I do appliance repairs. It's fairly steady work as there's always something breaking down. Biggest business is washing machines and dish-washers. They cost too much to just replace when they break down and there are very few people who are going to try to cart a broken one down to the shop. They'd rather pay the callout fee.
I was at this house fixed a dish-washer. I didn't know what they'd been washing but it had seriously gunked up the machine. (Found out later that her husband had tossed part of his car engine into the dish-washer to see how well they cleaned up.)
The woman of the house was in her early twenties and very nicely built but seemed rather wary about having a strange man in the house. I can understand that. When I run into someone who's nervous about me being there, I just get real professional, with no small talk or trying to set the customer at ease. All business, that's me, and it tends to relax them.
So with this woman acting chary I was on my best behaviour, getting right down to it with barely a word to her. Turned out she's one of these women who can't bear being ignored. So I was in the odd situation of having a customer who didn't want to fraternise with the tradesman but felt insulted when the tradesman didn't seem to want to fraternise with her.
She lingered in the kitchen, wanting to know what I was doing, how long had I been a tradesman, how long was I going to be, and just talking to hear herself talking.
There was a TV going in the background and during a pause in her talking a news bulletin came on. Part of the news was a commentary about some woman who'd been indecently assaulted and the cops were looking for the assailant. Mrs Harper sniffed indignantly at the news.
"They say indecently assaulted, but they mean rape," she snapped. "You men are monsters at times."
"Because of rape?" I asked off-hand. "Nah, not really. Rapes just a loser's game."
"So you're saying that you'd never rape a woman?" she said, a touch scornfully.
"Not on your life," I said derisively. "You need to be a real idiot to bother raping someone."
"Why do you say that?"
I paused in what I was doing and looked at her.
"There's a billion women in the world. Women like sex just as much as men and are quite happy to oblige a man if he approaches them the right way. If one turns you down you just walk away. The chances are the next one won't. To rape someone just shows you didn't have the guts to ask her first."
"You mean all you have to do is ask a woman and she'll jump into bed with you?"
The woman sounded a bit scornful, obviously thinking I was full of myself.
"It's not quite as straight forward as that. Time, place, and manner of asking, count for a lot. Consider yourself. If I was to ask you right now to go to bed with me you'd be appalled and possibly frightened and would not be in a mood to agree. Correct?"
"That's for sure," came a snappish response.
"But why? After all, a man is paying a woman a compliment when he says he wants to sleep with her. He's telling her he finds her very attractive. Let's change the scenario slightly. If I met you down at the hotel and propositioned you, you might still say no, but you'd probably feel flattered. Not insulted or frightened. See the difference."
"What difference. I've still turned you down."
"True," I said with a grin. "But consider this. What would happen if I approached you in the pub and quietly offered you ten grand, payable in advance, to slip aside with me for a little while. The only people who would know about it would be you and me, and ten grand is ten grand. You'd be really flattered and I'm guessing you'd probably agree. Yes?"
She gave me a nasty look, but she was honest.
