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Chapter 25
"There's a man in the bar who would like to buy you a drink," he said, eyeballing Gerda on my knee with her robe open. He looked disgusted at what he thought we'd been getting up to.
"Go on," I said, levering her off my knee and wishing she hadn't been there when Gavin walked in. "A few drinks and you'd probably feel a lot better, especially if they are paid for by your fan club."
It also meant that I could get the real work of the day underway which was Smokey's web site.
"Do you think I need to change," sniffed Gerda, pulling aimlessly at her robe.
I tossed her an electric green dress that was hanging on the dressing table. She stepped into it without any comment and then added some briefs from a drawer. Gavin looked apoplectic. I reckoned it was giving him an education.
Gerda blew me a kiss as she followed Gavin out. The silky dress clung to her and she looked good enough to eat. Momentarily, I envied the guy she was going to see.
I wandered back to the storeroom where I'd sited the laptop and ran through the floorshow it had faithfully recorded. Gerda had done well and looked good, even on the second viewing.
I stuck up a sign saying
'Danger. This is a Website Control Area with 24 hour monitoring. Touch and die!!'
It was pure voodoo but might avoid passing staff - or Ron - tinkering and causing me unnecessary aggravation.
There was a handy telephone socket that I plugged into and dialed up an ISP to send Gerda's floorshow back to me by email. I would down load it later to work on at home.
Experimentally, I remotely panned the camera around the bar. Gerda came into view seated on a high stool and showing lots of leg in her sexy green dress.
The person she was talking to also came into view and I froze. It was Jennifer's ex. He was smiling charmingly and appeared to be handing over some money. She held it up to the light to see if it was real, her whole demeanor saying:
'You want to give me this as a tip just because you liked my dancing? Wow!'
I wondered whether she had seen his photograph in my wardrobe when she'd cleared out my room in preparation for Gavin moving in. Did she know who he was? I got my answer minutes later when she found me waiting outside her door.
"Do you know who you were talking to in there?" I tried only to sound concerned but my voice was trembling with anger.
"If my guess is right, he's your girlfriend's nutter." She pouted. "But he's quite interesting and also seems to want to give me loads of money."
"How can you even think about talking to him when you know what sort of person he is?"
Gerda swung round on me. The lofty disinterest had gone and her eyes were now blazing.
"How do you think I'm going to spend my life when I'm qualified? I'm going to be a psychologist - unless I die of poverty first - that means I work with people who have unusual psychological conditions. Call him research if you like! As far as I know, he hasn't done anything illegal that you can prove. If he has then why don't you get him arrested. Also, unless you have already forgotten, minutes ago I was stripping in front of a lot of dirty old men to earn a few pennies to pay the rent. He's just tipped me more than I earned doing that just for the pleasure of talking to me. Maybe having an adoring benevolent and, it seems, wealthy sugar daddy might make life a lot easier for a lowly student like me."
She flounced inside her room, slamming the door behind her.
"You haven't the faintest idea what you are doing," I yelled through her the keyhole in her door.
The reply that came back but was mostly drowned by the yowl of some pop music from her stereo - but it didn't sound polite.
I squared my shoulders and stormed down to the bar to tell him ... whatever ... anything that I could think of to make him go away - permanently. There wasn't much logic to my plan but the adrenaline rush was high.
The cackle of revelers in the smoky bar area exploded around me and I scanned the floor for my target - but he'd gone.
"Have you seen the man Gerda was talking to?" Gavin looked up at me from the glass he was polishing.
"You mean the good tipper? We could do with more like him! He's gone - so you've missed out."
He gave the glass another rub and deposited it on a shelf.
"He said he'd be back and would pay well for quick service - suits me!"
"He's not what he seems," I muttered. "You need to be careful of him."
Gavin camped back at me as if I was an idiot that didn't know what was what.
"Kill the golden goose? I should be so foolish! Why don't you look after your chippy bits and I'll look after the customers in the real world! After all, it's them that pay the wages ..."
It was at that moment that I knew that Gavin and I were not going to get on - and I was sure that he didn't care ..."
I got home later that afternoon. The crowded underground train had got stuck between platforms for ages in the sweltering heat and my mood was positively evil. It got worse when I saw the note that Jennifer had left me.
'Just bumped into Ron (your boss). He seems a very nice guy and we've popped out for a coffee. Tommy is playing with a friend. See you later!
XX Jen.'
The kisses she had written made me feel good but the thought of her going off by herself with Ron made me weak with jealousy.
Furthermore, it was not until very much later that she returned.
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