On Sunday, an insistently ringing phone woke Ian up; the sound filled the apartment and roused him from some much-needed sleep. Saturday had not been fun. Ian had attempted to keep himself busy; sightseeing, shopping for groceries and cleaning the apartment - but to no avail. His head was filled with the promises that Monday would bring. Walking around the buzzing streets of Rome had been a barrage of beautiful half-dressed women. Their smiles and how they elegantly moved repeatedly forced Ian's thoughts back to his aroused state. Ian had then attempted to work a bit, and this had helped. Staring at the peculiar symbols seemed an almost meditative act, and the last hours of the day had drifted away. It had been way past midnight when he finally stopped, but then his arousal him like a train again. Ian had twisted and turned into the small hours, his head filled with fantasies before he eventually drifted off to sleep.
Now, Ian's fingers searched for the phone on the nightstand, and for a moment, he considered just tossing it across the room.
"Yes?" Ian said as he picked up the phone, sounding tired and annoyed.
"Are you alright? You haven't replied to any of my texts?" Marcus sounded concerned.
Ian grunted something in reply, ensuring Marcus that he had just slept late and hung up. Ian looked at his phone, it showed 1:42 pm, and he turned it back over with a sigh. An hour later, he finally dragged himself out of bed, showered, and slowly started the day. Marcus had indeed written him - repeatedly since 10 am. Ian replied that he was up and would head to the bar at 5 pm. As the drowsiness from his sleep wore off, he felt somewhat well-rested and even had a little spring to his step as he headed for the pub to meet Marcus for the planned beer or two - a very welcome distraction.
The Scholars Lounge Irish Pub was a quaint place. The crew working there were almost exclusively Irish, except for a few other internationals. The pub attracted many different people. The largest group was students and employees from the nearby university departments, but it saw the occasional tourist couple on a romantic weekend in Rome. It was a place where you quickly made friends and just as promptly were forgotten when you left Rome again; just the place for a beer on a lonely weekend.
Ian, who lived just a few minutes from the pub, had arrived before Marcus and found a seat at the bar. Even if it was Sunday, quite a few people were hanging around. Focusing on the board behind the bar, he tried to decide what beer to buy while waiting for his friend to join him.
"What can I get you, gorge?" A tall red-haired bartender smiled happily at Ian, the Irish accent clear. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and freckles covered both chins. Even with him on the tall barstool, she looked slightly down at him.
"An O'Hara, please," Ian ordered the wheat beer with a forced smile. Typically he would have chosen a Guinness or something else dark, sweet and heavy, but the day was still warm. "By the way, what does gorge mean? I'm not that good with the Irish slang," Ian asked as the bartender handed him his beer.
"Oh!" She paused, "did I really say that out loud? It... means gorgeous." The bartender bit her lip and looked remarkably cute and more than a little embarrassed that she had overspoken. Ian's attention had briefly shifted to her white tank top, highlighting her chest, but then he controlled himself and looked back at her eyes, smiling back at her.
"Oh really - well, thanks, gorge!" Ian replied with the same compliment; now, she was straight up blushing. Shifting her weight from one foot to the next. Ian was just about to try and look inside her mind but stopped himself. No, not tonight. Remember, Ian, you are here to get your mind off sex, so there is no need to go looking for trouble, he argued in his own mind. He scolded himself, "you are only considering it because you want to see if the cute and flirty bartender has any naughty thoughts."
"I'm Ian, by the way; good to meet you."
"And I'm Fiona; I haven't seen you here before; did you just get to Italy?"
"Yeah, on Monday. Is it always this hot here?"
"The weather? No, that gets better soon. Me though? I'm always this hot." The bartender covered her mouth with her hand, shocked at what she had just said, and Ian sputtered a bit of his beer, not used to women flirting with him - and doubly not when being this direct.
"You... you are beautiful," Ian tried.
"If you feel lonely, you can stay around until my shift ends... and I can show you around a little." The words dripped with intent, the bartender's tongue slid across her slightly parted lips, leaning on the bar, her arms pressed her breasts together, and she stared seductively into Ian's eyes. At that very moment, Ian's mind slipped, and a vision of her desires flashed through his head. In the dream, Ian looked at Fiona, her body naked above him. Her breasts swung back and forth above him, in sync with her body's strong movement. "No, stop yourself, Ian," he forced himself away from the mind-reading before losing himself entirely in the naughty scene.
Shaking her head, the bartender seemed to regret everything she said. "Sorry! I don't know what has gotten into me. I will just go over here." Her facial color now matched her red hair, and before Ian could stop her, she had fled to the other end of the bar.
The following minutes were awkward; Ian couldn't help but watch Fiona behind the bar, and whenever Fiona noticed, she blushed again. Ian kept sipping his beer to force himself to look away from her; too soon, his glass was almost empty. Besides her, another bartender was working--a guy, maybe in his late thirties. He was a prime example of an Irish bartender with aggressively curly red hair and a loud, jovial attitude. Ian motioned for him to come over as his beer emptied and asked for a refill.
"She really is beautiful, but she can be a bit of ice-queen," the male bartender offered Ian his beer. Ian looked back at him.
"Sorry, I guess I was staring, wasn't I?"
"You were! Blatantly!" The curly-haired bartender was laughing, reaching for a beer behind him. It was Ian's turn to blush, the heat spreading in his cheeks. "But I guess you would much rather chat with her than me," then suddenly he raised his voice, "Fiona! Come over here, please." Then turning to Ian again, mouthing, "you are welcome," and with a smile, he left Ian. As he passed Fiona behind the bar, he whispered something in her ear, and Fiona froze, staring straight at Ian.
"Ian, I'm sorry, Mark always does that. He tries to set me up with random guests, and it is like he doesn't get that I get hit on all the time. Or well, he ignores it if he knows."
"I... I didn't ask him to; it is not like I..."
"Like you what?" Fiona was grinning, "I'm not hot enough for you, is that it?"
"No! It is not that, it is just... argh forget it." Ian took another gulp of his beer, shaking his head and staring down at the wooden surface of the bar desk. The hot-girl-nervousness made him all tongue-tied as usual. A long slender finger reached across the bar and touched his chin, lifting his head up.
"You seem like a nice enough guy. I don't know what it is about you, but I would even consider breaking my no dating guests rule for you, but not if you sulk and sit staring down at your beer."
And then, just as before, Fiona headed off to the other end of the bar. Damn, that stung; Ian knew she was right, but hearing it didn't lift his spirits.
"Hey, Ian, what are you drinking?" Marcus put his hand on Ian's shoulder, greeted him, and sat next to him in the bar.
"An O'Hara, it is way too hot for a Guinness today," Ian's attention still lingered on the redhead hiding at the other end of the bar and the truths she had spoken.
"Want to find a table while I get a beer too?"
Reluctantly Ian rose from his stool and looked around for a table. Soon Marcus joined him, and they sat down in a booth with room for four. Marcus was particularly chatty today, and Ian was quieter than usual, the bar encounter still lingering in his mind. They, or most Marcus, talked about the Angelica Texts and the breakthrough Ian had made. Marcus was now guessing at the reason for the script to have three parts to each character, but nothing sounded very convincing so far.
"Maybe it is the holy trinity, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God?" Marcus guessed again.
"Maybe," Ian took another sip of his beer.
"It actually sounds probable, doesn't it? The area around the library is quite religious and has been so for centuries, right? It would make sense that someone had decided to put references in everything, even the characters themselves. The Angelica Library is very close to the church - so close actually that I am not even sure where one starts and the other finishes..." Marcus continued to talk, but Ian couldn't focus and just nodded while looking around. This was his first visit to the bar. It was a typical Irish pub, with a fine beer selection and a small stage for a band. The scholarly theme, which was both weird and cozy, made it stand out. Placed around the bar were large bookshelves filled with books, making it feel like an old private library. The decorations also spanned the bar area; they even had a globe bar cabinet. A little tacky, but Ian wasn't thinking of that; he had spotted the red-haired bartender again, and she was looking straight back at him. Blushing once more when Ian caught her looking. Italy is a strange place, Ian thought to himself. He had been here for less than a week, and already he had had more flirty or sexual encounters than all his years of studying in Boston combined. Could it be because he was a foreigner here?
"Is it okay if we join you?" A blonde girl and her friend stepped up to the boot and were now blocking Ian's view of Fiona. Having interrupted both his line of thoughts and Marcus' monologue, they stood waiting for an invitation to sit down.
"Sure," Marcus and Ian spoke simultaneously, making the two girls giggle. Were they a little tipsy already? The blonde who took the seat next to Ian was tall and slim, and her statue and movements were refined with an elegant, almost model-like figure. Her blonde hair came straight down and covered her shoulders--a very classically beautiful girl. The girl next to Marcus was shorter but with a very curvy body and black curly hair.
"I'm Marie, and this is Marigold," the blonde introduced them. Marie was from Germany and Marigold from Spain. They had met during their architecture studies in Berlin, and now they were on a trip to Rome. Both to relax and to sightsee all the classical buildings.
