A sexual object walked into a bar. The bartender said, “What’ll you have?” - his look said I bet I know what’ll you have. The sexual object, used to such looks, asked for a glass of white wine. It arrived, already frosting with dew to the line of a generous pour, pale green-gold. She laid a twenty on the bar. The barkeep let it ride.
A man nearby observed the whole thing. At a casual glance, he had already made a complete inventory of her clothes off and form underneath: 8.7, he awarded her. Points 1.2 off for the clothes, which weren’t much. A dreamgirl. She’ll do. He turned away. He had no use for such wh*res. Their eyes had briefly met half-way. She’d read about half of his disdain. It was enough. A familiar pain throbbed once, like a long needle always lodged between her ribs, only occasionally disturbed. She sipped. The wine was good.
The needle was quelled. She drew a long, slow pull from the glass past her angelic pout as the bartender, through the mirror, discreetly swallowed his drool.
At some point, “Would you like another?”
Her eyes met the bartender’s. His eyes said he’d misjudged her, but not whether he continued to do so. Her voice wove low, musically atonal like a distant party, “No thank you. It’s really good.” She smiled. The whole room suddenly weighed less than an ounce.
The bartender returned with her change, and palmed the twenty. He’d had a roguish grin, as if each of them held a torn half of some secret. His grin said she’d misjudged him, and it was okay if she continued doing so. She left with somehow, a lighter head. Her hat!
Had been swept off by the wind. She frowned out of social obligation, but it broke smiling. Clouds overhead were drawn in rents of tattered gray-rose rags, and the wind wanted to carry her towards her stop. Her skirt leapt like a kite and she calmed it back down. No one was on the street at all. No one to trace her gaze aloft, tracking her hat’s triumphant rise, or to see her sad wise smile. She had been lightened, she felt it in each step. Maybe not everyone sees me like the ones who speak always seem to? A puzzled frown returned, but it was a puzzle she was no longer tired of. Ah, wine, she wished. If only you’d always be such a friend!
Back in the bar, back of the bar all this time sat another man. A very different man. Me. He was like, “Howcome she gets to be the sex object? What am I, chopped liver?” He slid to his feet and cocked his stance, ogling himself with a contemptuous up n’ down. Not bad. A dreamboy. 10 on a fifteen scale, easy! I’d KILL to be objectified! Or maybe it takes suicide? An “object” for sure, then. Poor we humans, making so much of this corpse we tart up in drag as a living thing, starving for what isn’t food, dying of what isn’t thirst. Is there no hope for us? Or is there hope?
I turned on one heel and went straight for the bathroom. There was a gaping, empty socket in there. Well, I had just the lightbulb.
I fumbled a bit clumsily in the dark, felt the thread snick its groove and slide tightening ’til snug, then I snapped my fingers and flicked the switch. Success.
“YOU, good sir, are the only one it takes for that job.”
On the way out (washed my hands) I met a lawyer or something.
