the moment he introduced himself. As, for that matter, had I - but while Alison's libido was primarily motivated by Matt's bank balance and nice shirts, I was more interested in his tousled hair and handsome, stubbled chin; his winning smile and, as I may have mentioned, his thoroughly roguish charm. Matt knew he was the dog's bollocks, and while he never came across as egotistical, he was certainly possessed of an irresistible confidence that brought out something similar in yours truly, and I'd melt like butter at the slightest bit of praise from our new boss.

Both Alison and I realised pretty quickly that we had the hots for the same guy and so it inevitably became another factor in our ongoing competition. Now the winner wouldn't be the girl with the most tips, but the one who managed to get Matt to pull her.

There was one major obstacle - Matt had a (I presume long-suffering) girlfriend. Looking back I wonder how she put up with him, given how he made no secret of the fact that he loved the ladies and flirted outrageously with myself, Alison and every woman within about a fifty-mile radius. But I suppose that was just his way, and with a few choice words and a well-practised smile I'm sure he was able to assure her he'd done nothing wrong. It wasn't as though he was a cheater anyway - he'd do everything but, but we'd been unable to find any girl who could say she'd gone all the way with her in spite of being with his girlfriend.

So the challenge refined itself. Matt needed to be tempted to stray from what he was getting at home, with both Alison and myself competing to be the chosen temptress.

Whatever we tried, though, whatever tricks from our arsenal we deployed, Matt wasn't taking the hook. Oh, he absolutely loved how gooey-eyed he made us, but he seemed to prefer to keep stringing us along, rather than pick one over the other for a quickie in the back room or, even, something more serious. It was frustrating just how much he wasn't willing to have sex with one of us behind his girlfriend's back!

I suppose at that point Alison and I should have given up but we were too far down the road of competition - and when Matt told us he'd be moving on (to a better management job, naturally - even more money to impress Alison with) at the end of the month, that even presented a deadline - whoever managed to seduce Matt by then would be the winner - if we both failed, neither would have the satisfaction of bragging rights over the loser.

Oh, and £150. Did I mention that? At some point, probably when we'd been livening up a slow shift by drinking the bar's stock ourselves, Alison and I had successfully managed to goad each other into putting a bet on which of us would bag Matt first. The first barmaid who rolled into work sore from a night riding Matt's cock would also be the recipient of £150 from the purse of the loser.

As a poor student who had to pad out her meagre student loan payment by working in the King's Arms, I would certainly have been happy to win £150 just by having sex with a man I fancied anyway, but also, I was quite confident that if I lost, I would not have been able to afford to make good on the bet! So as an incentive it worked double for me, and I began to feel real pressure from the deadline that Matt's leaving the bar was giving us.

Still, the time passed, Matt's last night as bar manager was fast approaching, and I was no closer to completing my seduction of the man - and nor was Alison. Times were becoming desperate, and so ever more desperate measures were called for.

Of course, one didn't want to come across as too desperate. £150 cash and a handsome man notwithstanding, both Alison and myself weren't wanting to lose our dignity in the pursuit. At least, not at first...

But then "doing something special for Matt's last night" became a lock-in. For those of you not in the know, a lock-in is where the staff of a pub or bar close up for the night, but allow certain people (usually those inside) to continue to buy and be served drinks. It's a way of getting around the local licensing laws while remaining good and courteous neighbours. To anyone outside, the pub appears closed - nobody else is allowed in. But there's no law against selling your friends alcohol in a private premise that isn't open to the public, so as long as you don't get rowdy and anger the people who live nearby into calling the police, you can usually get away with the occasional lock-in, usually on a special occasion, like a bar team member's birthday... or a leaving party.

As the lock-in approached Matt had still not succumbed to either mine or Alison's feminine charms, although he continued to enjoy having his ego flattered by our blatant flirting and gave us plenty of encouragement. It was all a bit frustrating, and I was starting to have my doubts. Perhaps, despite appearances to the contrary, Matt wasn't quite the rogue he appeared, and was actually very faithful to his loyal girlfriend? For a moment or two I would start to wonder if trying to encourage an attached, non-single man to have sex with me might actually not be a very nice thing to do... then Alison would make some quip, or remind me of the bet, or Matt would smile that smile of his, and all good thoughts would vanish from my mind and only wickedness would remain.

I was fully prepared therefore to do anything to out-perform Alison, which must have been why I agreed to her suggestion, no matter how surprising it was.

"Topless barmaids," she'd said with a mischievous grin, a grin which only got more mischievous when I went bright red as I realised what she was implying.

Now, I should explain, this didn't come completely out of nowhere. A few days previously we'd all been chatting about the history of the pub and one of the lads, who was a bit of a geek for this sort of thing, had been explaining how, as late as the 80s, the King's Arms had been much more a traditional, working man's pub - and a bit of a sleazy one to boot. Those were the days of the lunchtime strippers, when a bored-looking lass would get up and take off her clothes to disco music while the patrons stuffed fivers into a pint mug being passed around; days when going to the pub over lunch or an evening was a chance for the average bloke to get away from his nagging wife for a while and join his fellows in ogling a young tart or two.

Those days were nearly two decades ago, and the King's Arms was now mostly frequented by students from the same university I was attending. But it had clung on to its salacious past longer than many other pubs, and as Danny, the lad giving us the history lesson noted pointedly, was the last pub in the city to still offer weekly Topless Tuesday nights.

Topless Barmaid nights were exactly what you'd expect them to be. With the street-facing curtains drawn (or perhaps classier still, a bit of newspaper taped over the windows), the venue would take on an even more men-only atmosphere than normal, because while it would still be pints of bitter, darts and the occasional questionable pie, the service would be delivered by the youngers and least ropey looking female staff, who would be behind the bar, pulling pints while wearing nothing above their waists. So while they bought their beer and their crisps, the hard-working male patrons could have a good look at Sharon and Tracy's naked tits bouncing around and make appropriate "cor, phwoar, etc." comments.

It was the same spirit that put topless models on page three of the tabloid newspapers popular with builders and van drivers and factory workers - the idea that if men, particularly working men, are offered the choice between one thing, and "that same thing but also there's tits", they would choose the second option every time. So if you had a pub which offered all the drinking and playing darts of a regular, normal pub, but here you were served by a half-naked girl, you'd naturally choose to spend your money in that pub instead of the ones where the girl still had her clothes on while she poured your pint.

Of course, as time went on and attitudes changed, that became less of a draw (much like how nobody really ever bought The Sun just because of Page 3, nobody was really going to frequent a grotty, sleazy boozer just because there might be a girl on shift with no top on), and eventually faded out of popularity, replaced by lapdancing clubs and other venues that at least pretended to be upmarket and classy. In fact, some of the girls at my university were themselves working at the lapdancing club in town, and it seemed like good money - I'd have considered it myself, except for the fact that I dance like a wooden elephant and didn't have anything like the physical fitness necessary to do that sort of work. Pulling pints might have paid me less, but it was a bit easier on my body than flinging myself around a pole all night while keeping a smile on my face.

Anyway, Danny's explanation of the tradition of Topless Tuesdays had obviously sparked some inspiration for Alison, as a few days later she made the suggestion that she and I, as the working barmaids on the night of the lock-in, should give Matt a bit of a treat and pull a few pints with our boobs out once the party had started.

I had to admit I was shocked. Not by the suggestion of nudity - after all, Alison loved her skimpy outfits and the attention they brought. No, what surprised me was that Alison would think of this as a way she could beat me to the goal of seducing Matt. I mean, Alison had a nice pair of boobs but I had 'the girls'! If she was seriously suggesting that we end our competition by stripping to the waist and seeing who Matt liked the look of best, I couldn't see how she was possibly going to measure up to my 36DD chest. Why deliberately add in an element to our little game at which she would surely find it impossible to win?

That was probably why I agreed, with little hesitation, to her plan. After all, if we went through with this, I'd be a dead cert to wind up going home with Matt, right? I'd never met a lad who didn't have nice things to say about my impressive bosom, and certainly Matt had the same problem most boys I talked to did, and found it hard to meet my eyes when we were together. So if Alison and I were going to line up with our tops off in a blatant attempt to get him to try and pull us, I'd have been a fool to opt out. A night with Matt, and the £150, was practically in the bag.

Still, I couldn't help be a little nervous as the event approached. I'm not held back by modesty when it comes to my body. I'd sunbathed topless on the beach in Spain many times in my young life, it was par for the course over there. Not just that, I'd flashed my boobs a few times for drunken fun, and even skinny-dipped completely naked with friends on more than one occasion. So I wasn't averse to a bit of nudity, especially if it was going to win me something I wanted. But a cheeky flash on a night out was one thing - to go to my place of work, take my top off and serve pints of beer bare-breasted in front of colleagues and a few close mates/regulars - well, it seemed a bit weird, not to mention risky. Giving everyone at the lock-in the full and prolonged site of my naked chest just so I could win this silly contest between Alison and myself might have repercussions we hadn't thought of, especially from some of the other guys. Or it might make the girls there hate us and think we were tarts, they wouldn't know what the full story was and would just assume we were doing it for anyone's attention.

But, £150. And it would be probably my last chance to hook up with a guy I really fancied. It might seem a desperate tactic, but I was willing to give it a go.

I should probably mention that if I was young again now and had the same opportunity, I'd decline, for the simple reason that nowadays your misbehaviours are never private, there's always someone taking pictures on their phone and before you know it, you're on Facebook publicly shamed for all to see.

But this was the turn of the millennium, and Facebook hadn't even been invented. People were starting to have mobile phones, but we were a long way off putting cameras in them, they were still just for calling and texting, nothing more. If you wanted to take photos at a party or night out you needed a real camera, often one of those disposable ones where you took the whole thing to Boots to develop your pictures, only for half of them to come back as completely black rectangles with stickers attached advising you how to use your flash correctly.

So I didn't have to worry too much about photographic evidence. The only people who would ever see what Alison and I were planning were the people who would be at the lock-in, lucky devils that they were.

I think Alison was feeling a little nervous too, as our shift wore on and the moment of toplessness drew closer. We both helped ourselves to a few drinks throughout the evening, and so by the time we rang the bell for last orders from the public, we were more than a little tipsy ourselves. We were building up our Dutch courage, while both acting to the other like it what we were planning was absolutely no big deal.

We'd not made it a general secret that Alison and I were planning our own tribute to the topless barmaids of the King's Head's past - it was only supposed to be a surprise for Matt - and so by the time 11pm rolled around, and with the majority of customers having left for home and only those pre-approved for the lock-in left, we had a lot of expectant eyes on us.

Doors locked, and Matt elsewhere, Alison and I realised now was our time to begin our performance. If we could strip before Matt came in, it would be more of a surprise to him when he saw us, and hopefully he'd realise it was our way of saying goodbye (and of course, a little more than that).

With barely a glance at what Alison was doing, and trying to ignore the lads and lasses who were there to drink on through the lock-in, I grasped the hem of my blackberry-coloured t-shirt and pulled it off over my head. More than a few cheers and calls of encouragement came from the people in the bar (more or less entirely male voices) and these increased greatly when I reached behind my back, unhooked my bra and slipped out of it, finally letting my magnificent bosoms go free.

I've got to admit, I was proud that, at the moment I finally fully bared my breasts behind the bar, there was almost complete silence. As I stood there in just my jeans, hands on my hips, and my ears hot from blushing, I felt a sudden swell of pride that my tits could have such an effect. I looked down at myself; at the full, plump orbs, crowned with large, softly-pinked nipples which, exposed to the sudden cool air of the pub, were stiffening excitedly, and not for the first time thanked whatever god or goddess was responsible for blessing me so!

My blushing pride was short-lived, however, when I turned to look at Alison and realised that I alone wasn't responsible for the sense of awe in the room.

For while I had come to work in jeans and a t-shirt, Alison had opted for a black mini-dress and black tights. I had wondered briefly how she was going to manage to do the topless barmaid thing when she was only wearing one item - would she roll her top down? Now I had my answer. Alison had stripped off her dress entirely, and was standing behind the bar in black stockings, attached to a lacy suspender belt, and what I assume were the sexiest black lace knickers she owned.

So that was her game - that was why she'd suggested we embark on this naughty little tribute to the pub's history and work half-naked. She wasn't bothering to try to compete with the size of my breasts against her own (although, modest as they were compared to mine, they did look quite lovely here and now!). Instead, she was using it as an opportunity to wear her sexiest lingerie and nothing else in front of Matt, hoping that this would speak to his libido even more than a busty girl in blue jeans and no top would.