I approach the bar with some trepidation; it has been years since I have been on a date. Due to a recent string of mysterious events I ended up on a semi-blind date with somebody I had met on the internet. The world of online dating wasn't new to me; I had used it before to help crack the case of the mysterious OKCupid Killer, although this time I wasn't seeing it through the objective lens of a criminal profiler but of the sort of embarrassed, sort of curious, sort of desperate subjective lens of a single male living in the city.
With my legs freshly shaved and the new clothes I was wearing brushing against my body like the wings of a moth, I felt like a new person. Not just new; different. I was a strong, independent man with my own life. As I pushed open the doors of the bar I decided that whatever was to happen on this date, it didn't change that fact. It was just a bit of fun, right? On the other hand I could be walking into destiny; to meet the future mother of my ten or so children who would cradle my dying body in a lethal skiing accident. I saw her waiting at the bar. She was a lot shorter than her profile said she was. As I neared I began to smell the furniture polish that would continue to dominate the olfactory senses for the rest of the night.
"Hello." I said, leaning my head slightly as I appeared into her view. She turned to me and smiled.
"Hi." she said. We introduced ourselves. She offered to buy me a drink, but I declined. We went and sat by a table by the window and began to talk, though within five minutes our conversation was drowned out by nineties RnB. After a strained conversation she suggested we go to another bar down the street, a bit quieter.
"So, what do you do then?" I asked her eventually.
"I'm between jobs at the moment, heh. You?"
"I'm a journalist." I say. She'd started to buy me drinks, the Peach Schnapps cocktails were slightly sickly sweet and not doing my empty stomach any favours.
"Oh right, like Nicholas Parsons?" she said.
"Uh...yeah." I said.
For the most part she talked throughout the night, of her love of football and previous relationships she had, now and then making what I imagine were meant to be flirtatious comments though she came across as a bit creepy. Nevertheless, she kept buying me drinks and before long I was feeling quite drunk and after returning from the bathroom and waiting for her to put her phone down, I couldn't help but begin to flirt back. When we left that bar her hand 'accidentally' brushed across my rock hard chest, although neither of us acknowledged it.
"I think I'll go home now." I said, looking around for a taxi.
"Yeah, it's getting late huh?" she said. I nodded and watched as she flagged down a black cab. We rode in silence, although even through the drunken haze I began to panic slightly. She hadn't given the driver her address. I should have gotten dropped off outside a shop or something. But before I could find a way out we were outside my flat. She paid the driver and looked around.
"So, it was nice meeting you." I said, smiling at her.
"Do you mind if I come in for coffee?" she said. I paused. Did she just mean coffee? Or more? She had been buying me drinks all night, surely I could make her a brew, thank her and let her leave.
She entered my flat and looked around. She seemed out of place. An intruder.
"What's that? That's mad that." she said, pointing at a framed print on the wall.
"Judith beheading Holofernes. It's by Caravaggio." I said.
"Who?"
"He's an artist. Did you say you wanted coffee?" I said, going to the kitchen. She followed me and had her hands on my hips.
"I don't need a coffee." she said, voice low. I turned around, her face was inches away from mine. The smell of furniture polish was overpowering.
"Oh." I said. She leant in for a kiss, I couldn't help but reciprocate. She was eager, at one point our teeth rubbed together like the twisting of a pearl necklace. She took a few steps back and lifted up her dress, revealing herself and looking at me expectantly. I shook my head slowly and climbed onto the kitchen counter.
She left soon after, leaving me to sit alone in my flat with a herbal infusion and Radio 6 playing in the background. There was a chime from my phone, another e-mail from the dating site. I looked out of my window and sighed. Why did I live in this dumb robot future instead of the golden days of house phones and dance halls? I rolled up a trouser leg and began to tattoo a daisy chain around my calf.
