Stream of Consciousness Saturday

So You Come Here Often?

“So, you come here often?” I think of saying.

No, no, no! That’s his line.

I peer at him in a way I think is stealthy but maybe not because when I look forward I see him smirking at me in the mirror behind the bartender. My face flushes. I do a mental “face-palm.” I stare at my rum and coke as if I thought it were going to grow wings and miraculously fly or sow seeds for red poppies. You never know. Well, you do. We both know THAT’S not going to happen.

Him. I know. Only because we’ve ended up here every Friday for two months. He sits there and orders an IPA, one single IPA, which I personally think tastes like drinking perfume without the nice scent. I have caught on that he’s a public defender, which is kind of cool, looking out for the poor, the trodden on, making a difference. Me, well, I like to think I’m a public defender for cats and dogs and bunnies and sometimes snakes, erg. Snakes. But snakes are creatures too. I have to keep telling myself that. I still can’t handle them well. I’ve been bitten a couple of times, fortunately by the non-poisonous varieties, but still it hurts, bad. I always think that their fangs must be akin to Dracula and then I wonder how all of those vampire-fangirls imagine that sex with a vampire is fun.

Different strokes.

I’m still focused on the rising bubbles in my glass when I think I become aware that he’s turned to me. Ha. I can pull one out of his bag of tricks and I look up at the mirror. He is looking at me. Is it because I have something on the side of my face? No. I went to the ladies’ room before I sat down. I looked fine. Or did I? Did I miss something?

“I hope you don’t think this is forward,” he begins. “But I’ve noticed you order a different cocktail each time you come in here.”

I look at him for the first time ever face to face, eyes viewing eyes and, man, his eyes. Chocolate brown, sparkling.

Am I supposed to respond to that?

We both gaze at each other.

He seems to shake himself out of some stupor. “Why?” he asks.

“Why what?”

“Why a different cocktail?”

“Because I want to try something new to see if I like it.”

He nods and then turns back toward his IPA and I feel deflated. Is that all? It that all this is going to be?

Am I going to let this go?

“Why an IPA every time?” I ask.

He grins. “Because I like it so why try something I might not like?”

My body is turned toward his on the barstool. I suddenly feel like my black mini might be a tad too mini, or maybe not. He looks over my legs. He grins as he sips his beer.

The bartender shakes his head at us. I laugh. It’s not going so well tonight.

The karaoke begins behind us. A woman sings “Imaginary Lover.”

Colin finishes his IPA, stands and put his arm around my shoulders, kisses me on the corner of my mouth. “We should get home. I only booked the babysitter for two hours.”

I kiss him full on. It’s always like the first time.

end 2/12/2017 (oops, not Saturday anymore)