On Saturday night, the Maple Root Inn just outside the small town of Brenton was alive with the sounds of music from famous rock bands that had disbanded twenty years ago. The strains now came from local groups with big dreams and very little talent trying to imitate their idols and after a few drinks, the illusion was created with patrons clapping loudly at the end of each song. The lounge area was a mixed array of people each with their own stories, their own problems, and their own sorrows trying to escape the realities of life with cheap liquor and an endless stream of cigarettes, but there were the regulars. The ones who sat at the end of the bar night after night, ordered the same drinks, had the same conversations with the bartender throughout the evening, and were usually the last to leave. Then there were the bar flies who came in on Saturday nights with too tight jeans, too much makeup, and hair that was held in place by industrial strength hairspray and seemed to defy gravity. Their entire existence depended on their weekend escapades to get them through another week in a dead end job or standing in the welfare line begging for money to feed their kids. With nothing to look forward to in the future, their hopes were pinned on finding a man to somehow save them from their destiny. It was a seedy world within a seedy world and the perfect setting for encounters that needed to be discreet without anyone casting a judgmental eye toward the other.
A soft spoken medium height man wearing jeans, a red plaid cowboy shirt, and a black ball cap walked into the bar around 9pm. His reddish brown hair, hazel eyes, straight cut jaw and trimmed beard accented the well-defined muscles of his body. He didn't come in with a swagger and didn't need to. He walked with confidence going directly to the bar where he sat down and ordered a beer. The bartender nodded and brought the new patron a brew and took patron's money. There the man sipped his beer in silence not speaking to anyone and waited. Fifteen minutes later a slim woman with long brown hair, an oval face with deep blue eyes, and pouty lips painted in a glossy shade of pink walked into the smoky room. She wore a simple black dress that hugged her figure and high heels that accentuated her long shapely legs. Nervously she scanned the room obviously looking for someone. She looked out of place at the inn, but no one seemed to notice and as she found the person she was looking for, she made her way towards the bar slowly with her heart pounding in her chest. Quietly she sat down next to the man in the red plaid shirt and jeans and waited for him to speak. The scent of her light spicy perfume was familiar to him and it made him smile.
"I wasn't sure if you would come," he said in a low voice.
"I wasn't sure if I would either."
"Something to drink?"
"White wine."
The man in the red plaid shirt called the bartender over, ordered a white wine, and paid for it with neither one speaking to the other as if it were some unwritten rule of the place not to do so.
"Were you asked any questions?" he asked.
"No, it was surprisingly easy."
"Good."
"And you?"
"The same, but I didn't expect there would be a problem."
She took a deep breath letting it out slowly and resumed sipping her wine.
"Do you still want to do it?" he asked.
She stared at her wine glass watching a drop of condensation drip down the side of it.
"Yes."
He nodded and took another gulp of his beer then set the glass on the bar counter.
"I really want you."
