As usual, most people manage to escape the office before five o'clock, so it's pretty quiet when I turn my computer off, gather my stuff and head up to reception. One of the accounts clerks leaves the department with me, and asks if I'm coming for a drink. 'A few of us are going to the Crown,' he says, meaning the pub at the end of the road down from the office.

'Um. Petra off the front desk and I were going for a drink, but not sure where yet...'

'Bring her along. We're only going for one.'

I know how these things work: 'just one' is very rarely that. I shrug. 'We'll see.' I go to lean on the reception desk and watch him go outside to light a cigarette. Petra is standing, and I notice her handbag and leather jacket ready under the desk. She smiles and jerks her head to indicate I can come round to her side if I want. I do, leaning my bum on the edge of her desk again.

She quickly runs her eyes down me and smiles, then glances up and smiles at someone else signing out. 'Have to wait till they're all out and Alan gets back from locking up.' Alan is the night security guard. She glances at my legs again. 'Really do like that dress, Fi.'

'Yeah? Thanks.' I rub my neck under my hair and feel the warm glow of pleasure spread through me. I like it when women I fancy tell me I look nice, or when they look at me and I can tell from their expression. It turns me on. 'I worried at first that it was too short. For work.' I move my leg slightly, to bend it a little more at the knee.

Petra grins and runs her eyes slowly and deliberately over me, lingering on my legs. 'For work?' She shrugs, and smiles at a few more people leaving. 'It's short,' she admits. She looks at my legs again, and I can see her eyes are wide. She's enjoying looking at me as much as I'm enjoying her eyes on me. She waits until no-one's within earshot. 'But not “too short”.' She makes the quotation marks with her fingers. 'On you short is good, honest.' She pulls on her jacket and openly admires me again. 'Very good.' She grins.

I start to feel myself get turned on. I slide a hand between my knees casually and enjoy the warmth of my fingers on my leg through my tights. I imagine it's Petra's hand instead. 'Er, we've been invited to join them.' I indicate the small group of twenty-something colleagues outside, who are just moving off, away from the entrance. 'In the Crown. Just for one.'

She shrugs. 'Whatever.' She looks at my hand between my knees and runs her eyes up my legs and body yet again. Then she grins at me. 'We've got all night.' She leans down and picks up her bag. 'Which reminds me, I should ring home and say I'm going to be late.' She rummages for her phone while she casts an eye over the signing-in book. 'All gone. Just waiting for Alan, now.'

'Home?' I ask lightly. I wonder who she lives with.

'Yeah. My dad worries, otherwise.' She thumbs through to a number and rings it, holding the phone to her slightly cocked head. I like the way she flicks her shortish hair away from her ear. 'Got to keep him sweet if I need a lift.' She shrugs then waves her fingers at Alan, who's just coming into the lobby from doing his locking-up rounds, as her call is obviously answered and she starts talking to her parents.

I pull my coat on, then Petra rings off and hands over the building to Alan. He locks the doors behind us, and Petra fumbles in her bag. She pulls out a packet of cigarettes. 'Do you mind?'

I shrug. 'Of course not.'

She looks at me carefully. 'Even if we're going to be kissing later?'

I feel the pleasure warm my insides. I know it was probably going to happen, but it's quite sexy to hear her say it out loud – maybe hours before it actually happens. I stop myself from being falsely coy and pretending I hadn't thought we would kiss. That would just sound silly. 'Even then. It's fine.' I glance down her body. 'I'll just have to kiss you elsewhere.'

She gives a soft little laugh as she lights up. 'This is going to be a long night, isn't it?'

'Promises, promises, Petra.' I take her arm and we start strolling along to the Crown.

***

We have a couple in the Crown with the others. It's busy with Friday night after-work drinkers, so we find standing space where we can. We both end up talking to various people, and the flow of people within the group, to the bar or outside to smoke, means that we have to spend most of the time glancing at each other surreptitiously and smiling, and secretly checking each other out. I like the way that even when she's talking to someone else, her body language is all about me. She points herself towards me, she angles herself so she can look at me without disturbing her conversation and she sends me little signs to reassure me I'm still the most interesting person in the pub. I change my stance to give her something nice to look at and send her the same message.

When we do get to stand next to each other she leans against me gently. The crowd is thinning out, and it would no longer look strange for us to leave. I notice she's nursing the last bit of her half of lager and smile. I'm clinging on to the last of my cider too, and I don't want another one here.

She nudges me with her arm. Her fingers lightly brush my hip, but only she and I would know because her hand is between us, hidden by my coat. We both feel the way my dress moves against my body, and I see a flash of lust in her eyes. Then she recovers herself and grins. 'Do you know somewhere else we can go?'

I nod and finish my drink. 'I need the loo. See you outside?'

***

We go on to Lizzie's pub and have a few there. We sit in a small booth towards the back and talk about ourselves. She tells me she didn't know what she wanted to do when she first left school and ended up taking the apprenticeship at our firm because her parents were pressuring her to get a job. She thinks she might want to go into office admin or be a PA or something similar.

She wants something to eat, so we get a bowl of cheesy chips and some onion rings to share. I move round the table in the booth so we can both reach the bowl and slowly shift myself closer to her on the bench. We joke about onion rings being as bad for kissing breath as cigarettes. 'At least we're both eating the onion rings, though,' she points out. Under the table I move my crossed legs again and finally feel them bump up against Petra's knee. I move them an inch nearer and she pushes back lightly. She looks at me, glancing down my dress to my lap and where the hem of my dress sits across my thighs, then back at my face. She takes a bite out of an onion ring and I watch her eat it. 'Still want to kiss me?' she asks softly.

I nod.

'On the mouth?'

I nod again.

She leans back slightly and flicks her gaze down me, before catching my eyes again. 'What about elsewhere?' She watches me run my eyes slowly over her hair and face and neck, her throat and the shape of her small breasts in her blouse.

I look back at her and her eyes are wide and shining in the soft lighting. 'Yes. Definitely. All over.'

She smiles and leans slightly against me.