More Play - Vignette 3: Male POV

He knows as he leans against the bar by himself that he cuts a fine figure. He observes the woman on the other end of the room glancing at him, repeatedly, and takes pleasure in it. He is not concerned by the lateness of the girl he has come here to meet. There is too much to see, the Friday night crowd bustles and hums around him.

He looks up in time to see her trip as she enters the room. Typical, he thinks. She looks dishevelled and he dreads the evening ahead, although her obvious interest in him is endearing. I’ll stay for one drink, two max, he thinks.

'Hi,' she says, approaching him warily.He looks at her. She is clearly nervous.

‘You know what your problem is?’ he asks.

‘What?’ she says, a little alarmed.

‘You don’t know whether I’m a good guy or an asshole.’

She swallows. ‘That’s not true,’ she says. ‘I know you’re a good guy.’

He smiles at her, and thinks: Duped.

He orders her a glass of wine and knows he could fuck her by the end of the evening, and that chick across the room too if he wanted to. Sometimes his life is almost boring in its ease.

He decides to mix things up a little.

'You've been eating garlic,' he says, knowing that the bar inflicts close talking as a necessity.

It hits the mark, high colour rising on her cheeks. But he is not expecting her response. She looks up at him, defiant.

‘I take back what I said before. I think you might be an asshole after all.’

It is the first time she has spoken to him like this and the first time he has felt any attraction towards her. Lust seizes him unexpectedly. He raises an eyebrow, artfully.

‘Really?’ he says. ‘Doesn’t that make me a little more interesting?’

She smiles, and he realises she is not insipid as he once thought.

‘Maybe.’ she says. ‘Maybe I’m a bit of a bitch, too, and you don’t know it yet.’

I bet you are, he thinks to himself. But he doesn’t say it. Instead he turns to the maitre de at the bar and asks for a table in the plush restaurant next door.

‘I thought we might have dinner together.’

She looks at him, thoughtfully, catching her plump bottom lip between her teeth.

‘Why not,’ she says. ‘I have nothing better to do.’

But as he turns towards the dining room he feels something cold on the back of his neck. He puts his hand up to catch it and the golden liquid flows through his fingers. He is too late to catch her wine glass, as it falls to the ground, or her arm, as she strides by him out the door.

The fuck that might have been, will never be.

Play

For those of you who scoff at fiction, or who are interested in blurring the lines between fiction and fact.

Vignette 2: Swashbuckler

A woman walks into a bar to meet a man. She is, predictably, late. He is, predictably, peeved. She slots in beside him as he leans against the counter, squeezes in tightly next to him amidst the boozy Friday crowd.

'Hi,' she says, looking at him from under her eyelashes. He cuts a fine figure against the wall of glistening glassware, the dark wool of his suit so dense she wants to feel it.He looks at her.

‘Where the fuck have you been?’ he says. As usual the deep baritones of his voice thud against her ribcage and she is rendered momentarily shy.

‘You know where I’ve been,’ she says. ‘Don’t be angry with me.’

‘You've been eating garlic,' he says.

She blushes and turns away. The bar inflicts close talking as a necessity.

‘I have not.’

‘Yeah. Yeah, you have been. Was that especially for me?’

She laughs.

‘Yeah, it was, wasn’t it? Was it to stop yourself from kissing me? I know, I’m irresistible. That’s why you won’t brief me, right, you’re scared we’ll get it on in a meeting room outside court?’

‘Oh, is that what those meeting rooms are for?’ she says, and leans across the bar to order a drink.

He takes the opportunity to resume his appreciation of the young buxom blonde sitting at a nearby table, and when he looks back again at his companion she has a glass of wine in her hand and is batting away the advances of a drunk.

‘Hey mate, why don’t you leave the lady alone? I’ve been watching you and your friend over there chat up every girl in the place – it’s not working so well, tonight, is it?’

The drunk glowers at him and she worries he might start a fight, but he is unsteady on his feet and clearly outclassed. He grunts and turns away.

‘Oh Alfonso!’ she exclaims, setting her wine down and turning towards him, hands clasped and eyes shining gratefully.

He ruffles his thick dark hair disinterestedly.

‘It was nothing. What are friends for?’

She pauses and re-evaluates. She glances in his direction, but he is turned away from her, eyes once again on the blonde.

In her mind, they were perfect for each other, but she had it all wrong. His kiss on her cheek at the end of the night is perfunctory like the powdery stale kiss of a distant great-aunt.

Oh, Vanity

A woman walks into a bar to meet a man. She is, predictably, late. He is, predictably, peeved. She slots in beside him as he leans against the counter, squeezes in tightly next to him amidst the breezy Friday crowd.

'Hi,' she says.

He looks at her. He wants to say why did you keep me waiting? or you look so beautiful tonight, but she makes him nervous. She wants to kiss him, but she can never tell what he's thinking.

So instead -

'You've been eating garlic,' he says.

The bar inflicts close talking as a necessity. And so, it is safe to say that, no matter what happens next for these two, the evening has effectively ended, the wave of possibility which was open wide only seconds ago crashes in on itself like a giant hand closing.

Such a small thing.

But she is the sort who shuts down at the first sign of criticism like a night blooming cereus at dawn. She must be coaxed open, gently. And he is the sort who, met with resistance, will amp up the provocation to elicit a response, any response at all.

They might be perfect for each other but it has started all wrong and the downward spiral is inevitable and quick, the kiss on the cheek at the end of the night perfunctory like the powdery stale kiss of a distant great-aunt.

What might have been will never be.