A Girl in a Bar.
She sat down at the bar two seats to my right. I searched the slanted mirror that the bar owner had conveniently elevated up and behind all the liquor so that patrons could check one another out without staring. Of course, if she looked into the mirror in my direction, I'd be nabbed.
I sipped my Jack Black, wondering why a woman this fine wandered into my neighborhood bar on a Tuesday night. My looks in her direction into the mirror were furtive and brief, but even without a full-bore stare I could tell that she was something special. Tall with tight jeans, spiked heels, long legs, a white lacy blouse cut so low it threatened to show nipple, a tiny waist, a big mass of golden-blonde hair, and the kind of tits men went to war for. And a big golden wedding band on her left ring finger. Her face was stunningly beautiful. High cheekbones and a heart-shaped jawline with a pert little nose with large blue dominating the whole thing. Her eyes troubled me just because she looked troubled. She was alone, but she wouldn't be for long. Not a woman like that.
She didn't look the least bit approachable. Her head was down, her elbows in and she was staring into her drink as though the amber liquid had answers. Finishing it quickly, she raised her glass to order a second. She wasn't taking a short break before heading home. She wasn't there to meet the girls to laugh and joke. She was drinking to get drunk, shit-faced drunk, because she was miserable. The bartender was stealing glances too, interrupting his conversation with other patrons to sneak several peeks. He was a noted swordsman in his own right. I moved into the seat next to her on the left and he looked on with disapproval. Tough shit dude.
"Is this seat taken?" I asked.
"Clearly not" she replied sullenly.
"You looked like you could do with a talk" I replied after a minute.
"Figure that out all on your own, did you?" she asked looking at me, bringing her big blue eyes to bear on me with megawatt intensity. I babbled: "well, you, were...staring into your glass,...and I...I just thought..." I jabbered aimlessly.
She took pity on me. "Don't fret," she said, "I'm just not in much of a mood to talk to anybody owning a prick right now."
"Well, if it's any consolation, I'll saw it off if it would extend my stay on this chair for a little while longer" I joked.
She belly-laughed, thank God.
"I don't think that is necessary—yet" she concluded with a smile.
"Good to get a reprieve" I answered. She laughed again lightly.
"Are all guys in the doghouse, or just one in particular?" I asked.
She thought for a couple of minutes on that one, her face running from bright anger, to hurt, and returning to despair.
"One in particular set it off, but I think the condition is common to every man" she replied. "Every. Single. One" she emphasized.
Her answer could only mean one thing—she'd been cheated on by some fool. "When did you find out?" I asked.
"Last weekend. I guess I should have known it for a long time, several months anyway, but I refused to believe it. Sunday afternoon I heard the two of them fucking like pigs in the garage while our kids were playing just a few yards away. I couldn't believe it. She's always been making over him, always picking him out at baseball or neighborhood parties and sallying up to him. The other moms told me to watch out for her but I told them they were crazy. I guess I was...arrogant. She's not bad looking, not really. I guess he finally just broke down. Maybe she does...things... I won't do. I don't know."
"Well, he's a fucking idiot" I said with conviction. "I don't care whether she's good looking or not, I can tell you sight-unseen that she doesn't hold a candle to you."
"That's very kind of you to say" she responded.
"It's not a kindness, it's reality" I replied. "Look in the mirror up there. Go ahead, give it a good look and don't look away. Everything about you is beautiful, sexy. You have hair that looks like spun gold, clear skin, perfect facial structure, tremendous eyes and a figure that every woman I know would trade for in a heartbeat. So, I don't need to know what she looks like because she's in second place."
She blushed, which surprised me. How could a woman this gorgeous not have received compliments her whole life? Her huge bosom gave her the kind of early-emerging figure that caused grown men to think thoughts that, if acted on, would put them in jail, and a face that would cause intemperate schoolboys to blurt out their undying love. And yet, here she was, blushing like a school girl at a simple compliment.
"Again, thank you. I could use a prop or two right now."
A Question
"What are you going to do?" I asked some time later, "have you confronted him?"
"No, it just happened this weekend and he went out of town on a sales trip Sunday night. I just dropped the kids off at mom's. I just told her I needed to go meet a friend" she answered. "Maybe I didn't lie...completely" she said, dipping her head slightly in my direction.
I had gone from unwanted stranger to near friend in a short while. I was thrilled. Any time I could spend with this beauty was well spent.
"I don't know if confronting him would do much good" she added. "He'd just deny it, and I don't have solid proof. He'd probably wait a few weeks, then start plugging her again when he thought the heat was off."
"Maybe the thing to think about is what you want rather than what you should do, you know what I mean?"
"No" she said.
"Well, he's changed the game, so maybe you can change the game too depending on what you want the outcome to be. Do you mind if I ask a few questions?"
"Shoot, but don't expect me to answer" she said warily.
"Fair enough," I said. "Well, he broke the rules. You promised to be faithful to each other until death, but he cheated. I'm a lawyer, or used to be. They taught me in law school is that when the other guy violates his deal you've got two choices. You can enforce the contract and make him do what he promised to do, or walk away from the contract and get money damages. Here, you can either make up and find a way to keep him faithful, or divorce him and make him pay alimony with child support. So, do you want him to enforce the contract, dump tootsie and stay faithful, or dump him?"
She thought long and hard about that, so long that I thought it might be the end of our evening. But after a few minutes she raised her glass again and toggled it, signaling to the bartender that she wanted a third whiskey. She was a tall healthy woman, but three drinks were definitely going to work on her.
"He's good looking. He was a great athlete in high school and college—basketball and tennis, all-conference. All the girls wanted him. He chose me. He's a good provider, he works hard and he's well-liked in his company. He's a regional sales manager and I think he can make it to Vice President of Sales, maybe higher. He loves the kids and he's good with them, but I have to pull him away from work all the time. Cara isn't the first woman to come after him. But I think she's the first one he's slept with. At least I think she is. I really don't know."
"On a scale of 1-10 how handsome is he?" I asked.
"If he's not a 10, he's not far from it. Maybe a nine or nine and a half. Definitely a guy who'd draw interest on the road, which is where he is 3-4 days a week." Great I thought, and she's sitting here talking to a guy who on his most optimistic day is a 6. Ok, see if you can compete here...
"On a scale of 1-10, how good is he in bed?"
"That's none of your business!" she replied hotly.
"Of course not. None of this is. But you're clearly thinking about whether he's worth keeping or trading in, so why not think about everything?"
"He's...okay" she said shyly after a long delay. "He used to be good, very good. But after we had the kids everything cooled off. There was never enough time, never enough room to really focus on it. We've slowed down to maybe...once a week to ten days, I don't know. He comes, cums, and leaves. I haven't had an orgasm in probably six months."
"Shit, that's tragic" I said. "What about the fun stuff? Movies? Upside down in the closet tied to the rack? Friends? Swaps? Any of that?"
"Absolutely not!" she replied with shock. "Chase is always whining about trying this or that. He wants me to..." her voice trailed off.
"He wants you to do things that you don't want to do. Things that will make you feel like you're a piece of meat instead of somebody."
"Exactly!" she said. "he makes me feel like shit because I don't earn an income, even though I was just a few hours from completing my medical diagnostics degree. If I did everything he asked in the bedroom, I'd be lower than dirt."
"Hmmmm" I responded.
"What does that mean?" she asked.
"Nothing, well...something. I don't think the issue is what you do or don't let him do in the bedroom. I think the problem is that he's a control freak and he wants to pidgeon-hole you into the Stepford Wife role. Beautiful, compliant, devoted and willing. The problem is that he's doesn't truly value you. He's taken you for granted and you know it. You can feel it every day. So you don't have enough things in your life that give you emotional support, so it isn't surprising that you aren't willing to give him everything he wants. You sense that if you do, you'll lose all leverage in the deal. If you asked me, the first thing you should do is finish your degree and go to work. You need the independence, and people to tell you that you're doing good work."
"So, how much do you charge an hour?" she responded.
"I used to charge a lot. Now, nothing, which may be more than it's worth. I've spent a lifetime at work listening to people tell me why things broke apart. Sometimes I could fix it, most times I couldn't.
In any event" I said getting back to the subject, "you know that he's done one thing wrong, badly wrong, and you're suspicious that he's done a lot more" I said. "But you haven't really questioned whether or not he's been faithful over the years, so you've never really investigated it, fair?"
"Fair" she replied.
