"Has someone drank my pint?"

"I dunno, don't look at me....bird’s shouldn't drink pints anyhow, don't look right"

Now many painters have attempted to capture that fleeting impression of intense pain, that moment of sheer agony that can cut across a man's face when caught in some painful crisis thrown at him by an unforgiving world. Photographers taking pictures in wartorn tragic circumstances have frozen images of excruciated and contorted features upon the faces of many a person, yet there is something horrifically unique about the expression on the face of a man who is having his testicles squeezed with a vengeance by an irate Becca. Danny had just discovered this and was manifesting just such uniqueness and, perhaps, in his mind he was beginning to regret his last comment.

Now, I was a little surprised because Becca did not, as a rule, resort to physical violence of any kind. She was easy going, intelligent and had a turn of speech sharper than lemon juice on a bacon slicer. Danny must have really hacked her off.

"So you didn't see who drank my pint then?"

Danny emitted a stifled groan that sounded like "no".

Now, Becca was one of the girls Mikey had been with the night he lent me the pound. After Mikey had failed to impress the fledgling Buddhist he had tried with devastating non success to chat up Becca. Give him his due, Mikey's a charmer, Becca liked him, but Mikey was a little too...well you would have to ask Becca.

"I have had to listen to your sexist crap all night. I have endured it because you are a friend of a friend and out of sheer good manners I have put up with your inane, immature, mysogonistic, small penised points of view, my toleration reached saturation and I was compelled to grab you by your prized if somewhat under sized manhood. A decision I now regret, not because of the discomfort it may have caused you, but because of your casual approach to personal hygiene. I am now off to the loo to wash my hands, will anyone buy me a pint?"

That's what I liked about Becca, her phrasing, her use of the language. Well it was one of the many things I liked about Becca, along with her very dirty laugh, her second hand smile and, well...a whole lot more.

"No problem, Becca, my shout", I interjected, "pint of Guinness, is it?"

I emphasised the word "pint", just for effect and to annoy the slowly recovering Danny.

"Thanks, that's really good of you" as she walked past to the ladies.

Well, I thought, It is only fair, after all it had been me who had nicked her pint. Something else I liked about Becca...the fact she liked the same drink as me.

"You alright there Danny," I said as I left for the bar. He was looking kind of pale and putting on his coat.