"Bic"

(well, a bit of it anyway)

All in all, it was business as usual at the Dying Swan until the woman walked in. The moment she did, a wave of turning heads and sudden hush spread across the room.
She was by no means the first attractive woman to walk into the pub, nor would she be the last, but there was something very unusual about her in particular that turned heads and kept them turned. The hushed assembly gazed on as she approached the bar.
What was so special about this one woman? Was it her long brown hair, her slightly tanned complexion, her tall yet perfectly proportioned figure? Or could it possibly be the hopelessly cliched yellow polka-dot bikini she wore?
Women with long brown hair, women with slightly tanned complexions, women with tall and fairly well proportioned figures had all entered the Dying Swan before and provoked no such response, so readers will undoubtedly express little surprise when told that it was probably the yellow polka-dot bikini that made all the difference. Its itsy-bitsy-teeny-weeniness, of course, went without saying. Thus the male onlookers just opened their mouths and left them there, and the female onlookers fumed at the very idea of a woman degrading her gender by exposing herself in such a manner (their indignation being nothing to do with the fact that she had a far more attractive body than any of them, of course).
The sounds of conversation tentatively returned. It was a start, even if no-one was actually looking at the people they were talking to and much of the conversation was somewhat unrefined.
The focus of attention stood at the bar and ordered a drink from a young barman who was sufficiently experienced to get it for her without once taking his eyes off her breasts.
She singled out Hugh from the closer members of the crowd and waved to him. He glanced around to see who she'd really been waving at, then rather hesitantly raised a hand in return. She smiled at him.
One moment Chris was sitting at Hugh's table. The next moment, he was standing sweaty-browed next to the woman at the bar and offering to get her a drink. She looked down at him, plucked a fiver from some indeterminate location, and tucked it into his shirt pocket. "Buy yourself a dirty magazine", she said, and turned away. Those within earshot made a variety of amused noises.
Chris pulled the note from his pocket and stood there looking at it while the onlookers laughed on. Then he suddenly remembered an urgent appointment elsewhere and made for the door.
"What did she say?" a number of people further back asked him as he barged past. He declined to comment, which didn't matter because within a minute or so the word had been passed to everyone present.
The woman herself pulled another note from somewhere, paid for her drink, slipped the change somewhere equally mysterious, took the drink, and sat herself next to Hugh, who put his pint down to stop it shaking nervously.
"Hello again", she said.
It was only now that Hugh recognised her - she was the same woman he'd bumped into only yesterday.
"Hello?" she tried, because Hugh hadn't collected himself sufficiently to return the greeting.
"Hi", he finally said.
"How are you then?" she asked casually, as if they were the best of friends.
"Alright", he replied.
"Me too", she said, then sipped the drink. "Nice day, isn't it?"
He nodded in agreement. "Warm", he managed.
There was a sudden crash behind her. The guy at the next table had been leaning over either to hear the conversation, or for a better view, and had finally lost his balance. Thus he and his chair now sat on the floor in a confused heap.
The woman glanced round at him, sighed, then looked back at Hugh.
She stood up. "Shall we go outside?" she asked.
Hugh stood up with a momentary unsteadiness due more to the woman than to any amount of alcohol. She led him out to the garden, followed by jealous stares.
Calling it a garden was a compliment of the highest order. It was a square patch of yellowing grass with four tables on it, surrounded on three sides by tall concrete walls with barbed wire on top. Two of the four tables were unoccupied, but one was adorned by a large pool of vomit, so they sat themselves down at the other.
"What can I do for you?" asked Hugh, which was straight and to the point if nothing else.
"You can keep me company for a while."
"Why, are you trying to make up for cracking me over the head the other day?"
She laughed. "No. Sorry about that."
"'S okay."
"So who am I talking to?" she asked.
"Me?"
"I mean, what's your name?"
"Hugh", Hugh said.
"Jennifer", she said. "Are you on a lunch break?"
"Yeah". He glanced at his watch. He was supposed to be back in ten minutes.
"Where do you work?"
He nodded towards the tall building that dominated the skyline, its MW logo glowing green for all to see. "Mason-Wright", he told her.
"So what does your company do, exactly?"
"My company? It's not my company", he protested. "I just work there. I don't own it or anything."
"Point taken. What does the company you work for do?"
He shrugged. "Mostly, we're into electronics. We actually belong to one of those massive Japanese corporations with unpronounceable names that makes absolutely everything, so we get all sorts of odd stuff. Cars, computers, light bulbs, kettles, you name it."
"And you run their computer system?"
"Computer system singular? I wish! I run one of them, yes, not that it means much when there's almost as many computer systems as there are people."
She laughed.
"What do you do, then?" he asked.
She paused thoughtfully, before smiling and saying, "I'm an architect, I guess."
"You guess? You mean you're not actually sure?"
"Well..."
"Do you often have these little lapses?" he teased. "I mean forgetting insignificant little snippets of information like what you do for a living?"
"Alright", she laughed. "I'm definitely an architect! Okay?"
"You didn't design the local shopping centre, did you?" he asked suspiciously.
She held out her hands. "Do you see a white stick? Dark glasses? Guide dog? No, I did not design the local shopping centre."
"You design anything round here?"
She looked around, smiling to herself. "No, nothing round here."
"Any famous, controversial office blocks?"
"Not yet."
"Who do you work for?" he asked.
"Lewis & Jackson Architectural Design", she announced grandly.
"Never heard of them."
"Probably because they don't have a thirty-storey monstrosity looming over the rest of the town."
"That's true."
They both paused to drink for a moment.
"How old are you?" Hugh asked.
"Twenty-three. You?"
"Twenty-four. Tell me, do you always dress quite so conservatively?"
She looked at him, puzzled.
"That was sarcasm", he pointed out.
"Oh. Only on days like this. Why, is there something wrong with it?"
"No, no, not at all", he said with feeling. "Except maybe the colour. I'm not sure yellow polka-dot is really you."
"Well, I like to dress to shock now and again."
"You certainly did that", he said, nodding back to the pub, where as many patrons as would fit were observing from a doorway. "And I don't really think it was the colour that did it."
"I don't think many of them even noticed the colour."
He noticed that she had almost finished her drink. "Can I get you another one of those?" he asked.
"Yes, thank you."
Hugh fought his way through the crowd in the doorway, and went about getting the barman's attention. Since Hugh wasn't an attractive woman in a bikini, it took a while. By the time he got back to the garden, there was a small crowd of men round Jennifer.
"Is there anyone here who really thinks I might be remotely interested in them?" she was asking them. "Or are you all after money for dirty magazines?"
At that moment, from somewhere out of view, came the screeching of brakes, not unlike the sound made by several cars trying desperately not to crash into each other. This was immediately followed by a series of sickening crunches, not unlike the sound made by several cars hitting each other. The assembled males looked round to locate the source of the sound, then, forgetting all about Jennifer, ran off to the road to make sure none of their parked vehicles had been involved, and maybe to get a look at the aftermath of a particularly nasty accident.
Hugh, not being one to pass up such an opportunity in favour of seeing a few smashed-up cars, ignored the current trend and sat down next to Jennifer. She took her drink and thanked him.
A moment later, his watch started bleeping.
"What's that?" she asked.
"It's a watch", he said, reaching for the button which silenced it.
"I meant, what's the alarm for?"
"It's telling me that it's time to drink up and get back to work."
Why, oh why, couldn't she have waltzed into the Swan half an hour earlier?
"Oh."
"So, do you work dressed like that, or have you got the day off?"
"I generally work from home. And when I am, I don't always wear this much."
Hugh's second brain (the lower one, specific to males) kicked in with a vivid image of Jennifer posed naked at a drawing board. He pushed it aside with some difficulty.
"Well," he said, glancing at his watch again, "I'd better get going."
"Mind if I come along?"
"I'm not sure they would let you in. You'd give our entire engineering department heart attacks dressed like that."
"I meant for the walk!"
"Yeah, sure", said Hugh, suddenly wishing the MW building was more than a minute's walk away.
They left the garden and headed for the main road, where a small group was still trying to work out where the accident had been. There were no smashed-up cars to be seen, and the search for tell-tale broken glass had so far proven fruitless.
"Couldn't have been as bad as it sounded", Jennifer remarked.
"I guess not."
"Do you have anything planned for tonight?" she asked.
"No", Hugh said, cancelling two prior engagements.
"Well, you have now."
"What did you have in mind?"
"I fancy seeing Terminator 4. You haven't seen it yet, have you?"
"No", Hugh lied. This would be the third time.