I unlocked the door to my apartment on the third floor, opened the door, and walked in, but I was not in a good mood. My date with Alicia had turned sour, and she...was not the one for me. I wanted a blonde with a body that wouldn’t quit, but I also wanted someone who wasn’t a fucking bitch, and that someone also had to have more than two brain cells rolling around in her head.
Katie was there on my grey couch, watching another one of her godawful romances. Some chick-flick where some business girl with no time for love meets some rough around the edges mechanic guy in the supermarket; he just happens to be good-looking, just happens to be single, and they just happen to keep running into each other. Standard bullshit girl garbage I normally gagged on.
“Oh, hey Mark,” said Katie as she looked up at me. “How did your date...go...”
The loud red wine stain on my new light-blue button-up probably gave away how my date went...that and the scowl on my lips. The realization of this must have hit her quickly; it was all over her little mousy face.
Katie was a mousy little thing, twenty-seven like me, five-two, maybe a hundred and twenty pounds, little boobs, brown eyes with brown hair in a pony tail and those little round spectacles that some guys dig. She reminded me of a gerbil for some reason, like a cute little rodent that you kept in a cage just for the purpose of having one.
We’d graduated from the same university, so we’d known each other beforehand, but it was Katie’s idea to room together on account of the fact that we both worked close to this building, I at a large marketing firm and she at the nearby library. Yep, she was a librarian, and she fit that stereotype to a T. Definitely like my little librarian gerbil roommate pet. She was always kind of there in the background, kind of a welcome little pet that brightened your mood a bit when you got home from work.
I walked into my bedroom and took off my destroyed shirt. I was five-ten, I guess a little short for a guy anymore, but I was good-looking, so I didn’t care. I kept in shape at the nearby gym, ate healthy to a degree, and my job made money...all qualifications for finding the right woman. I weighed around one-seventy-five most of the time, but that weight was a good amount of muscle from working out. I was still pushing the limit for looking overweight, though...Couldn’t have that. Didn’t want to lose any advantage when looking for love.
I had blue eyes and short black hair, something a little rare in men, but still attractive. I had a square jaw and a rounder face up top, not something I really liked, but you deal with what you have. I usually kept myself clean shaven, because I didn’t like body hair. I shaved everywhere regularly; the ladies love that on a man. Well, some of them do. The ones I was usually after, anyway.
Katie stood at the doorway to my bedroom, but she turned away the moment she saw me bare chested. She’s just considerate of my space. Considering I pay most of the rent, I slept on the bed while she slept on the couch, and I know what you’re thinking, but don’t go there. She was getting to stay here for practically nothing, so having her on the couch was just a little discomfort she had to put up with, and she’d already put up with it for two years now, so that’s all there was to that. I owned all of the furniture in the apartment, anyway.
“It didn’t go well,” said Katie in a quiet voice.
Thank you, Captain Obvious. I knew she was just trying to help, but...I was not happy. Not at all.
“You already know,” I said firmly. “You can already tell, so I don’t want to talk about it.”
I dug around in my dresser and pulled out my red-collared shirt. I only wore this outdated thing when I was pissed, and Katie knew that. She’s kind to a fault, however, so she wouldn’t let it go.
“I...I was rooting for you,” she said quietly.
“Yeah,” I frowned. “I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong...It’s not me. I know it’s not me. It’s my selection process. Every woman I land on is either stupid, vapid, high-maintenance, a bitch, or a combination of those four. Alicia was all four.”
“I...I’m sorry,” replied Katie.
I pulled my shirt over my head, adjusted it over my good black slacks, and sighed.
“No reason to be sorry,” I said. “It’s my fault for...Ugh...Never mind.”
“Maybe you’re just looking in the wrong place?” asked Katie. “Maybe what you’re looking for is...is just something you can’t see. It could be right in front of you.”
“Yeah, maybe,” I frowned. “I’m not really in the mood to talk about it, Kay. I just want a glass of Merlot and forget about this date altogether.”
“Oh,” said Katie. “Okay.”
She flitted out of the doorway, trotted over to the couch, and used the remote to flip off her show. It’s the way she moves sometimes that’s a little disturbing. She’s so little that you’ll be looking out of one corner of the eye and then she’ll pop up in the other corner. I swear, she reminds me of a gerbil.
“I’ll get you a glass,” said Katie.
I shook my head. She already slept on the couch, and as much of an ass as I could be, I didn’t want her doing things like that for me. I have some decency as a human being. Not much, but some.
“I’ll get it,” I said. “Tomorrow’s Labor Day, so I’m going to get plastered and think about my life choices.”
“That’s...uhh...” began Katie.
“Awful, I know,” I said. “Don’t sweat it. Just do what you were doing.”
“I have tomorrow off, too,” said Katie. “The library’s closed.”
“Oh, that’s good,” I mumbled.
I wasn’t thinking anything except grabbing a glass of Merlot and downing it. I had three bottles, anyway. They were supposed to be for special occasions, but screw it. I wanted to get hammered, and if I was going to get hammered, I was going to do it on alcohol I liked. No beer for me, thank you. Don’t like the taste.
I went to my small kitchen next to the living room and took a dark bottle of Merlot from the little wine rack I had on the kitchen counter. I dug around for the corkscrew in the silverware drawer, popped the cork on the bottle, and filled up my wine glass.
I turned and nearly spilled my drink from the sudden presence of Katie in my own space.
“Jesus!” I said as I barely kept from spilling any of my precious mood-number.
I swear, she’s like a little gremlin. She just appears in your fucking face without warning.
“I...I’m sorry,” stammered Katie.
I took in a deep breath and slowly released it. I wasn’t going to take out my frustrations on her. Not on Katie. That would be like kicking a puppy.
“It’s fine,” I grumbled.
“Could I have a...a glass?” asked Katie.
I shrugged. She was, like, maybe a hundred-and-twenty-five pounds soaking wet, but what the hell.
“Yeah, I guess,” I said. “Go ahead and grab a glass, but you, like...weigh next to nothing. Are you sure you want some?”
“Y...Yeah,” stammered Katie. “I have tomorrow off, anyway.”
“Well, you know what I’m like drunk,” I shrugged. “I’m happy, smooth, and charming...at least I think I am.”
Katie smiled and shook her head no. She’d seen me drunk before. Actually...way too many times.
“No?” I asked.
She shook her head no one more time, that smile never leaving her thin lips.
“Oh, well,” I said. “Bottoms up.”
I gulped down that glass and immediately felt that rush of pleasant warmth that only alcohol can bring. I quickly poured another glass and handed the bottle to Katie.
“What am I like, then?” I asked. “You’re saying I’m not charming?”
Katie gave a short and bubbly laugh as she shook her head one more time. She retrieved a wine glass from the cabinet and poured herself a full glass.
“You start practicing your pick up lines,” chuckled Katie, “but they’re awful.”
She tried to imitate a man’s voice, but with her mousy little vocals, it just came off as funny to me.
“Hey, baby,” she said in a lower voice. “Has anyone ever told you how pretty your eyes are? Check out my abs...I’ve got a six-pack waiting for you.”
“Whaaaaat!” I laughed. “Jesus...I need to practice more often...when I’m not wasted.”
Katie took a sip of wine and then smiled up at me.
“You get really funny when you’re drunk,” she said matter-of-factly. “And when you’re really drunk, you get weird.”
I walked into the living room and sat down on my grey couch, on the left side, careful not to spill my wine.
“I get weird, huh?” I asked.
“Yeah,” said Katie as she walked in and sat down next to me.
Katie was in her grey sweater and grey sweatpants today, her feet bare, something she often dressed in while here. This was one of the reasons, I think anyway, that she didn’t have a man. She just didn’t put out any effort to look nicer. I know it’s shallow to think that way, but I was only looking out for her best interests. She needed to get out of my bachelor pad and into a little suburban home with a white picket fence. She always struck me as that kind of girl, anyway. True, it would be a little lonely here without my little gerbil, but...I think it would be better for her to have that life. Plus, she wouldn’t have to pretend she couldn’t hear me fucking in the next room over. That, and explaining her presence to my dates was getting old. It was a kinky thing that most of them liked, but it was getting old.
I decided to inquire about my supposed ‘weirdness’ while smashed.
“How so?” I asked.
I was curious as to what in the hell she was talking about. How weird could I possibly get?
“Remember Saint Patrick’s Day?” asked Katie. “You went on that pub crawl with Dave and then came back sloshed.”
I paled at this. I had no idea what happened that night. Hopefully I didn’t do anything especially terrible while I was out in booze-land.
“Yeaaaah?” I said cautiously. “What about it?”
“You sat out here on the couch and were waving your pens around like you were a conductor,” giggled Katie.
I rolled my eyes, smiled, and gave her a shake of the head.
Her face turned somber after a second, though. Her glass was already half-empty, and I still wasn’t sure what alcohol was going to do to her. It was going to be interesting to see her drunk. How much wine can a gerbil drink, anyway?
“You called me Brittney,” said Katie. “Then you told me to kneel down in front of you, with my back to you, and you took my brush and brushed my hair...It was weird, but... at least you took out my hair tie first.”
Brittney was my first crush in the third grade. She was my babysitter, and she had made me brush her long blonde hair one night because I wouldn’t go to sleep on time. I think she did it as a way to ‘bore’ me to sleep, but I never forgot her because of it. Not to this day. She was the reason I loved blondes. Still, this was something that I really didn’t want anyone to know about.
