7. Cali #2
"Then it would be rude of me not to contribute." He raises two fingers at the bartender, who comes trotting over immediately. "Another of whatever she's having. And a whiskey, neat."
The bartender nods and hurries off.
In another world, I'm annoyed about his persistence.
He didn't really take no for an answer. But there's something about the way he does it that isn't pushy, exactly.
It's more like he's decided he enjoys talking to me and he'd like that to continue, and he's confident enough that he assumes I might enjoy it, too.
I don't hate that.
"You don't seem like the type to drink alone," I blurt suddenly.
He turns to face me fully. "What type do I seem like?"
"The type who has plenty of people who want to drink with him."
"I do," he confirms. "I find it exhausting."
"And strange women at bars are less exhausting?"
"This one is, so far."
The drinks come. He picks up his whiskey and tilts it toward me in a toast, just slightly. I tap my martini glass against it.
"To bad years for those who've wronged us," he says. "May they all die in horrible, painful ways."
I laugh. "Amen to that."
We drink. The martini is crisp and cool, every bit as dirty as the bartender promised it would be. I feel giddy already, high on impulsive decisions and tipsy off the first sip of liquor I've had in a long, long while. The Starving for Santorini days have never felt farther away.
"There's only one problem with that toast, though," I inform the stranger.
He eyes me curiously. "Not a fan of painful deaths?"
"It's not that. It's that, in my experience, if all those who wronged women died, the world would run out of men in a hurry."
To my surprise, he laughs. It's a rich, pleasant laugh, deep and sonorous, and it makes me flush with pride. Something tells me he doesn't laugh very often. I like that I'm the one who coaxed it out of him.
"Ah," he hums, "so painful deaths are fine. It's men that you're not a fan of."
I nod in agreement. "Men are pieces of shit."
I'm sure there are plenty of uber-masculine supporters of the patriarchy in here who would take this opportunity to lecture me about how men are the backbone of civilization and we'd all be driving hover cars and living in eternal paradise if women didn't insist on mucking things up all the time.
Luckily, this guy isn't one of them. He just nods, very seriously, and says, "Yes. We are."
"I mean it," I insist. "Every single one of you. You're all just—you take and you take and you lie and you take some more, and then when you've taken everything, you look at the woman who gave it to you and you decide she's the problem."
He raises one hand. "You'll get no argument from me."
"You're agreeing with me too easily." I squint at him. "It's suspicious."
"I'm agreeing with you," he says, "because I've spent my entire career around cowardly men, and I've come to know exactly what they're capable of." He swirls the whiskey in his glass and frowns down at it. "For instance, you wouldn't believe the sad excuse for a man who came into my office today."
"Try me."
He considers, then seems to think better of whatever he was going to say. "Let's just say I met a fool who wanted things he had no right to want. And he was very proud of wanting them."
I almost shiver at the tone of his voice. It's distaste, but it's not just distaste. There's this sort of violent disgust underneath the surface. Funny enough, it matches the thing I've got living in my own chest these days.
I like him. I decide that, right then.
Not in a way that's going anywhere. But I do like him.
"You know what's funny," I say. "You're standing here agreeing with me that men are garbage. But you are a man."
"I am indeed."
"So." I turn on my stool to face him fully and prop my chin in my hand. "Defend your species, sir. Are you a piece of shit like the rest of them?"
I'm half-teasing. It's the kind of thing you can only say to a stranger, the kind of bold, dangerous thing that feels good when you've got a fishbowl of vodka in you and a dangerous dress, all at the expense of a husband at home you've already decided to destroy.
It's also exactly the kind of edgy, vaguely risqué banter that has defined this whole conversation.
But I'm somewhat taken aback when it doesn't draw a fast, witty reply from this man. Actually, the whole vibe downshifts. It's a subtle change, but undeniable.
His eyes darken.
His smile dims.
His hand on the back of the stool next to me slips off and tucks into his pocket, out of sight.
"That depends," he says slowly, "on your definition."
"Oh, c'mon," I needle, suddenly a little uncomfortable and wishing we could go back to the fun whiplash chatter from a moment ago. "That's a coward's answer."
"No. It's an honest one." He looks at me, and those eyes that don't quite smile are boring right into me now, steady and dark. "I'm certainly not a good man. I want to be very clear about that, so you don't go home thinking you spent your evening talking to one."
A shiver runs down my exposed spine. "Oh?"
"No." He runs a sensual finger around the rim of his whiskey glass. "But I'm not like the man in my office today. Not like your husband, either, whatever he's done."
"How do you know what he's done?"
"I don't. But I know that look on a woman's face. I've seen it before." He takes a slow sip of his drink and lets it linger on his tongue a moment before swallowing. "What I'm telling you is that whatever kind of bad you think I might be, you've got it wrong."
"Alright then, I'll bite. What kind of bad are you?"
He smiles then, but it's a cold smile, ice-cold, freezing cold.
"You couldn't dream me up if you tried, kotyonok," he says. "I'm bad in ways you've never even imagined. Ways that have nothing to do with lying to a woman or breaking her heart. Whatever your husband is, he's a child playing at being a villain. I assure you, I am not."
Something happens in my body that I refuse to dignify with the word desire.
It's more like a full-system glitch. My stomach drops as if the elevator cable's been cut, and somewhere lower, a traitorous flutter starts up that I haven't felt in years.
My instincts can't agree on a plan. Half of me is screaming run, you absolute lunatic, grab your purse and run.
The other half is doing something far more humiliating, something that involves the floor and my knees and a question I am not going to ask myself in a public lounge.
Thank God I'm not interested in men anymore.
Truly. Thank God. It's the only clean way out of what suddenly feels like a very unnerving situation.
"Well," I say through a tight throat, lifting my glass. "At least you're upfront about it."
"It costs me nothing to be honest with you," he says. "I'll never see you again."
"No," I agree. "You won't."
I look away, cheeks flushed. "Thank you for the second drink I didn't have," I tell him.
He nods solemnly. "It was my pleasure," he says. "If we ever do cross paths again, I'll even buy you a third."
"Good thing we won't then." I slide off the stool and grab my purse. I'm done with this evening, though I'm not totally sure if I got what I came for or not. "For the record," I say just before I go, "you're still a piece of shit. You said so yourself."
"I did," he agrees. "And you're still married."
"Technically."
"To technicalities," he echoes, and tips his glass to me one last time.
I walk out of the lounge into the night air, feeling better than I have in weeks. It's freedom surging through my veins. For so long, Todd had me worried that if he didn't love me or desire me, no one would. But that isn't true, is it?
It isn't that no one will ever want me again. That man in there just proved the opposite. It's that, from now on, I get to decide the who, what, when, where, and if I let anyone take me to bed.
I'm in control of my life now.
Not men.
Me.