It Had Been Years (22 page)

When she returned Vincent was sitting in the front row of the large empty suite exactly in front of the spot
Nadrea
had just moments before been positioned behind and peering over during their interlude.  “I’ve never fucked like that before” she said kissing him delicately.  A kiss she intended as a genuine sign of affection rather than one with other erotic intentions.  This was a nonexistent gesture in her world.

“I know” Vincent responded with his ever present laugh followed by “Prudish librarian, called it right when I met you.”  

Nadrea
began again “No! I’ve been…”

“Fucked from behind” he interrupted “I certainly hope so, you’re over 18.” 

Nadrea
for once ignored his interruptions and spoke again “That’s not what I meant.  I meant I’ve never”

Vincent cuts her off again “…Been taken in front of a stadium full of people and possibly on national TV.”  He concluded.

“Well yes and”
Nadrea
said growing impatient “so slow and deliberately”

Vincent was uncomfortable with where the conversation was heading… it was heading toward genuine emotion. He decide to
make light of the situation as the conversation was becoming intense and serious both things he was not in the mood for replied with.  “Told you, you prudish, sexually repressed librarian.  For me I do this at every at home game.  Why do think every one left?” 

Nadrea
was not sure if he was kidding or not again she was not the jealous type after all but she suddenly cared about whether or not this was the first time he had someone like that in this specific space. 
Her defenses rising.

“So Steve must really hate it on the weekends you don’t have a date!”  She quipped back at him partly out of defense and partly because she didn’t want to know the truth.  She preferred to instead live in denial.  Normally she would have only cared about getting off and she had certainly done that, but she wasn’t feeling quite normal, for a reason she had not yet determined she wasn’t feeling at all herself.  Sitting next to him, Vincent responded with an overly hearty laugh to her jab at him “Steve’s nowhere near as good as you were.”  As silence fell on the conversation with the roar of the stadium as background noise.  She smiled to herself knowing that she was the first he had in that situation; in the way they had just shared together. “Besides you have much nicer legs and he looks really dumb in a dress.”

Steve and Samantha were the first to arrive, both still in dressed in their game day apparel, regaling each other with the stories of the day, telling each with passion and pride.  Each following the others tale with great anticipation, waiting for the next words, like a favorite bedtime story that everyone hearing it knows the ending, but the characters and stories stand the test of time.  Next to arrive was Christy she was not about to be late a second time today.  So while Steve and Samantha were at one end of the bar Christy positioned herself alone at the other end in her navy slacks, ecru white blouse and demure weekday office appropriate make up.  Two drinking beer in jeans, another seemingly total stranger at the other end dressed like she was on her way to work drinking a $12.00 glass of Chardonnay.  As Christy sat alone her friend Beth came along to join in the evening. 
“C.Y.”
Beth shouted ecstatically as she crossed the room with the grace and dignity of a Kappa
Kappa
Prude sorority girl and fake insincere hugs were exchanged.

“I had dinner with Satan” Christy quietly exclaimed. 

“Really was he cute?”  Beth inquired. 

Christy said in hushed tone fearing the minions of hell might hear her speak.  “No, I literally had dinner with the Devil of DC”  she said refusing to speak his name as if it were something so sinfully unholy she would be damned for merely uttering it. 

Beth’s body stiffened, her face grew rigid and pale.  “Really?” pausing but Christy just waited for Beth to continue. “And why?”  She couldn’t conceive of a reason in the entire universe to be in his presence.  Smiling back at her Christy replied in her best catty but nonchalant tone “To find out Robert’s fucking some slut.” Christy continued to explain still mystified by the fact that a man could have such banal and primitive disgusting needs. 

“Whores have a place too.”  Beth sympathized but in the same breath couldn’t resist asking “What was he really like?” 

“Odd and measured.
  He spoke in riddles and painted a picture in the air with his words that wouldn’t make any sense until later” she paused to catch her breath and then began explaining the entire twenty three interlude. 

Beth laughed “So he quotes the King James Bible as a direct set up.  As a way of telling you Robert has a new hole.”  Beth imagining a whore like girl in her early to mid twenty’s dressed in a mixture of Hollister and Abercrombie & Fitch.  Christy returns the laugh with a giggle but then something struck her a man
maybe
seen in public with a tawdry little play thing but most would have enough sense to not bring a passing interlude of questionable reputation to lunch with his peers, his friends and their partners.

“Is she either one of them?” Beth asked only half
joking,
directing Christy’s glance in the direction of a small table with two twenty something’s at it who were looking seemingly mindlessly out at the street.  One was in a painted on pair of low cut pair of jeans a faded Abercrombie top unbuttoned as much as provincial law would allow and a pair of Do Me Sandals if such a thing exists, her hair hiding her face like a young Veronica Lake.  The other in a Pink Baby Doll T and pants that looked like she had stolen them from Robert Plant in the early seventies and a tattered pair of flip flops that revealed that were light pink matching the T shirt perfectly, but she had added little dark pink polka dots. 

In a room full of strangers these two were again
unique,
the two at the far end of the bar were still lost in the day’s events still dressed as the fans of the local sports team nursing their beers.  Two formal professional types one sipping her wine the other waiting for Fume Blanc to arrive.  The younger pair of women at the table
were
simply enjoying a life that had not yet caught up with
them, guzzling Margarita’s with
out a care in the world. 

Yes the term “Bar Scene” conjures up so many different images of pick up artists and flesh factories, the image of a smoky back room deals, of scheming and power plays.  It may provoke images of hopeless people drowning their sorrows, commiserating with “friends” who have little more in common with each other than the libations before them.  In addition to the six described here and a room fool of other people who were little more to each other than the window dressing at that particular moment in life.  The bar scene was not at all unlike so many others, the difference between Steve and Sam, Christy and Beth and of course Tiffany and
Steph
were all as varied and troubled, as the characters in the bar scene in the first star wars movie when in walks Han Solo.

Vincent walked into the restaurant, dressed just as before.
 
He chats with the hostess who just smiles and giggles as she is quite beguiled by him.
 
He passed by tables in the bar saying hello to anyone who was daring enough to make eye contact with him and even a few who aren’t.
 
He greeted Sam by wrapping his arms around her from the side, shoulder down, hips squared, and legs cocked. Tackling her into the bar, Vincent was a physical guy.
 
He was a product of his heritage, a hug here, a kiss there, and if you were part of his inner circle you occasional got mock tackled, especially during football season.
 
As Samantha found herself jolted against the bar she secretly wished it was sexually un-inclined Steve rather than her large overly scented cousin.
 

“Flowers!
You smell like flowers.”
 
Vince stated with a tone filled with mixed surprise and disgust.
 

“I’m a girl, asshole,”
 
Samantha replied thinking Vince really hadn’t changed much since he was ten.
 

Laughing “Really, your asshole smells like flowers?
 
Must come from your mother’s side.”
  He continued.
 

“No it’s my entire body that smells like flowers asshole.
 
Soft, sweet flowers.”
 

Vince gagged “Fucking gross Sammy, you’re my cousin”
 
but
before he continued Samantha interrupted.
 

“Not some slut.
 
If I get a bruise
..”

But now it was Vincent’s turn to interrupt “…
Stevey
can kiss it and make it better.”
 

Meanwhile at the other end of the bar the two would be DC power players, at least that’s how they imagined themselves, were discussing the “Neanderthals” at the far end of the bar quipping about how next he was going to hit her over the head and drag the blue collar woman back to his cave of an apartment.
 

Looks can be deceiving, Vincent’s media room was bigger than Beth’s apartment and the closet at Samantha’s small place was bigger than Christy’s bedroom bathroom and closet put
together.
 
Steve on the other hand, well he collected pens and adding devices.
 
Looks aren’t always deceiving.

“Oh look the little slut likes Neanderthals man” Christy spoke in her best conceded bitch tone.
 
Vincent’s ever present laugh could be heard from the far end of the bar, its carefree sound filled the room.
 

“Of course I remember you.
 
I have a thing for milk maids.”
 
He said when approached by Tiffany, his persistent laugh not wavering.
 
Vincent loved life, he had fun everywhere he could and several places that he shouldn’t.
 
“
Oohh
, aging blue collar has some competition.”
 
Christy just couldn’t help herself.
 
While at the far end Samantha was gracious and her genuine nature enjoyed meeting the pair.
 

“Pink Taco.”
Vincent said to no one in particular while Tiff was still hugging him.
 
Heaving her chest
Steph
replied.
 
“Do you like it?”
 
It was a playful and sexually aware tone and cadence that the women at the other end of the bar would have thought to be mindless and dumb.
 
Steph
in fact was neither, she was in fact quite calculating.
 

Vincent not one to miss a chance to walk on the wrong side of the line “I love pink taco.”
 
Pausing “I had a little earlier today” he said with his devils grin once again emerging

“You can never have too much”, she played back.
 
He was still grinning, and Tiff’s arms were around his neck

“I agree and the restaurant isn’t bad either.” And with that Vincent stood, but Tiff just held on her arms clinging around his neck.
 
She was dangling like an overly developed Lolita smiling and laughing like a kid on a ride as she hung from his tree trunk of a neck her chest pushing into Vincent’s.
 

“Barbells?”
 
Again Vincent was speaking in no particular direction, but glancing downward as he felt the metal balls against his chest.
 
Steve in his own aloof little intellectual numeric world answered, “No, just cardio today.”