Take Me Drunk I'm Home by Louise Mangos

‘Be careful,’ you said, after the sixth tequila slammer. We were high on alcohol and laughter, playing spoof at the bar with a handful of twenty pence pieces.

When he absented himself to the men’s room, you leaned across the bar and used words like ‘womaniser’ and ‘cad.’ Your watchful eyes cloaked in a frown when he returned and touched my cheek. I didn’t know whether you were concerned, or jealous of a former stolen conquest. You went back to polishing beer glasses with your threadbare tea towel.

When he told me he had a yacht on the coast, your eyes rolled briefly to the ceiling, and any uncertainty was quashed by my youthful awe. It was a great pick-up line. He might as well have told me he owned a Ferrari. I was pulled in tighter than a jib sailing into the wind.

But when you gently picked me up off the pavement later outside the pub, my lip split and my virtue shattered, I wished I’d listened to you.