It was very crowded that night at the Hog Bar. The rumbling of the talking crowd spilt its reverb into the traffic ridden street, echoing between the rough buildings of the Lower South Quarter, the acute sound of bottles of beer clashing into each other, lifted up and toward one another in celebration, could be heard all the way down the block, where the kids were hanging out, stopping passers-by in the hope of getting them to buy some beer for them.
He hadn't really gone in to drink, nor to meet anyone, but he had found himself in the bar nonetheless, sipping on a cold glass of water, the waitress smiling at him, giggling at the fact he'd ordered nothing else for three times in a row. He, after all, didn't drink, didn't like the idea. He could barely stand to hear the slightly over-the-top girls at the table behind him being endlessly chatted-up by the inexhaustible stream of brainless men passing by.
Eager to be isolated from the noise, he buried himself in thought, emerging only to ask for another ice water, then plunging into the depths of his troubles. If only he had been a drinking man, he thought, he could have enjoyed his surroundings, understood the meaning of having fun and drinking your woes away, just like normal people did, but he wasn't and so he remained a rather bored tea-totaller in the middle of a drunken bar somewhere in the city.
The barmaid giggled again, pouring cold water into his glass, half way between wanting to mock him and hoping to get a smile out of his undeniably handsome face. He responded by grabbing his drink and sipping on the water, once more, drop by drop until it was all gone.
"Who's the cadaver?" a feminine voice said bouncing rather annoyingly into his ear.
The waitress shook her head and lifted her arms, he turned round to look at the person who'd sat next to him.
She was clearly of an Asian descent yet something about her was unusual, giving him the impression she must have been mixed race, a bizarre genetic melting pot which had, undeniably, had rather positive results. She looked him in the eye, quite unimpressed, which was something unusual for him to experience. He'd always had a strong effect on women, ever since he'd been a teenage boy, and while being looked or stared at didn't really move him, the rather superior facial expression she'd reserved for him annoyed him deeply.
A moment of mute looks followed, before he went back to sipping droplets from his newly filled glass of one part hydrogen, two part oxygen cocktail. He looked back no more, but heard her get up and leave, leaving a trace of fruit-flavored perfume in her wake as the waitress giggled again at the rather tacky scene. Then something tapped him on the shoulder.
He looked left, moving nothing but his eyes, a cue was resting against his neck.
"You play pool?" the girl said, tapping him repeatedly.
He grabbed the tip of the cue and slid it gently toward himself. She let go and backed off as he got up and followed her to the nearby pool table, a dusty, green, beer-stained piece of equipment abandoned in a dark corner of the bar. The girl walked around it and switched on the lamp that hung over it, grabbing a cue herself after having placed all fifteen balls in their correct place on the table.
"Your Break." She snickered, sliding the cue-ball at him across the green surface.
The first few games were played in eerie silence, the loudness of the rest of the bar almost inaudible by the two contenders. The woman potted her last ball, and the black after it, before he'd even gone through half of his on the first game, then he took her to the last shot in the second game, but fouled the black and lost again. She celebrated with a cheer and a single burst of laughter but smiled at him in a rather more friendly way.
"Ok, loser!" she giggled at him. "One last game but this time, let's give you some incentive!"
He shook his head.
"Is this one of those scams?" he asked.
"No scam, no money. I'd actually say it's a win-win for you." She replied, moving closer to him to grab the ends of his black leather jacket. "If I win the next game you'll have to smile at the waitresses, be nice, try to be funny and you'll buy a drink for everyone in my fucking bar. You won't like it but it'll make you some friends, at least."
He remained emotionless, going over what he'd been told once again in his head.
"What if you don't win?" he murmured back.
"If I lose..." she sighed, twisting her tongue in her own mouth in a suggestive, yet mocking way "...you get to take me home."
He took a deep breath. He wasn't that kind of man, the type that picks up a girl in a bar and takes her home without even knowing her name. If all he'd wanted was to take a girl home, he would have hit on the waitress when he'd had the chance, without going through the effort of playing pool and the risk of having to buy drinks and smile at people. Nonetheless, he took a good look at her before making his mind up.
She was quite thin, but not the thinnest of girls, and had an athletic yet somehow soft physique. Similarly, she was shapely, but not so much that you would notice her for that reason alone, her body was somehow chunky, thick for its rather small size and beautifully young and supple looking.
Her long, bare legs stuck out of a rather excessive pair of high healed, almost knee high, black leather boots, ranging lusciously into a rather extremely short, torn, light blue denim skirt, incapable of containing all of her round, capacious, faultless boot, especially when, much to the liking of all the men in the bar, she'd bend over the green pool table, showing her black, provocative lace underwear, as it struggled to cover her most desirable parts. Her stomach, bared from the top end of her flame-buckled belt to the lower tip of her white knotted shirt was soft and welcoming, pronounced just enough to be noticed and appreciated in its tender perfection, it almost begged to be touched and bitten.
As she pulled on his leather jacket, invitingly stroking his chest, rubbing her belly against him, he couldn't avoid noticing her breasts, squeezed up as they were in a black bra which, teamed with the white shirt, made sure her cleavage was noticed by anyone who laid eye on her. Her leather jacket slid over her lower smooth arms and down her long white fingernails as she took it off, throwing it onto a nearby chair. She finally let him go, taking a single pace backwards, pushing her silky dark hair behind her ears.
"So kid?" she said, piercing him with her large almond eyes. "Are we gonna get serious or what?"
He stepped forward and leant onto the table, making his break with unforeseen determination. Equally, she took the first clean shot and potted purple number 4. Unhappy with his unnerved, cold reaction, she walked round the table to where the cue ball had stopped and stood between it and him. She stretched her legs, opening them into a rock-star-like power-stand, then slowly curved forwards and over the green, rotating her rear in front of him.
"Take a good look at it..." she said, smirking as she potted ball number 7 "...'cause there's no way you're having that ass!"
Balls 6, 3 and 2 followed swiftly, leaving just 5 and 1 for her to take home before the elusive black number 8. She hit the cue-ball once more and it impacted orange ball 5 with force, pushing it straight towards the far corner hole. The orange bounced on one side, then on the other, finally stopping, wedged on the very edge of its final destination.
"Shit!" she whispered under her breath, stepping back from the table.
He approached with a determined look on his face, leaning the cue against the wooden edges and sliding it through his fingers. Balls 10, 15 and 11 were soon gone and 14 and 9 followed without hesitation. He looked back at his opponent, who was standing cross-armed to one side, biting her lips both in anxiety and anticipation. He barely needed to look as he pushed ball number 12 into the far-centre pocket. Only an effortless orange separated him from an incredibly easy black and then, victory.
He turned suddenly and took a good look at her face. For sure, she wasn't liking the idea of losing to him, still he could see she wanted him to win almost as much as she wanted him to crumble. Her left index played nervously with her hair and her cheeks reddened as her right hand slid off her chest, hoping it hadn't been noticed while it had been trying to contain her heartbeat.