… and I’m sitting and it’s yet another night in yet another bar, and yet another disappointment and I’m about to leave, and then she enters and sits at the bar stool next to mine and I’m wondering what to say, how to act and how to sit and then she simply turns and says, “My name is Sam,” and orders a White Russian from a bartender far better looking than I will ever be.
“My name is …” I begin to say.
“It’s better if we not exchange names,” she interrupts.
“But you just said you were Sam,” and she responds with a wink.
“Goddamn it if I’m going to give you my real name right before you take me home.”
And I am beside myself and I fake a yawn and try to play it cool but inside I am flustered and fond beyond belief and she brushes her hair behind an ear as she speaks and I …
“So I have a place upstairs, loud, but I figure that’ll be rewarding,” she teases and grabs my hand and before I know it I am within a dank and dusky fleabag of a room that charges by the hour, and she is blonde and pretty with freckles that bridge her nose and she throws her bag onto a bed that flinches in response.
“Take off your jeans.”
And she notices the pill bottle fall out of my pocket as the jeans release and fetches and mouths ‘Valium,’ and she asks for one or three and I reply, “What do I look like? A date rapist?”
“No … pedophile maybe,” She retorts.
And I put on a bad Chicano accent and reply, “Why would I mess with kids? They’re too leetle …” and “Fear and Loathing,” she replies and I feel love’s first pulse.
And I’m standing in a tank top and boxers and I’m thinking, ‘something is definitely going on’ and I’m thinking, ‘just don’t fucken blow it,’ and I’m thinking and …“ … what do you think I do?” She is saying, “Go from shop to shop trying to score free plasters? Do you know what kind of risk/reward ratio that is? It’s below minimum fucken wage.”
And she raises an eyebrow on conclusion and maybe it’s the alcohol or the nerves or the several Valium but everything begins to merge, each and every memory is here and now and she lies back and never breaks eye contact and unbuttons her jeans and wiggles them beneath her knees and whispers, “Be my, be my, be my sweet, St Valentine,” and I smile with nerves almost beyond control and I stare at the ceiling with its Andromeda galaxy stars and reach a hand to her thigh and rising ever so slowly I approach, and she moans and groans and I feel this is real, ‘this is real’ I think and then, “this is real,” I murmur and “what” she says and “nothing” I reply, and I remove my shirt and she hums to herself and I lean toward a cheek and kiss her ever so tender …
