"Good one Leigh!" Drew almost snarled at his best friend, only barely stopping himself from slamming his empty glass down on the bar, as angry as he had not felt for a long time. "What a stupid thing to say!"
"What?" Leigh nearly whined defensively. He knew he had stuffed things up, not just for both of them, but for Drew, whom he never liked to displease.
"What? What, are you as thick as people say you are?" Drew's voice was rising, and he knew how it hurt Leigh to be called stupid, but just now he wanted to hurt him. He knew he had been so close to getting the beautiful woman out into his car, he knew she wanted it, and then Leigh had said that. Idiot! "What!? Oh! 'You could do both of us!'" he cruelly mimicked his friend. "As if a classy woman like her would be into that. For fuck's sake!"
He ordered himself another beer, pointedly not buying Leigh one, as was the custom in those days-take turns buying the rounds of drinks.
The beautiful woman they were both referring to had, after Leigh had blurted out his "You could do both of us," merely smiled at him, picked up her bag and excused herself to go to the toilet, which was in another bar. In those days, the public bar was meant to be a male domain (some pubs even refused to serve women in them) and there were never toilets for women, so they had to go next door to either the lounge or saloon bar (which in some hotels was still referred to as the Lady's Bar) if they wished to use a toilet. That is what the beautiful woman had done.
"She might come back," Leigh said, trying to please his friend, almost in tears. He hated upsetting Drew, and was terrified when he was angry with him.
"She won't come back," Drew growled, taking some anger out of his voice. Leigh was a great friend and he didn't like upsetting him. But sometimes he was just so stupid.
He looked around the bar, just to avoid having to look at Leigh. It was a large bar, and nearly deserted now, nine o'clock on a Monday night. All the after-work drinkers had long since gone home. He and Leigh had come in about seven, after spending the day at the beach ogling beautiful women in bikinis. They were both in the last year of their apprenticeships, on the first day of the Christmas-New Year break. They had money, and the weather was great, and they had come to the pub just to play pool and have a few beers. Apart from them, there were a couple of older guys up the far end of the bar drinking quietly and playing darts. Other than these, the bar was empty.
The idea of a fortnight of beer and beach and not having to get up early was a strong one in their young minds, and they had come into the pub in a happy mood, and set about playing pool and joking with the pretty barmaid (whom they had both gone to school with and whom Drew had once slept with after a party, but she was engaged now so there was no chance of her helping with the horniness that the day of ogling had produced in him) and talking about which beach to go to the next day.
And then about seven-thirty she had come in, the beautiful woman. She looked somewhat out of place in that working-man's bar, but her demeanour showed she certainly didn't feel it. She was tallish, about five-eight, slim, with thick black hair, stylishly cut to just below her shoulders. She had a beautiful oval face; brown eyes, long eyelashes, a perfectly formed nose, and a mouth that said kiss me. Her outfit hinted at fine long legs, a tight bum, slim waist and medium sized breasts. Everything about her was beautiful, and the word that immediately came to mind when looking at her was 'class'. She was wearing a fashionably tightish black just-above-the-knee skirt, a pale pink blouse and flat-heeled sandals. When she came in she had stood at the door for a minute, looking around the nearly empty room, then walked to the bar near where Drew and Leigh were, sat on a stool and ordered a glass of white wine, itself an almost unheard of thing to drink in public bars in those days. The barmaid had stopped herself from smirking and gone off to get the drink.
Drew and Leigh had spent about ten minutes concentratedly doing their best not to let her know they were looking at her, trying to focus on the pool game, and being careful not to appear young and silly. They guessed she was in her late twenties or early thirties, and her beauty eclipsed that of all the young women they had been ogling at the beach that day.
"Ok if I have a game?" she startled them by asking, after that ten minutes of letting them look at her. At least they are not drooling, she thought, smiling to herself.
"Course," Drew had answered immediately. Anything for an excuse to talk to someone so beautiful.
In those days the custom was to put a coin on the edge of the table, signifying that you would play whoever 'owned' the table when that coin's turn came up. The beautiful woman knew the conventions, stood up and walked casually over to the table and put down a coin. All male eyes in the bar were focussed on her arse, and she knew it, but resisted the urge to wiggle.
The game ended with Leigh the winner this time, and his heart leapt that here was something he had beaten Drew at, he would get to play against the beautiful woman first, and he almost swaggered back to the bar to sit and wait for her to break.
She went over to the table after ordering another drink, put her money in, released the lever that let all the balls out, and set up the triangle. As was the custom, as the 'challenger', she broke, it was a good break, and it was obvious to the two young men that she knew what she was doing. And she did know what she was doing, in many ways. She had worked out from the way the two spoke to each other and to her that the tall thin one-Drew-was the dominant one in the friendship, and she also worked out very quickly that the shorter, medium built one-Leigh-was quite shy and uncertain. She let him win that first game.
