Interlude
by Jami Titanium
I remember when our eyes met in the dimly lit bar. I was sipping a margarita that was too heavy on the tequilla. I'm sure the bartender thought he was doing me a favor by loading the drink up on alcohol but it just made the drink bitter and I was inclined to wrinkle my nose each time I swallowed, licking the salt from the edge of the glass to try to cut away the bite of the acid.
I could tell he was lost. Maybe not literally but certainly figuratively. You don't come into a seedy bar after five and just before dinner dressed to the nines and tugging on your tie with a five o'clock shadow like that unless your day's been shit or you have nothing to go home to. I looked at his hand where the white ring of untanned skin gave him away and nearly snorted into my drink. Oh yeah... he was a man lost.
There was an urgent cool about him. He was looking for something as he sat down at the bar and I wondered briefly if he was like the other afterhour suits and just here to flirt and buy a lady a drink. It's almost a matter concerning causality... they claim stress or need or the wife isn't giving it to them. They are too cheap to get a hooker or too scared of disease, so they come to the bar somehow thinking they will get a cheaper and safer thrill. They don't really want to get laid... they just want to know they still can. They are seeking out their youth.
I sighed into my drink and remembered so many years ago an evening in my youth. I'd been out "cruising" the strip. My best friend had convinced her father to let her borrow her his red convertible and we had the top down. We'd been at a stop light when I saw them kissing on the street corner... my father and the bombshell blonde with the red, red lips who was not my mother.
We'd followed him for blocks before he finally saw us. That night he came to my bedroom and made me swear not to tell my mother. I never did. But I never forgave him either.
I turned my attention back to the man at the bar. He was handsome really and I smiled... forcefully. I could tell he was surprised as he looked away and I slid off the bar stool and moved over to him, laughing as he shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "This one's not taken." I said. He shook his head and I motioned to the bartender. "I"ll have another margaritta... this time don't add the extra tequilla."
I reached into the glass with the my thumb and index finger and gently removed the lime wedge from between two cubes of ice and licked the fruit and nibbled at the corner of the pith. The man looked at me and I smiled again. "Thanks for the drink," I said.
He looked at me a little dumbounded and said simply, "Sure, anytime..."
I set the lime wedge on a napkin and licked off my fingers. I have long fingers with delicately curved nails. He watched and I saw him lick his lips and I knew I had him.
"I'm Edward," he said.
He was in his late forties, maybe early fifties. A beautiful man, really, with grey at the temples and a square jaw and enough beard shadow to be rugged without looking unkept. I smiled. "Hello, Edward."
He blinked. "Do you have name?" he said.
The bartender returned with my second drink and set it down in front of me. "Pick up your drink" I said. He did so and I lifted mine and we clinked classes and I saw him shift in his seat before he took a deep swallow of the whiskey he was drinking, throwing it back like it was a life preserver. And maybe is was for a man like him, with so much to lose. He set his glass back down and I did the same and then I motioned with a finger for him to lean in so I could whisper in his ear. He leaned forward. I think he actually expected me to say my name.
I licked the outer edge of his ear, tasting the salt on his skin like it was the rim of my glass and he shuddered. The lights flickered and the bartender winked over at him, a conspiratorial smile. I looked the bartender in the eye and shook my head. He looked away.
"Miss?" Edward said.
"Yes?" I said.
"Your name?"
"Miss will do." I said.
I nipped his earlobe then and he shuddered again. "Yes, Miss..." he said quietly.
I took his hand and turned his palm over and began tracing the lifeline there. It was long and unbroken. He curled his fingers inward and his palm crinkled reflexively. "Penny for your thoughts?" he said.
I nodded and leaned over and looked more closely at the lines. I wasn't a palm reader but I new a little about reflexology. I pinched the the skin between his thumb and forefinger and saw him crinkle his brow. "I think you have a headache." I said.
He nodded this time. "What do you do? Are you a masseause?" He said.
I laughed and took another sip of my drink. "Tonight I am your date." I stood and took his hand and led him to the center of the floor. There was no dance floor, just a clear space where customers were vying for room to get to the bar and he looked embarassed when I put his hands on my waist and swayed my hips in time to the beat of the jazz music that was playing over the radio. But soon he was moving too and then he smiled. "Miss?" he said.
"Yes?"
He leaned forward and for a moment I thought he might try to kiss me, then he ducked his head and looked ashamed. I smiled and lifted his arm and twirled under it as the music moved us. When the song stopped I dropped his hands and got my coat from the hook beside the door. He came up behind me and lifted it over my shoulders.
"Miss?" he said.
"Yes?"
"Will I see you again?"
"No," I said. I kissed his jaw, touched the white line on his left ring finger as he tried to hide it behind his back, and I walked out the door.
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