Ember

I pulled into her driveway and skidded a few loose pebbles towards her mailbox.  The flag was up.  I wondered if it would leave skid marks and make her neighbors think I was some punk.  It also reminded me that I needed to do some laundry when I got home.

I kid. 

I'd never been to her place before and was worried that I wouldn't be able to find it, but the sticky note full of hastily written directions had done me right.  The porch light was on.  I headed up three worn wooden steps and stood with my finger on the doorbell-button for a second.

I took a breath.

It had been quite some time since I'd gone on a date.  For a while there it seemed like I was out on dates all the time.  A few times they had panned out into fun if not lengthy relationships, most of which ended abruptly and without much explanation as to why.  A couple of them had just sort of petered out.  I worked a lot.  Too much really.  I was a fairly responsible guy, yet I never seemed to have any money.  I had about eighty bucks to my name that night, and all of it was in my pocket.

I saw the shadow of her feet pause for a second on the other side of the door.  She opened it and smiled.

"Hey!" she said.  "Come on in!"
"Thanks" I said.

I went in.   I kicked my shoes off on the mat next to hers just inside the door.  The only hole in my sock was on the bottom, so I didn't worry about it too much.  She bustled around doing whatever it is that girls do when they bustle around.  Her feet made no sound on the hardwood floor when she walked, and she slid in her socks at every opportunity.

I nosed around in the pictures above her mantle in the living room.  She poked her head in the doorway..

"You want a beer?"
"I'd love one, thank you."
"That's my brother"
"Hmm?"
"In the picture there with me, it's my brother."
"Oh right, yeah I can see a little resemblance there."

She went and got us each a beer, and I  admired how gracefully she moved.  She was small, and there was a certain strength about her.  A fluidity.

I'd admired her for some time.  She was a waitress at the best strip club in the city, and for months I'd found myself looking forward to going there just so I could see her.  (note 1)

Eventually I asked her for her number.  It wasn't completely random,  I'd been in there enough to have established a little rapport with her.  I was polite, tipped well, and had made her laugh once or twice.  She gave me the number.  A week later, there I was in her living room.

She had a place she wanted to go; a bar somewhere near her house.  I failed to come up with anything more interesting that going out for dinner prior to that.  I took her to a steakhouse.  A good one.  She told me that she thought it was cute that I bit my lip when I was nervous. (note 2)  I was mesmerized by her face, and by how tiny and energetic she was.  She had a genuine and intoxicating smile that was crooked in the most adorable way.  

It cost every penny I owned.  It wouldn't have, but she looked at the tip I was leaving (which wasn't skimpy; I was trying to impress her with my generosity) as if it were somehow insulting (it wasn't).

I tipped our waitress like a mafia don. 

We went to the bar.

"My treat" she said.  
"Thank you" I said.  I was a lot more grateful than she probably realized.  I had not figured out how I was going to pull that off.

She was forward and flirted with me unabashedly.  I was not prepared for it and reacted weirdly enough that at one point she actually said "I am flirting with you!"  I had not realized that.  Her confidence and comfort with the situation were outside my capability to fathom.  (note 3)

We drank beers, and drew on a one dollar bill which I then thumb-tacked to a beam on the ceiling alongside hundreds of others.  (note 4)  She invited me back to her house to hang out and throw darts.  I accepted.

"We should knock over a 7-11 on the way" I said.
"Yeah!" she said.  "Then we can cut each other up and have wild bloody sex!"

We both laughed, but I became fascinated by that imagery and couldn't get it out of my head.  No one had ever said anything like that to me before.  I worried about blood borne pathogens.

We threw darts at her house.  She had some paintings that she was working on, and showed them to me.  She was talented.

"We should hang out in our underwear" she said.
"We totally should" I agreed.  (note 5)

We made out all over the house.  We drank wine and exchanged anecdotes.  We laughed, we shared secrets.  I will never understand why I failed to remove my pants.   I just... didn't do it.  I wanted to.  She told me I should do it.  I just didn't do it.  I cannot explain this. We fell asleep tangled up on the couch.

In the morning, I left.

I never saw her again.



Note 1
Once one of my idiot friends snagged a beer from her tray and threw it off balance.  She almost dropped the whole thing.  I thought she was going to punch him in the face.  It would have been pretty awesome if she had, actually.  He needed a good punch in the face.  He still does, come to think of it.

Note 2
If I do that, I've never noticed it.  She's the only person in my life who ever pointed it out.  I wonder about that.

Note 3
I wonder if it was because she interacted with grown men in a strip club for a living.  I literally just thought of that.

Note 4
Many of the dollar bills say simply "Fuck you".  I've seen a few bars with the same interior decoration, the most interesting if which, in my humble opinion, was the Salty Dog Tavern on the spit in Homer Alaska.  Something about the place endears it to me. 

Note 5
Oftentimes it may not be as brutally obvious as to the exact perfect time during a social interaction at which ones pants ought to be removed.  I enjoy the luxury of that precision in this case.  It was at this exact moment that I should have removed my pants.