Right, so the girl had disappeared. No problem. Girls come and go all the time. Fish in the sea. So what? There was no point looking for her. If she’d decided to do a runner, that was her decision. For whatever reason. Nothing much anyone could do about it. I certainly wasn’t going to run after her and try to “win her back.” No chance. Not me.
If she ever turned up again, we’d see what happened. But she’d be the one crawling back to me. If I was in the mood. Yip, that was the way to handle this. Put it all behind me, and move on. Preferably as soon as humanly possible. And everybody knows that the best way to get over a woman is to find another woman. Or to get horribly drunk. Or all of the above, in no particular order.
So the drinking part was well underway. And there were a couple of likely candidates right in front of me, with obviously nothing better to do on a Monday afternoon than entertain good-looking young headbangers. Should I? Shouldn’t I?
I’d managed to drink away the worst of the previous night’s hangover, along with whatever it was that my ex had given me. Rehydrated, it was time to offload some of the excess liquid. Rehydrated, but certainly not feeling my normal carefree self. Must have been acid in that cap, I thought to myself as I swung my feet off the chair and swiveled away from the dancefloor. Always got this nasty aggressiveness when I came down from an acid trip. Like the rest of the world was there just to annoy me. And who’s to say that wasn’t true?
They were certainly in the way as I sauntered to the bar. All I wanted was to get my hands on another beer. Not much to ask. And these bastards were deliberately standing in my way. But hey… I’m a nice guy. I try to avoid trouble when at all possible. Especially when cute little gnomes ask me to behave myself. So I squeezed in between an old fart who was chatting up an even older hooker, and some shriveled stick insect who seemed to be either dead or asleep, and I managed to attract the barman’s attention by giving him The Stare. He saw the empty bottle in my hand, and had a new one in front of me before I had a chance to wave it at him.
Not bad service. He was probably in cahoots with the gnome.
I raised the bottle to my lips for a quick swig before heading for the restrooms, but it wasn’t to be. The old fart (not the dead one, the other one) chose that moment to jerk backwards in his chair with what sounded like a whoop of laughter. Beer spilled over my face, pouring onto my clean shirt and even my colours. Not a drop reaching my mouth.
While I looked down in horror, he half turned on his barstool and waved at me. Then he turned back to his professional companion and laughed again, shrugging and using the moment to place a sweaty hand on her wrinkled knee.
The room suddenly receded on all sides, everyone in the bar vanishing from my sphere of consciousness. There were only me and him left in the world. And, hazily, the woman at the end of his arm. But she was merely a blur as time slowed and blood started to pound in my ears. I could feel each heartbeat, distinct and separate from the others, blotting out all other sounds.
This was it. The final humiliation. I’d been chased. I’d been drugged. I’d been dumped. I’d woken with a hangover. And now I’d had beer poured over me. My own beer, at that. The line had just been crossed.
Extract from Burning Roses, a decadent tale of sex, drugs, rock n roll & magick. Available from www.amazon.com/author/burning
Also now available from Walmart, of all places… https://www.walmart.com/ip/Burning-Roses-eBook/213541267
Till next time. Cheers.
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