Heat of the Moment

At my desk, working, I can look out the window to my left and see my favorite bar. It’s the drunken version of propinquity.

During the work week, I start drinking early, arriving across the street just after 4 and leaving around 6, and, for that reason, it’s usually just me and the barkeep, the curved counter separating us. For a couple of days last week, however, there was another customer down the bar from us, saying nothing to me and leaving the premises both times after only her second drink.

On Friday, I worked my way over to her. Doris, as it turns out. And, oh, that girl looked nice.

We talked (She had one extra drink.) and by the time she was ready to leave, I wanted to see her again. She said she would see me the next time we were in the bar together, that it was nice to meet me. I insisted, however, on something more formal. We agreed to meet the following Friday, one week later, at Armadillos, down the street. Best menu in town, I assured her.

When the day came, I left for her at 6:30 p.m., a short walk to the restaurant, well ahead of the date at 7. I passed the downtown gazebo and noticed a dejected man on a bench in front of the confederate soldier statue, wearing a Texas A & M hoodie, twirling the strands of his hoodie’s pull cords. “Rough day,” I asked him but he did not respond.

I continued walking, taking my seat at Armadillos a few moments later as Marianne put a Shiner Premium in front of me. Knowing I had a long night of drinking in front of me, I started taking baby sips. Doris made me wait until 7:15. I had the chopped steak; she had the Oysters Rockefeller.

After dinner, we walked back down the street to Haligan’s, the one across the street. I was not particularly charming but I was focused and we were, eventually, flirty and drunk. She let my hand work its way up and down her left leg, soft and waiting under her torn jeans. Then, at my suggestion, we left the bar area and walked to the outside patio.

After some more chatting, we started making out on the patio, my hands moving up and down her hips as she leaned against the back fence, wood, appropriately enough. Her eyes were on the patio door, mine were on the world beyond her head, beyond the fence. Beyond the fence was a parking lot and the back door of a restaurant. Beyond my back, her point of view, was the inside of the bar and, further, across the street, my office. I disentangled myself from her, took a step back and suggested we go across the street.

“Why,” she asked me.

I stopped, stunned at the question for no apparent reason.

“Are you enjoying the evening,” I countered, a question with a question.

She put her hands around my neck, slightly looking up at me.

A patron walked out to smoke on the patio, unlit cigarette in his hand, the door closing behind my back.

“I am,” she confessed.

“I have enjoyed tonight’s every moment with you,” I countered, my voice deeper than usual. Think Barry White. She looked at me with no expression and broke her clasp around my neck. She looked at the dude now lighting up that cigarette behind my back, then, slipping away from me to the left, walked past me and inside as I looked over the fence to the outside world. As the door closed behind Doris, I turned around, cigarette guy inhaled and blew out a puff of smoke. It looked like he had not shaved or showered in a few days. I looked at him and he moved his hand toward the door, like a stage manager, smoke tracing the outstretched fingers of his right hand as he pulled the cigarette back in for another inhale. Follow the girl, the remnant of his smoke said.

I took the hint.

As I opened the door from the patio to the inside, I saw Doris walking toward the front door. Once there, at the front door, by the complimentary water bottles in a grey bucket, she stopped, her back to the room, looking out the front window to the street. Walking toward her, I passed the bar, telling Chloe, “Keep it open.”

I caught up to Doris, put my arm around her waist and asked, “Are we doing this?” I could see my office window.

She thought for half a minute and said, “Sure,” but she did not look at me.

We walked across the street in silence.

We got to the exterior door of my building. I unlocked it and we went inside, stood there for a second: we would go down the side hall, then take a left down the darkened main hallway, then another left and we would be at my door—but something seemed off.

Before going further, I asked, “Are you sure about this?” The kiss she gave me in the semi-lit hallway assured me that, yes, she was sure about this.

We finished the short walk-around to my office, I unlocked and I let her in, locking the office door behind us, dropping my keys on the floor, not turning on the light. We walked to the area in my office between the green couch and my desk. If you were a peeping Tom, you could see the desk through the window, even with the lights off, the street light illuminating its corner.

We could go either way, the couch or the desk. I was fine either way.

She moved her ass against the edge of the desk, dropping her things on the desk behind her. I grabbed her by the hips and moved her body off the desk, as if we were dancing, and, turning us around, I leaned my ass against the desk. She tiptoed, leaning over me, kissed me. My clumsy hand hit the mouse and my Mac lit up behind me. I grabbed her by the hips and turned her back around, her ass back against the desk. I leaned into her, opened her mouth with my mouth and my hands picked up where they had left off when we were making out on the patio at Haligan’s. I forced my tongue into her mouth and I heard her say, “no.” I pressed her torso against the edge of my desk, the Mac silently judging us.

I positioned my body tightly against hers and let my left hand fall to the small of her back, forcing her hips into mine until she said, “no.” I leaned my chest away, looking at her face, keeping our lower bodies together and bringing my right hand up, touching the side of her face. God, she was beautiful. I moved my hands down the front of her pants, leaning my upper body on her upper torso now, kissing her, searching for the top button of her jeans from the inside seam, my fingers in between the skin of her abdomen and the fabric of her pants.

“God damn it,” she said, pushing my chest away from her. I lost my balance and fell backwards onto the couch, looking up at her, unsure. “How many fucking times do I have to fucking say ‘no,’ asshole,” she yelled, her voice rising on each word.

I blinked and tried to stand up. “Don’t bother,” she said, starting to gather her keys and purse from the desk behind her.

I stood, watching her walk to my office door.

“Let me walk you to your car,” I said to her back, her left hand on the office door knob. She stopped, twisted her body, turned around to face me.

“Why,” she demanded, opening the door, trying to make a decision. That DAMN question again.

I hesitated, blinked, tried to figure out why I offered to walk her to her car. The evening was clearly over. She could figure out how to get out.

I was the one who had asked her out. She was in this situation because of me. There are are a lot of creepy motherfuckers in downtown Sendera. There were rapes, unwanted fondling, threatening moments. Had I just become one of them?

“To protect you,” I answered her after a beat.

She laughed. I looked at her. She laughed again and finished opening the door.

“Really,” she asked.

My head was spinning. The room softened in a scary way, her features sharpening as I looked at her standing at my open door, some light now coming in from the hallway. Her expression was clear, even in the shadows, as if we were face to face.

I stood, away from her, in between the couch and desk.

“You,” she said, “you’re going to protect me from what?”

I wanted to tell her about the predators but she pointed at me.

“From you,” she asked, finishing the scene. (I thought we were friends.)

We looked at each other. I was ready to let her walk to her car by herself.

After a moment, she walked back across the room, joining me between the couch and the desk, my Mac dark now. She put her hands on my shoulders. She said, “Walk me to my car,” and then she took her hands off my shoulders. Without saying a word or doing so physically, I said “OK.” She took my left hand in her left hand and walked me to my door. I retrieved my keys from the floor, locked the door on our way out. She led me to the exterior door. We walked out; I locked the exterior door, head still spinning, still confused.

We are in the open; I am standing outside the door to her car, passenger side, the side near the sidewalk, hidden from the bar, hidden from the street. My back is to her car, to Haligan’s; she is looking at her car, my office behind her back, the bar behind mine. She is directly in front of me; we are less than a foot apart. I am ready to walk her around the front of her car to the driver’s side, ready to apologize, when she put her hands on my shoulders again and said, “Give me a good night kiss.”

It seemed like a reasonable request.

Ready to confess my confusion, she suddenly shoved my chest backwards onto the passenger side window of her car and violated my mouth with her tongue. She stopped for a moment and fixed me, like adjusting a picture frame against a wall, to the door of her car. She resumed kissing me. It felt good. She unbuttoned my pants, unzipped me and slid her hands down my underwear. She did not lose the kiss.

“Do you want me to stop,” she asked me, her eyes half closed, her voice husky. My answer did not matter but as she found her way to a slow rhythm, no, I did not want her to stop.

Eventually, the inevitable happened and she stopped the stroking movement inside my jeans, saying only, “Gross,” as she laughed and smiled at me, her eyes sparkling. She took her hands out and wrapped them around my lower back, wiping her hands on the undershirt inside the back of my untucked button-down shirt.

She put her hands by her side and said, “Zip up,” which I did. Buttoned up the top button, too, for good measure.

“Are you having a good time,” she asked me.

A breeze blew her hair over the front of her face and she did not brush it away with her still-tainted hands. The door opened to the bar behind us, letting out music and two female voices, one of which was laughing.

“I am,” I confessed as she put her hands in my pockets, twisting her hands around inside my pants pockets. She wiped the remnants off inside my pockets and brought her hands to my nose. “You’re gross,” she said, “aren’t you?”

“A pig,” I said.

She laughed and brushed her wind-blown hair from her face. “Oh, Sam,” she said. I could clearly see her brown eyes.

She took my hands in hers and forcibly changed our positions, roles switched. It was her turn to lean against the side of her car.

“ I need to go,” I said, looking at her from the sidewalk. “It’s late.”

“The fuck,” she said, taking my hand and placing it upon her breast, leaning into me, away from the car, lips on lips. I thought she was going to attack my mouth again when she said, “Favor for a favor,” looking down at her midriff, my palm still welcome on her breast.

“Isn’t this,” I stopped, not knowing what I was thinking, much less asking.

She moved my hand off her breast and looked down at the pavement between us. We stood in silence for a moment, hand in hand.

“Look,” she said at last, looking up, “you don’t have to be Neil Armstrong. Just, “ she hesitated, “just follow my lead.”

“Okay,” she asked. “Don’t shove your hands down my pants,” she concluded, “it's really pretty simple.” Then her soft lips were upon mine; she was pulling me onto her body, there beside her car, and she was guiding my hand, over her pants, between her legs.

“Take your time,” she said.

I did.

I did everything she asked me to do until she pulled away from me, smiling.

“You going home,” she asked me, a line of sweat beading up just above her brow in the humid South Texas air.

“Yea,” I answered. “It’s almost one.”

“K,” she said and started walking around to the driver side of her car. She automatically unlocked the door. I looked at her from the sidewalk.

Over the roof of her car, she glanced at me and said, “Good night.”

She cut the engine on, got in and slid the passenger side window down automatically. “Sam, “ she said, “don’t think about this. Don’t call me. Go home.” The window went back up. Swish. I could not see her face when she drove off, leaving nothing between me and the bar.

I did as I was told.