I felt a hand tap my shoulder, followed by a female's voice:
"Excuse me ... hi."
Prior to my hearing those words, I was busy rubbing my handkerchief over my both lens of my glasses and even as I turned around to gaze at the female's face, all I saw momentarily was a blur -- an outline of a beautiful creature. It was made apparent to me when I returned my glasses to its proper place above my nose; I almost heard myself gasp at the woman's beauty.
"You wouldn't happen to be my date right -- Anthony?"
She even knew my name -- how convenient.
"Why yes ... yes, that so happens to be me." I offered her the stool beside me and she took it. We were in a bar on Wilson Boulevard, a watering hole where I often found myself coming to, even though I was adverse to crowded places and cigarette smoke. Most times I even lied to myself that I came here to drink, when the only alcohol I ever order is a cocktail.
She was well dressed for the evening, wearing a blouse that was cut low enough to show her cleavage, with a wool jacket, a pair of tight skirt and black boots. Her red hair was cut low into a bob. She had a long neck, slender frame with striking green eyes. She was beautiful, though I figure that was something she was well aware of. I couldn't help but notice a couple of male eyes turn to look at us as we took a sip off our drink.
"I'm Shawna," she introduced herself.
"A pleasure knowing you, Shawna," I shook her hand. At that moment I couldn't help but catch a whiff of her perfume -- light musky it was, yet totally vanilla-like. We ordered for our drinks and went on sizing each other up. "Ever been here before, Shawna?"
She cast her eyes around the bar and shook her head. "Can't say that I have. There seems to be more of men in here. I looked around for females and noticed only few."
"You that perceptive?" I inquired amusingly.
"It helps when you live in a city such as this."
"It's a gentlemen's bar, at least that's what I heard them calling it the first time I dropped by."
"Whatever qualifies one as a gentleman," she asked me. "I'm curious to know."
"Well, it depends from whichever angle you want to look at it. Some see it as one who's well-to-do, outstanding, flamboyant ...devilishly handsome too. For others, it's more or less the aura one carries with him no matter where he is, even if he's taking a piss."
She arched an eyebrow and smiled. "That's a rather off-kilter way of defining things, wouldn't you say?"
"Sorry if my words --"
"No, no, no, they're fine. Just that, you don't look like the sort who'd say something like that. You look so straight."
I shrugged and reached for my cocktail. "I am straight. But right now I don't know ... maybe it's got something to do with you."
"Fascinating. Do all the ladies find you this charming?" she asked.
"Not really. Usually they ignore me and I too choose to ignore them, I think it's fairly balanced that way."
"That's a rather unfair statement."
"I wish I could offer another but I've long ran out of bullets."
A brief quiet moment passed between us, and then: "So tell me, how many ladies do you often bring or meet down here?"
"To tell the truth, no one. You're the first."
A smile. "I'm flattered, except I don't believe you. Are you married?"
I looked at her. "Would it matter if I said yes?"
She shook her head. "Not really. I'm your escort date, remember. Here to make sure you have a happy time, but aside from that ..."
Her statement hung in the air; she didn't have to finish it though 'cause I knew what she meant. Whatever we did couldn't go beyond being personal. I very much understood that, and I remember the cold voice of the woman who had answered my call earlier today requesting for an escort service had as well been emphatic about that.
"I once was married, though it ended a couple of months ago."
"Why?" she sipped her drink. "She caught you in bed with a lover?"
"Actually it was the other way around -- I caught her. Though I'd known about it a week prior."
"How did it end -- messy?"
"Infidelity is never a clean business to go through, though I was very much glad to be through with it when the divorce came."
"Who was the guy, if you don't mind my asking?"
"No, I absolutely don't mind. He was her aerobics instructor -- a dead beat living in a trailer. Last time I heard about her, she's carrying his baby and moved in with him. My guess is in the next five years they would have spawned a litter of brats worth envying."
She dropped her glass and laughed; I joined her in it as well.
"No kids with her?"
"None. I wanted, but she kept telling me she wasn't ready." My voice turned sullen. "I guess now she's now found the right guy."
She didn't reply to this, and I was glad that she didn't talking about my ex often got me in a foul mood. It wasn't just the fact that she'd been sleeping around all that time and I only got to found out about it when it had been ongoing for over a month, but that she'd caught herself pregnant once while he'd been banging his way into her. She'd tried to pass it off as mine but from the onset I knew it wasn't. Mary and I hadn't had sex prior to almost three months, and even then it had been a real grievance just to achieve an erection with her. A blood test had been done, and voila! -- the child wasn't mine. The good thing was I'd come up on top in the divorce proceedings ... but in the end, I'd lost out on a chance of becoming a father. In the end, that's the pain that counts.