Exactly 24 hours after the coffee date, Lizzy and I met in a martini bar.
Sounds simple, doesn't it? It wasn't. I was totally spinning out over this girl.
I ordered first: "Vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred."
"Of course, Mr. Bond," as the waitress rolled her eyes. "And for you, Vesper?"
Lizzy squinted at me, thinking a moment. "Vodka, huh? Okay... French martini for me."
"Of course," the waitress nodded while wagging a finger towards me. "You be careful of this guy."
Liz smirked and looked down. "Oh, yeah... he's definitely dangerous."
I straightened up and put on my best Bond suave as the waitress faded away. "Why, ma'am, I'm not dangerous at all!"
My would-be girlfriend gave a patented McKayla Maroney not-impressed face -- which looked exceptional on those cutesy cheeks. "...And you lie convincingly."
"I..." had no defense.
Look, I really was spinning out over this girl.
Elizabeth didn't have the look I typically went for, at least not past a random hook-up. What was my favorite look? Cheekbones. I liked the long-hair, high-speed, size-2 glam girls who liked showing off. I liked that they were usually sex objects... and I liked that I could flip that story. I liked when those girls chased me. Not gonna lie, that was a benefit of being a gym rat.
Fucking Lizzy didn't fit the mold. High-speed bod, sure, but too cutesy. Almost plain... and that wasn't up to fucking par. Too sensible to always be the girly-girl, but... she did chase me. Sorta. As a means to an end.
She'd given me head first in an Uber. Then at my apartment. Then last night, showing no fear as she went down on me in the parking structure of a Starbucks. I never really thought of myself as an exhibitionist, but with her? Fuck, we were going to get arrested.
At least we were safe in the bar. Right? Weren't we...?
Small talk for the first half hour, but it had the kind of normalcy that one didn't get on wham-bam hookups. We talked about TV shows. We dared politics -- and survived!
She gave me that toothy, chipmunk-cheeked, bee-stung-lip grin and Christ, she was cute. "Can I do an Instagram with us?"
"A couple's pic?"
She nodded, hopeful.
"Sure."
It took her a minute to find the right background, the right lighting, the right angle...then a dozen different shots, a little tweaking on the filters...
"Do I need that much work?"
"Hush, you," she giggled. "Almost there."
She handed me her phone and I scrolled through the three pictures that survived. "Holy shit, chica. These look like advertising shots!"
"Thanks! I'm kind of an amateur photographer."
"Amateur pornographer?"
She punched my shoulder. "Amateur model, maybe. Does that count?"
"Sorry, no." I scrolled through one more time before handing her phone back. "Those are really good. You've already got two likes."
She glanced at the screen. "Oh, them. They don't count."
"No?"
"That's Chloe and Claire. My besties. You sorta met them."
"I did?"
"Umm... that first night? Those were the girls I was there with."
Right; the married girls. Skirts and sheer shirts, tall with cheekbones. The opposites of sporty-girl, here. The ones I was about to hit on when chipmunk cheeks distracted me. "How could I forget?"
We burned through three drinks and I learned her secret goal was to be an artist. That was just the inspiration I was looking for. Checked my watch, canceled the fourth round, closed out the tab and hustled us to an Uber.
A ten minute ride dropped us at the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. We were just inside when I noticed she was all misty-eyed.
"What? You okay?"
"I've never had a guy take me to an art museum!"
"You've never dated the right guy. Let's go!"
I knew nothing about art, absolutely zero, but she was my instant guide to the highlights. We landed at the "Allegory of Virtue and Nobility" and she was leaning in.
I studied her as she studied it. "What do you see?"
"Shadow work. Skin tones. A million grays in the clouds," she pointed. After a pause. "Mostly, though, I see them casting out 'ignorance' and it feels... oddly personal. Not like I'm super ignorant, but if she's virtue, than what's the girl in blue...? She's Not-Virtue, falling from heaven."
"I'll catch you."
Three martinis of courage: she took my face in her hands and kissed me. It wasn't long, but it was deep.
We stopped in front of "Krishna Fluting in Vrindavan." I'd been to India, briefly, on leave. That hinted at Afghanistan but I steered us away from that topic.
Then there was "Woman with a Book." An actual Picasso was cool, and so was the fact that she was reading with her boobs out. We both appreciated that one.
We got to "Reclining Nude" and she held her hands out: "Finally, a girl who has smaller boobs than me!"
Facepalm...
By the time we got to "The Conversion of Mary Magdalene," the martinis had taken control. She tapped a finger on that lip. "This is speaking to me on a couple of levels."
"Oh, how?"
She educated me on contrasts, about the light and the shadows. There was sensuality in the body position of Mary. Then there was a pause...
I wrapped my arms around her. "You're thinking of something else."
She nodded. "I've tried to be good. I've never been able to be good."
"Tried to be? Oh, that's right: only slept with boyfriends?"
"Or ex-boyfriends," she nodded.
"How many guys has my slutty girlfriend slept with before me?"
She thought about it and smiled. "I like hearing you say that."
"Girlfriend?"
She nodded.
I pointed at the picture. "Well... If you're Mary Magdalene, I'm not exactly the angel, so..."
"You little devil!" She giggled. A beat later, she turned in my arms to drill eye contact right into my soul. "Since you already know I'm a little slutty, do you want the real answer?"
"That would be cool."
"32."
"Is that a lot?"
She bit her lip and turned back toward the painting. "Umm... I don't know? More than some, less than a few."
"I can go with that."
She studied the "Vice" character and kept glancing back and forth between me and the painting.
I finally got the comparison she was making. "Nice."
She giggled. "Were you expecting more or less?"
"Guys? I don't know. More, maybe? Then again, how do you define 'boyfriend'?"
"Third date."
"That's it? You have a low bar for boyfriends." I gave my Lizzy Magdalene a deep kiss. "They should at least take you to an art gallery..."