I work a non-descript office job where I am tied to a desk from nine to five each day and am reachable by phone and email the rest of the week. It is easy work and I don’t mind it, but at the end of the day I go home feeling dead. My girlfriend of six years moved out over a year ago with no warning and I haven’t been able to figure out how to get back into the dating scene. I have a few friends, whom I couldn’t live without, but they are in the same daily grind as the rest of my generation so we don’t do much more than game online together.

At this point in the story there is typically some sort of description of my character, so be it. I am average height, an athletic build without being all muscle-ly kind of guy in my late twenties. My hair is unkempt, beard is stubbly and under my button up shirt I am as hairy as a freaking monkey. Doesn’t get any less hairy under my belt. I’m something like 5 inches down and something like 8 up; where it all hides, I haven’t a clue. I have been mistaken for everyone’s brother, cousin, friend of so-and-so, and so forth (face wise, not dick wise) having spent most of my formative years blending in to the point where I no longer know how to stand out. Makes it kind of hard to pick up chicks.

On a random Wednesday, midway through fall before weather became a factor, I got the urge to stop by a bar on my way home from work. I say urge, but really, I didn’t have anything in my fridge but condiments. It was a dive bar, dark, sparsely populated, no fancy drinks, no loud music, a broken arcade machine and a dart board without its darts. In a word, perfect. And so was the bartender, or barista, whatever.
Slim little vixen, long deep-red hair, well curved with apple sized breasts. Low cut shirt to show them off, tight jeans to show off a magnificent ass. I made a note to come back to this bar when I didn’t feel like I’d been run over.

She was looking at me funny, she must have said hello and asked what I wanted. Crap, I didn’t hear. “Whatever you recommend on tap; lager, the darker the better.” Winging it.

She smiled and I almost fell out of my seat. Thankfully she had already turned her back and was pouring something black into a glass. When she handed it back to me she smiled again and I quickly said thank you while getting to work on the beer before my blushing could become obvious. Her smile turned knowing but she went back to work tending to a group at the other end of the bar that must have been regulars as they chatted a while.

“My name is Lisa by the way”. Damn it, I’d been somewhere else and that incredible smile almost made me fall off my stool, again. I introduced myself, offering my hand as I realized the regulars had left and my beer was fuller than I had thought. Lisa firmly took my hand and shook it; she must use moisturizer or something, feels like silk. I mentally shake myself out of it, she’s asking another question.

“Do you need another? If not I can close out, it looks like it’s going to be an early night.” I look around and realize I am all that’s left. Wednesdays. I hope it’s still Wednesday. “No” I say adding that I’d rather not keep her if she was really waiting on just me.

That smile again, she said okay and rang me up. I’d had quite a bit. I downed the last of what I had in front of me and attempted to make my exit. The floor shifted funny and I stumbled. Food, I hadn’t eaten. Glad I used the tram rather than bothering with a car.

“Wait!” I spun around, another mistake. “Are you going to be alright getting home?” She was expressing legitimate concern. My mind raced, “No”, damn it, wrong word. Play it cool, “I’ll manage though.” Smooth.

“If you hang on another minute, I can give you a lift, where do you live?”

“South, 35th and Wright.” And now she knows where I live.

“Oh, the nice part of town!”

“A street over from it, and they keep up a big fence.”

She is laughing too easily.