After your first drink, that guy is no longer by your side. Not because he left you, but because you left him. And you didn't like him anyway - too much after shave and too many sharp smiles and... you just didn't give a damn anyway.
After your third drink, that guy is just a faint memory. Not because you were looking to lose him, but you never had him - or, to be more precise, he never had you to begin with. You've been untouchable all evening, long before he realized and moved on to some young thing further down the bar.
He must be ten years older than that girl. And you must be older now, too. And you don't know why you are here - in this club, with songs you don't know pounding away at your head like a jack-hammer - but here you are.
Here you are, Spencer Carlin, dancing with yourself.
/ /
"Hey."
"Hello."
"What are you drinking?"
"At this moment in time, water."
"Water?"
"Yep. Pretty lame, I am sure..."
"Uh... no, course not... um, would you like another or something?"
"...Nope. I'm good."
The girl leans against the edge of the bar and Spencer watches her - admires the mixture of real swagger and false bravado, likes the strong lines of the girl's face, remembers a time when her own body bounced back from long nights like this one.
And of all the people that might have decided, sober or not so sober, to hit on her... well, Spencer didn't expect it to be some girl who barely looked old enough to be in this place.
"Want to get out of here?"
The girl tilts forward, in Spencer's space and still far away - separated by sounds and faces and the shadows of this midnight kind of world - and the girl looks so intent, so sure, so ready for something intangible.
And Spencer should say 'no'. And Spencer should leave this club, go home and sleep it all off.
"Yea. I'd like that."
/ /
Seventeen but looking like any girl in her twenties, jeans that flare at the bottom and ride low at the hip, a white tank-top and waves of chestnut hair that likes to flutter in the breeze coming off the tide - and Spencer must be drunk after all.
"Why here?"
"Why not? You didn't seem to be having a good time back there."
"Do you like that place?"
"I don't know. Sometimes."
"Sometimes?"
"Sometimes..."
Twenty-six but looking like any just-out-of-college girl, broken in denim with decorative tears and a black belt, button-down of blue and sleeves rolled up and blonde hair like a lengthy halo - and Spencer sees herself in this girl's gaze.
And she looks brand new.
"Why me?"
"I've never seen a pretty girl look so bored before."
And you both chuckle and you both smile and you both get closer without meaning to.
/ /
She touches your arm and lingers. She lingers and it causes your lungs to constrict, to hold oxygen, then it all releases like a sigh.
Oh, she wears the lack of virginity well. And you wonder if it is just a tall-tale in order to reel you in. And you wonder why you even pretend to care one way or the other, because you let her hand stay there and you let her hand slide slowly upward and you let her hand cradle your neck and then your jaw.
"May I kiss you?"
And you can't refuse something asked for so politely, can you?
/ /
Old rum and something refreshing, like the bite of lemon, and salt from the sea - these are kisses recently born.
Spencer allows them both the chance to stop, if they want. Or to continue, if they so choose.
Her tongue caresses, bottom lip to the corner and then inside the heat and then back out again, but this girl only goes so far - accepting the intrusion with a naive groan, grip firmly at ten-and-two - and maybe it was all a front anyway.
Spencer doesn't mind, though.
For tonight, she'll be the wise one who loses control and this girl can be the nighttime bloom.
"Let's go."
"...What?"
"Sand is never a good idea."
And the girl laughs into Spencer's mouth. And Spencer grins, arm wrapped rather securely about a warm waist.
"Okay."
/ /
She looks at your pictures and you peel off your clothes. She looks at your books and you lock all the doors. She looks around your kitchen and you turn out the lights.
By the time you reach her, kissing the back of her neck, you imagine all the assumptions she might be making - about you, about your life, about tonight and your hands upon her.
You'd do the same in her shoes.
You are the older one here, the one with a life and a job and friends and bills and all that adult shit. She's the one who can still go home after this moment is done, tucked in and parents down the hall. She's the one with everything still ahead of her.
"Hey."
"Hello."
"Don't drift off just yet..."
She is teasing you and there's that girl - the one who picked you up and asked to touch their lips to yours - and maybe it is all true.
Maybe she is exactly as she appears to be.
/ /
It's not fucking, not totally, though there are moments of just that. Raw and animalistic, the fever of grinding down hard and not caring if there is discomfort - the two of you do that, too.
But there is more and Spencer recognizes it as soon as her tired head hits the pillow and this girl hooks a leg over hers - it is being comfortable.
Worn leather shoes. Broken-in pants. Listening to the ocean. An itch getting scratched...
...Spencer feels these things.
And with a girl. A young girl.
"Who are you?" Spencer asks in a whisper, not expecting an answer.
But, of course, she gets one.
"Ashley."
She rolls the name around before saying it. And she thinks of sixties go-go boots and Nancy Sinatra and money and bubblegum and a million other things... silly and stupid things... frightening and inevitable things...
And soon the sun will rise. And she'll push the curtains back. And all the strobe lights, all the alcohol haze, all the shadows will recede and there will be this girl in her bed - long limbed and nimble of finger.
Or not. Maybe Ashley will not be there at all, just an imprint on sheets and nothing more.
But the thigh is warm and real and Spencer likes being held like this, after good sex and small conversation... she likes sharing her bed with this girl, right or wrong, she likes this girl.
This Ashley.
/ /
You close your eyes and stroke her back.
You wait to see what the new day might bring.
And a stranger's breathing lulls you to a world of crazy dreaming and wishful thinking, a realm of beaches and beauty, of youthful abandon and ancient longings.
Here you are, Spencer Carlin... here you are.
/ / / / / /
END