"She's not a slut you know..." he tells me, and I hadn't suggested that she was but he's been finding himself in this position of defending her more and more lately.
They're new best friends, the beautician and him, he takes her drinking every night, she crashes at his place, he's paying of course because she's broke and pretty and I know he very badly wants more than her friendship, and I try to picture the awkward scenes where she rejects his clumsy advances and crude propositions, delicately so as not to interrupt the free flow of liquor and grass, she's increasingly in his debt, and knows it, and it would be a simple enough thing to even matters out...
She's not so popular. At first she was, attractive and pleasant enough, but she's hungry for money, she's been for a couple of beautician try-outs, but they haven't worked out, and her ambition to move into the front and usurp the other waiters/hostesses position with him as her spokesperson, it's not making her any friends.
"She's not a slut you know..." and it may, may not be true, I don't know, don't care, he's gotten awfully touchy about things we used to be able to laugh about. I ask him what he's up to after work and he's quick to say "Nothing" and when invited out for a drink decides quickly, too quickly, that he's tired and going home.
After she's gone home he's caught surreptitiously texting in hidden and private rooms in the restaurant, hastily flipping shut his phone when you draw near.
"We're just friends.." and I believe him, not the intent but his complete lack of smoothness, finesse, his desperation and stupidity will keep them friends, late night threesomes with Jack Daniels until she passes out on the sofa and his fumbled gropings go ignored in service of the debt.
Every morning a fresh hangover, he's tired, wants to sleep....
I'm curious, given his skills and approach how many women have found they weren't sluts, thought they were and though reputation confirmed it circumstances proved otherwise, how many survived the power assault of drinking and smoking and still found they had hidden reserves of integrity and morals, I'd ask but he's a poor witness.
He's doomed and you want to tell him, "heed the friendly warning", but he's become far too sensitive and so we walk round it in conversation, there's the World Cup and what we did (and didn't) do this weekend, there's how many days to vacation?
And there's her walking into the dining room to bum a cigarette and ensure we're not talking about her....