Customers

"
Both customers sat alone at opposite ends of the bar. There were precious little patrons now. It was near closing time. Before long the aura of the warm companion this place offered would dissipate in favour of a harsher drinking partner: cold, dead night. She glanced at him from across the bar. He sat at one end, a mass of stoic energy, sipping bourban and lighting up a cigarette. She had quit months ago. A little relapse couldn't hurt, though.

"Hey, stranger" she called out from under the neon bar light that, for a brief moment, sketched her silhouette like chalk-outline halo. The tone of her voice was a rehearsed cocktail of sultry and sweet. Too polite to be rude, but too confident to be ignored.

It took a good couple of seconds before the stranger turned his head in her direction; and it was only after he had signalled to the bartender for another drink that he spoke.
"Hello" he intoned, slowly. It was impossible for her to tell what he was thinking.
Maybe he had smiled with a subtlety that bespoke a yearning in his heart. Maybe she saw a glint in his eye that reminded her of a feeling her body had long forgotten. Mabe it was the way his hands were in perfect rhythm with each other, knowing exactly when one mouthful finished and the next cigarette drag began. Whatever it was, she wanted him.

She stood up from her post and approached him, her eyes a mass of contained fire, swirling like a mushroom cloud over a long forgotten Third World city. She was not going to lose out. Failure was not a friend she was willing to get reaquainted with.
"Got a spare smoke?" she half-whispered.
He reached into his pocket, withdrew a silver plated cigarette case. He placed it on the bar between the ashtray and his drink.
"No" he said.
She shot him the look of a stripper presented with coins as payment for a lapdance. The look that says "Do you think I have a coin slot?" The look that she shot any man who attracted and infuriated her so sublimely. The look masking the fact that this was sexy. And he knew it.

When he finally spoke again, his words were at once smooth and gravelly; not a rasp, but a voice with the consistency of tiny pebbles that used to be stones, honed over the years until they were little more than small bumps.
"Are you going to buy me another drink..." He paused for effect, the bastard. "...or do I have to keep giving you the silent treatment?"
She couldn't remember the last time a man had spoken to her like that. She also couldn't remember it being so visceral.
"All right, stranger. But the next one's your shout" she replied, cautiously.
"We'll see."

From now on the conversation was tinted by opera. Even though the music playing in the joint was probably FM rock, she could hear an Aria. Or, at least, what she thought opera sounded like. Surely not something grand, like the Final Trio from Faust. This encounter wasn't that special and she wasn't that smart.

She could only guess at what he was hearing.

When they spoke, she talked nonsense, mostly. Cabbages and kings, past lives. Whatever. The conversation wasn't important. He probably wasn't listening anyway. He didn't speak often or for long, but through the gruffness she thought she could see something. She wasn't sure what it was, but she wanted - more now than ever - the chance to find out. She cocked her head to one side.
"So, are you going to flirt at the bar all night or are you coming with me?"
He took in the final drag of his cigarette and looked her up and down.
"I'm afraid not. I don't do dames with brown eyes", he said, as he exhaled. The smoke escaping his mouth made it seem as though his words were smoldering.

And with that he stood up, collected his jacket and walked out of the joint. Maybe he winked slyly, too. Maybe he hadn't heard her call after him, "But, they're not..." She couldn't be sure.

Sometime in the future she would pretend that she had left first. She would play that version of the movie in her head enough times to forget the truth. But at this moment, in the slow burning aftermath of her quietly crushing defeat, she knew she was beaten. And that was enough.

"