It was the end of yet another work night out and this time I had gone the distance. I should have been in bed many hours ago, but instead, here was Jo and she was drunk. In a battle between lust and self-respect of course there can only be one winner.

Most emphatically: Jo is not my type. She is big, brassy, and she is belchy. She is the kind of girl who aims for the maximum number of reverberations, and always, even before the echoes have faded, she proclaims to the world that it’s better out than in. Well, belches anyway. She’s a hard-drinking sort of lass, all of her womanly charms hidden beneath a layer of solid flab that she keeps well fed with lager and kebabs. Oh yes, and she’s mean too, like a ferret wrapped around a rusty nail. Add to that she keeps bleating on about celebrating six months together with Harry, proudly proclaiming how she’s taken Harry in every room of the house – up against the French doors, in the bath, on the patio.

But I know her secret, told to me in spite by one of the girls from accounts. Harry is made of plastic. Harry is nine inches long and he has a sucker on one end for firm attachment to plastic and glass, and patio chairs. Me and Jo are both gold star passengers on the sleeper train that only boasts single bunks.

I took her hand and led her from the dance floor. She was drunk, but not stumbling. She didn’t have much to say but all the alcohol had replaced her semi-snarl with a goofy grin. I helped her find her coat and then I helped her home, and all the while the sense of disquiet was building in my gut. What I was about to do, it was wrong.

It was a twenty-minute walk from town to her house, and I passed that entire walk with a permanent hard-on. We would both find release together. We both had need of one another. We were both-

We were both in the hedge.

She pressed her body tight to mine, and pressed her lips tighter still. It was like having an ash try wiped semi-clean with Sambuca smushed so hard against my face that even my nose was hurting. Two long minutes later when we broke apart for air but still with no moonlight between our bodies she ground her hips into mine, and with a low groan asked if that was for her. I could not bring myself to say yes, but I forced out a nod. Even Jo was worth it to break my year long dry spell.

She looked away, and in a softer voice than her usual vociferous tones told me she had no idea I thought of her in that way. Her and me both, but God, I needed the kind of release that didn’t arrive through the palm of my right hand.

Jo snogged me again, and then broke our bodies apart. Still she didn’t look at me, and in that strange soft voice I never knew she had she shyly suggested we could get together on Friday, take in a movie, see how it goes.