to wring laughs out of a night in the cells, I was perfectly clear in my mind there was no risk of me falling for him. Not only was he not my type, it was so easy. Attraction, I’d decided, required friction. It was based on conflict, mystery and distance. Rhys could be decidedly remote at times, in more than one way. He’d even asked me to stop coming to his gigs as it ‘put him off’. I was treated mean and, never one to defy a cliché, I was keen.
‘I am really really good at drinking shots,’ I announced to Ben, two vodka and Cokes down.
‘Really?’ he asked, dubiously.
‘Oh yeah. I can drink vodka to a band playing,’ I said.
‘You’ve only had two.’
‘I’ll drink you under the table!’ I cried, with the gung-ho spirit of someone who’d had a couple of large measures on an empty stomach and was talking total shit.
Ben sniggered into his glass.
‘You choose,’ I added, slapping the table for emphasis. ‘You choose the drink and I’ll match you, then carry you home.’
Ben cocked his head to one side. ‘Ever done flaming Drambuies?’
‘Nooooo. Bring it on.’
He darted off to the bar and returned with a cheap match-book and glasses holding an inch of copper liquid. Under Ben’s creative direction, we lit them and made tiny lakes of fire, then clapped our palms over the rims to form the seal. We tried to whirl them over our heads before drinking, with predictably messy results.
‘You’re not like other girls I’ve met,’ Ben said, lightly, wiping his mouth, after round two was aflame in stomachs instead.
‘More sweary?’ I asked.
‘No, I mean … you’re, you know. Like my best friends back home. Not a girly girl. You’re sharp.’
He mumbled the last word so I had to strain to hear it, while he busied himself with the cocktail list.
‘What, you’ve never met an intelligent female before?’
‘I didn’t mean that. I’ve never had a laugh with a female friend like you.’
I could imagine Ben hadn’t had many platonic friendships with women, and I wasn’t about to inflate his ego by speculating on why this might be.
‘You’re not like other boys I’ve met,’ I said, with the loose lips of someone half-cut, without considering it wasn’t a train of thought I especially wanted to pursue to its destination either.
‘How?’ Ben said.
‘You look like you could be in a boy band,’ I offered, with a drunken giggle.
Ben’s face twisted into something that looked like genuine offence. ‘Oh, wow, ta.’
‘What? That’s nice!’
‘No it isn’t.’
I continued to insist it was praise and Ben muttered something about needing to have had his sense of shame taken out along with his appendix to have gone that route. I regretted I was so bad at being sincere.
As time started to expand and contract in the warm boozy haze, Ben’s mates from his flats joined us, and I found myself the only female in a whooping gang of seven lads. Not only that, they greeted us with ‘Oi oi!’ and a ‘Here with the wife again, eh?’
This didn’t bother me, especially in my relaxed state, but when I glanced at Ben he was glowering.
Amazingly enough, I was soon surpassed in the shot-downing stakes: one of them returned to the table with a full bottle of tequila, complete with plastic sombrero lid, a jumbo chip-shop-sized tub of Saxa and a pile of rather withered looking lemon wedges.
‘Truth or dare!’ the ring-leader, Andy, announced. ‘You game?’ He was addressing me directly.
‘She’s not playing,’ Ben said, abruptly.
I turned to him. ‘Excuse me?’
‘Ron, you’re the only female here. All the dares will involve flashing them.’
I opened my mouth to object.
‘Trust me, they have bigger tolerances than you and much lower standards,’ he added.
‘Why do you call her Ron?’ one of the boys, Patrick, asked.
‘Long story,’ Ben said.
‘They have a secret society of two,’ Andy told him.
‘Any interesting rituals for membership?’ Patrick asked, pulling a leer.
‘Why do you have to be so infantile?’ Ben said.
‘Being oversensitive where this lady is concerned is certainly one of them,’ Andy said to Patrick.
I felt Ben’s pain increasing by degrees and didn’t know how to help. I didn’t want to be the meek little woman in a slew of nudge-nudge-wink-wink but I sensed anything I said would be used against us, so I stayed silent for Ben’s sake.
‘You in, then, or is your keeper calling the shots?’ Patrick said to me, in his Captain of the Debating Society voice. I realised I disliked Patrick quite a lot.
Andy shouted: ‘Yeah. Let her play! It’s feminism, innit!’
‘I’m not being a knuckle-dragger, I’m looking out for you. What would Rhys want you to do, faced with this shower?’ Ben said to me, quietly.
Invoking my boyfriend had the intended effect. Rhys would be cracking his knuckles and offering them outside.
‘I’ve had a head start on you, I’m going to sit this one out,’ I smiled, and they all booed.
The game rolled round the group, with confessions of kinky fantasies about double-teaming crusty tutors, downing pints in one, and Andy rushing over to a window and mooning passers-by. The barmaid merely grimaced and kept flicking through the magazine she was reading at the bar, content that, despite the arses, we were more than doubling MacDougal’s take on a slow weekday evening.
‘Ben Ben BEN BENNY!’ Andy howled. ‘Your turn. Truth or dare?’
Andy’s eyes flickered maliciously in my direction. I had an irrational fear the ‘truth’ might involve me somehow. But what truth was there to fear, exactly?
‘Uh. Dare,’ Ben said.
Andy leaned over to Patrick and they conferred in whispers, punctuated by evil snickering. I gripped the sides of my chair.
‘Ben’s dare is decided! Kiss her,’ Andy said, gesturing towards me.
‘No way, she’s not playing,’ Ben said, with a dismissive laugh.
‘So? Were the people on the street outside who were treated to my sweet cheeks playing?’
Ben took on a very steely look. ‘No. Bloody. Way. Truth, or – I’m out.’
‘You don’t get to choose,’ Andy shook his head. ‘Get busy.’ He waggled his tongue at me.
‘Urgh. I’m not going to say no again,’ Ben said
It was irrational and ridiculous but with the emphatic urgh noise I felt wounded. Ben’s determination was understandable and respectful and yet so vehement I couldn’t help but wonder if the idea genuinely repulsed him. OK, he thought I was ‘sharp’… that didn’t equate to not thinking I was a hag, did it? We all admired the work of Charles Dickens in tutorials but it didn’t mean we wanted a ride on his moustache.
‘OK. Ben’s a wuss. Truth! Truth.’ Andy waved his hands around in a solemn bar-room call for quiet please and attention. ‘Right.’
Andy and Patrick went into their snickering huddle again, soon emerging.
‘Given