Anna sipped at the fruity drink in front of her. All around her the bar crowd laughed and talked at an increasingly loud volume as the night went on. She couldn't tell if it was solely due to the increasing intoxication or if the bar management was continuously cranking up the music. Either way, the noise bothered Anna. She would much rather have been at home with a glass of wine and a book. Looking in the mirror, even she could see that desire on her face so it was no surprise no one had bothered talking to her. She didn't know where to being with flirting, but clearly nursing a single drink at an overcrowded bar was not the answer.
"Sorry! There was a crazy line. I'll never understand bars that have ladies nights with one single stall toilet." Carol grumbled as she sat down beside her friend. "Anyone offer to buy you a drink yet?"
"No. Does that really happen?"
"Sure! I mean, not like in the old movies, but bars aren't like that anymore. None of the ones I've been to anyway. You're never gonna see Mr. Tall-Dark-N-Handsome down the bar ordering you a martini."
Anna smirked, "Maybe you go to the wrong bars."
"I am one hundred percent positive that's the case." Carol held up a hand and the bartender wandered over. "Whiskey sour, please. Ooo, how about that guy?"
Carol discretely gestured down the bar to a man in a plaid shirt with a stringy beard. Anna screwed up her nose and shook her head. She knew she shouldn't be picky, but the hipster style simply did not suit her. Besides, the guy looked like he was barely twenty one. "I don't think he's my type."
"Is it the beard? Sometimes I hate beards." Carol mused as if she were picking out a paint color.
"No, I don't have a problem with beards, but his..."
"Looks scratchy. Can you imagine that thing going down on you? Like riding a Brillo pad." Carol laughed at herself and thanked the bartender as her drink arrived. "But come on, you said you wanted to meet guys. This is what you have to do. Talk to beard face and maybe it works out. Look at him, he's totally — oh wait, never mind."
Anna looked back at the scruffy man at the end of the bar. A busty coed was attempting to climb in his lap, her boobs being the main preventative issue. Both of the women turned back to their drinks. Anna appreciated her friend's enthusiasm about finding her a date, but Carol had a very different outlook on men. Carol had been pretty and outgoing her whole life. The whole time Anna had known her, she'd been in some kind of relationship. If anything, Carol was too good at getting new boyfriends. Anna looked herself sitting beside Carol in the bar mirror. Her friend was thin with a broad smile and bright, blonde hair. Anna, on the other hand, had raven black curls with a full, curvy figure. Physical differences aside, the biggest contrast between the two came in how they held themselves in public. Anna could see it in her posture. She was turned in to Carol, while keeping her back to the majority of people and the only real route she could be approached. Carol, meanwhile, sat back on her barstool and kept herself facing forward, leaving an opportunity for someone to speak to her. Anna tried to mimic her friend, but felt very exposed. Her top did little to hide her full breasts unless she remained somewhat hunched.
"Maybe this isn't for me," Anna complained. "Dating seems so weird now. When we were in college you just got drunk at the same place and wound up with a boyfriend a few days later. And sometimes a pregnancy scare."
Carol gestured around her. "What do you think is happening here?"
"College age drunk girl at a house party is a lot more fun that thirty year old woman drunk in a bar."
"And yet the end result is the same. These guys are all going to wind up trashed at the end of the night. The only difference now is that you have to make your choice early on in the evening. Spend the night getting drunk with the guy you want to go home with." Carol drained the rest of her drink.
"Keep that up and you're going home with me, I think."
"I'm a girl on a mission. Here comes some fresh beefy goodness!"
Anna followed her friend's gaze over to the door. Three tall, broad shouldered men had walked in. The crowd parted like the Red Sea as they made their way up to the bar. Muscle bulged through their skin tight shirts as they towered over the bar's other denizens. Even with their immense stature, they seemed friendly and charismatic. They also seemed very much out of Anna's league. As the three men moved through the crowd, they reached the bar beside Carol. Anna watched them from the corner of her eye and could easily see that all three of them were looking back at her while discussing something between themselves. Finally, two of the men walked off into the crowd and the remaining man stepped over. "Hi, I'm Stephen. Can I buy you a drink?"
Anna immediately suspected some kind of cruel joke. Or perhaps Carol had hired some male prostitutes to boost her confidence. Yet as she looked into Stephen's bright green eyes, she almost melted from his charm. Carol answered for her, "Yes. She'd love a drink. I'm going to go talk to Mary, have my seat." Carol quickly slid away going off to talk to a fictional Mary while Stephen bashfully took her place.
"Sorry, she's a little kooky sometimes." Anna explained as the bartender poured her a new drink. "What happened to your friends?"
Stephen smiled, "Brothers, actually, and they're a little strange as well, I guess. They'll come round again at some point, I'm sure."
Anna had a hard time not staring at the deep pools of Stephen's eyes. Instead she tried to distract herself by looking at the rest of him. He had black hair with flecks of premature grey in them. It was not over-styled, but did effectively accent his otherwise dark complexion. He had broad forearms lined with distinct tattoos as well as several scars. He too was not being too bashful about sizing her up, staring directly at her chest and running his eyes along her full curves. Anna pressed on with the conversation, turning her attention to her new drink. "So, what kind of work do you do?"
They lapsed into the trivial conversations discussing their jobs, their families, and small anecdotes of life. Anna learned that Stephen worked with a local conservation group, dedicated to wildlife preservation. He seemed to be enjoying their conversation, but after about thirty minutes Stephen excused himself to take a phone call. Anna waited somewhat calmly, her anxiety kept in check by the alcohol dulling her nerves. When Stephen came back, he seemed particularly distracted. Their conversation resumed, but after a few minutes he called for his tab. "I'm sorry, but I actually have to go. My brothers are...being restless. Tell you what though, I'd like to see you again. Can I have your number?"
Trying to hide her blush, Anna dictated her number while he tapped it into his phone. He gave her a final smile and then backed away into the crowd. Only moments after he was gone did Carol reappear. "Oh my god! What happened? You two were hitting it off so well!"
Anna shrugged, "Don't know. He got a phone call and had to go. He said he'd call me though."
"Bummer." Carol blurted out. She seemed a bit more drunk than when she left. "I went and tried talking to those other two he came in with. They were weird. They kept...sniffing me."
Anna realized something about her conversation with Stephen. He too had a strange tendency to lean in and sniff her hair whenever she turned away. She couldn't quite place what was happening at the time, but once Carol mentioned it, the act was apparent. "Weird. Stephen was nice though."
"Oh don't get me wrong," Carol continued. "If any of those three want to sniff any part of me, I'll be glad to have the company."
***
Anna spent a while longer at the bar, but had entirely lost interest with the evening. The more time that passed after Stephen's exit, the more she realized how much she had enjoyed the attention. She watched the big breasted girl at the end of the bar. Not only did her boyfriend, or whoever the scruffy bearded man was, give her all of his attention, everyone around her did as well. The group of them seethed with charisma, drawing in others and holding the attention of tables who had nothing to do with them. At the center of it all was that girl who had no apparent interesting qualities other than her looks. Anna did not envy the girl, but did somewhat mourn for a different type of life. Still, she wouldn't have traded her brief moments with all of Stephen's attention for an entire evening in that girl's shoes.
Carol was not so introspective. The young woman was essentially a younger, prettier version of Carol, which made the more seasoned woman's prospect seem dim. Her candor increased with each whiskey sour until Anna decided to walk her home. Carol didn't protest, but didn't have a very cheerful mood as they stumbled out of the bar and headed towards her apartment. The walk was short and uneventful. Once the bar was out of sight, Carol's mood returned to normal. She talked excitedly about having some microwaved chicken tenders she had bought on a whim. She promised Anna bottles of wine if she would come up to hang out a while longer, but Anna didn't feel like dealing with an even drunker Carol who was teetering between giddy effervescence and weepy depression. She said goodnight, watched Carol fumble with keys for a moment, and backed away as Carol slammed the door behind her. Before she reached the street, Anna could hear a Phil Collins song blaring from her friend's apartment.
Anna normally would have taken a taxi home from Carol's house, but the night was clear and a bright moon shone down on the empty streets. The alcohol in her system encouraged her as she clicked down the sidewalk towards her home. She spent most of the walk wondering if she should call Stephen or not. She certainly didn't want to appear desperate, but she would have loved to get a text from him or something. She snapped from her daydreams at the sound of rustling from an alley as she passed by. Vagrants weren't unusual in the city and she'd already passed a few other late night travelers, but the noise was different. She shook her head to clear out the creeping tendrils of drunkenness and pressed on. Near the end of the block, she could not shake the feeling that someone was watching her. She stopped and looked back to where she'd heard the noise and saw a dog sitting in the middle of the sidewalk. "No, not a dog," she thought. "That's a wolf."