I was just weighing up the pros and cons of a Martini moment, slightly put off by the fact

that I'd once been very sick on gin at a school friend's house party, when I felt a presence

in the bar like a huge wailing vortex, pulling and sucking the air across the room. I turned

to see a veritable, foxy redhead standing just in front of the door, mobile phone glued to

her ear.

    'Darling, got to run. I'll call you. Ciao. Ciao.' She snapped the phone shut and paused for

a moment too long, as if she were waiting for the bar to size up her magnificence. Once

she had allowed us to take her in fully, she strutted across the room, her skinny to the

point of being barely there, heels drilling against the floor like sharp slaps across the

face. I stared at her rust coloured hair, which flicked out over the top of a fur collar,

capable of sending Cruella de Vil into a crazed fit of jealousy and the Meat is Murder

people headlong into a preventative lawsuit. It was clear that she was more of a threat to

the rabbit population than myxomatosis could ever be.

    In two seconds flat my mouth had gone from freshwater stream to sandpaper dry. I

knew that she was Sophia. I could feel it in my crumbling bones. This, despite the fact

that she was a carbon cut out of pretty much every woman from the fashion set. She was

distinctly Hen in the sex appeal department. So just to clarify, I'm talking sex appeal with

a capital S, complete with flashing neon lights and full on blues band. The whole get-up

was a bit on the domineering side, which was fine if you were into that sort of thing, but

it wasn't exactly up my neat, tree lined, little street. Was I intimidated? Absolutely. This

woman was going to have me for breakfast, lunch and dinner, with an appetite so

voracious, I wouldn't even touch the sides.

    'You must be Sophia,' I said, in a moment of raw courage, most probably stemming from

some perverse adrenalin kick I'd received to make up for my short circuiting nervous

system. Or, perhaps it was a charge resulting from the terrifying mantra, which had been

haunting me all week, like a car alarm blaring incessantly in the middle of the night:

Vron's got a boyfriend, Vron's got a boyfriend, Vron's got a boyfriend.

     'Rebecca, darling.' She stepped over the line of public space and into my private arena,

filling my nostrils with an intoxicating perfume. I considered the possibility that it was in

fact, bottled, liquid sex, as she 'Mwoahed' on my cheeks. 'So good to meet you,' she

purred, glancing down the V of my black top. 'All of you.'

    I wasn't too sure if I could trust my legs to continue to take my weight. My knees were

about to buckle. Was it the building site banter being delivered by such a striking woman?

You'd never peg her as a big lesbian, or even a small one for that matter. Then again,

maybe I was just overpowered by her eau de toilette.

    'Have you ordered yet?' She gestured to the bored looking Adonis leaning back against

the bar. 'Shame, I bet he's not on the menu.'

    Entirely unable to compute her last sentence, I decided to ignore it completely.

    'No, I was just trying to decide what to have,' I said, concentrating on sounding cool,

calm and collected: a woman in control of her own destiny, rather than someone whose

insides were quaking with fear and who couldn't actually remember her own name.

    'Well, as this is our first meeting,' she said. 'And since it's something of a special

occasion, I think there's only one choice, don't you?' She looked over at me with the thing

dancing, unspoken on her lips, as if she wanted to hear me say it first.

    Bugger. I actually had no idea what she meant and was utterly incapable of guessing

games at the best of times, let alone when under such pressure. 'Absolutely,' I gulped. I

could feel the colour rising in my cheeks and hoped that I wasn't already covered in tell

tale splotches. If I'd learned one thing working on Reine, it was that when all else failed,

it was somewhat better to be mercilessly over the top than to be the disappointing under-

achiever. Luckily for me, my attempts at being sensational in the media world usually left

me about right: neither flash git or stingy pauper. I turned towards the barman. 'A bottle

of Veuve Clicquot and two glasses, please.' There was a lurch and a jolt, as my ailing bank

account was forced to shift up a gear and out of its league.

    Sophia squeezed my hand, sending my pulse into overdrive. 'Champagne bubbles make

me naughty,' she giggled, looking down her nose at me through fluttered lashes. 'Have you

ever had a bath filled with champagne?'

    'Um, uh, no.' I pulled my purse out of my bag. 'I can't say that I have.' 'Well, we'll have

to rectify that later.' She sucked her lips into a deep pout and turned away from the bar.

'How about we perch in the corner?'

     But before I could reply she was strutting over to a sunken leather couch, her ankle

length coat billowing out behind her like Maleficent's train.

    I was left at the bar, mouth agape, trying to remember essential functions like

breathing, whilst model boy plunged the green bottle into a bucket of ice, sighing like he

wanted to follow it into his own cold shower. I could tell he was thinking that the big

fantasy, which was playing out before his very eyes like a high budget porn flick, was

rather unusual and probably not a nightly occurrence in The Shark Bar. Well, not with two

women that's for sure. His only possible conclusion would have been that I was paying her

by the hour. I suppose I could've been a frustrated lottery winner, or silver spoon in the

mouth heiress and Sophia a high-class hooker. For all he knew, we were the real life,

noughties version of Pretty Woman. I was actually starting to wonder a little myself, such

was her full on nature. Maybe she was going to present me with a big, fat bill for her

services at the end of the evening. When the barman asked if I wanted to start a tab, it

only served as further proof of my suspicions. He obviously thought I was the financier of

the evening. It was only when I produced a somewhat dog-eared debit card that he

smirked back at me, recognising my real status as neither lucky gambler nor loaded

beneficiary. I shrugged my shoulders in an attempt for sympathy, but I knew that

realistically the only thing I'd get in return was an offer to make up the numbers for a cosy

ménage à trois. As I picked up the bucket and headed over to the impromptu seduction

parlour in the corner, I couldn't help but feel that I should've tucked a sprig of parsley

behind my ear to mark the main course's arrival at the table.

 © UKCS Copyright, Alison Aston 2007