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From: "Larry Trask" Ok, so I go on this excellent bike ride and I take a shower and everything. I'm feeling good and, I think, looking good. And up until the ride, I had been feeling just a bit pathetic for having played video poker for about a thousand hours in a row (and for fake money, too! Hahaha! Oh, man), so this was a nice change. I head on over to Barclay's. We went there once, if you remember it. The bar is all the way in the back of the room and then to the right as you face the bar are the boards. I believe you enjoyed a Liberty Ale there, among other tasty brews. I get there, but it kind of sucks because some Xer kids are all over the boards and that side of the bar. I sit down at the other end and have a draft while watching the Giants game. I finish that draft and get half way through another before the jerks finally leave and I can get my darts on. Now I'm having fun because I'm shooting pretty well and the beers are tasting good and they're playing good music in the bar. So this is all great, but I wish I were playing darts *with* someone. See, I'm putting the darts just about anywhere I want them to go on the board, so I really want an opponent to destroy. Why waste these kind of darts just on my self? There's this old fat loudmouth guy in there I recognize from past Barclay's adventures. I hate the guy but he plays darts, so I was thinking about asking him if he was up for a game. As it turns out, an even better opponent arrived. I saw this girl when I first got to the bar. She was sitting with a couple of other people at one of the outside tables when I walked in. I thought, "hey, she's pretty cu...oh, FUCK! Look at all those Xer kids at the board. DAMNIT!" Anyway, as I was standing there considering asking jerk face to get slaughtered at darts, she sidles over to my end of the bar and pulls up a stool. So I take a few more shots and I notice that she's watching me. That actually made me pretty nervous, because, after you pull your darts out of the board, you have to turn around and face her to get back to the line (unless you back up, which I considered doing). Of course, I'd try to get in a sly glimpse to see if she was looking at me, and she would catch me every time. But that also meant that, yes, she *was* looking at me. So we had that thing going on. I couldn't really concentrate on the game, so I started just half-mindedly throwing at bulls, and on one shot I hit a double-bull, single-bull and wired the third just outside. "Oooo, good one!" she excitedly exclaimed. Now, I'm pretty smooth, so I don't need more of an opening than that. I lay this line on her: "Oh, thanks." And I resume playing darts. FUUUUCK. You're an IDIOT! "Oh, thanks", and then just turn your back to her and continue playing? What are you doing? These and other thoughts were going through my mind at this point. I throw a couple more times, wondering if I can get a handgun this late at night because I figure jumping from a tall place would just be too painful. And then this: "Lemme try." YES! And it went from there. Erica (not, I'm sure, her real name) and I started playing darts and, after some initial very awkward moments, started chatting. Erica's a nice kid. She's small, probably 5'2" or 3" at the most with really tightly curled blonde hair (though later I learned that she bleaches it or something). I mean really curly, all over her head. It was cute. Cute face, too, and nice smile. She was very fair skinned and looked to have a decent body, though not much by way of breasts, which I don't really care. She's pretty dressed up with these black pants on that barely extend to the area known as "the waist" and a fairly clingy top, though, as I say, she's probably not getting as much mileage out of that as some other girls might. All in all, even if she's probably not going to get a modeling contract, she's certainly doing it for me. So we're playing along and chatting, mostly about nothing. At one point I was telling her about my dart history; you know, playing in DC, starting a league in Key West, not playing so much in California (all the while thinking "she doesn't want to hear about your fucking *dart history* man!"). We talk about events of the day, the Middle East, people with loud motorcycles, whether pigeons are the rats of the air, or rats are the pigeons of the ground, and we did quite a bit of talking (and LOLing) about The Simpsons. She's a big fan. This is all going just great. I'm funny and charming as all get out, she's pretty funny too and seems reasonably smart and not a psycho or anything. And she's starting to touch me every now and again. Puts her hand on my arm to emphasize a point, gives me a pat/rub on the back to congratulate me on a good shot, and kind of slides her hand along my upper thigh almost touching my butt as I passed her once. You have to like that. The only thing that's slightly less than perfect is that she gets quiet and somewhat evasive every time I ask her anything about herself. As long as we're talking about bullshit, she's chatty, but let me ask her about her life, and she clams up. I say at one point, "do you live in the Rockridge area," and she says, "no. No, I live somewhere else." Full stop. I say, "so do you go to school at Cal, or are you out in the working world," and she says, "well, I kinda take some classes." And then that's it. So that's a little weird, but, to be honest with you, it wasn't really bothering me that much at the time. After four games or so, and two drafts each, we're taking a little break from the competition, sitting at the bar. This is when I make my move. "I was going to grab a bite at The Rockridge Cafe. You up for some dinner?" (You see what I mean when I say I'm smooth.) Big smile, looking right into my eyes, "yeah, that would be great". Oh man. It. Is. On. We're walking down College Avenue and there's a big crowd of people blocking the sidewalk (why do people do this? Jesus, have *some* awareness that you're not the ONLY ONE LIVING ON THIS PLANET!), and I put my hand softly on the small of her back, you know, to kind of guide her through the crowd. When we emerge from the mass of people, do I remove my hand? No. This is what I do: I turn it into a hand around her waist! Whoa, nice move! But she doesn't really respond, so I'm a little worried about it. To ease the tension and make it a playful kind of thing, I pull her towards me so she bangs into me. Then she put *her* arm around *my* waist! I'm loving this but also pretty nervous, so I'm happy when we get to the restaurant and I can remove my arm to open the door for her. So we ordered dinner and wine and I guess we talked about some stuff and I suppose we ate our meals, but, for the life of me, I can't remember a bit of it. All I can remember is this internal conversation: "Man, it's on! Dude, she totally likes you. There's no question about it. She's having dinner with you, walking arm-in-arm, laughing at your jokes. You have to kiss her when you get out of the restaurant. How should I do that? What can I do to get her in position without being obvious? Should I walk and talk for a bit, or just go for it? Wait! Where are we going after this? If I suggest another bar, she'll think, er, know that I'm an alcoholic. How about coffee? People have coffee. But why wouldn't we just have coffee here, then? Ice cream? Maybe suggest some ice cream?" And, omg, a million other things. Why don't I just relax? It would be so much better, but no, I have to get all worked up about everything. Finally, finally, finally the bill comes (which *I* pick up -- smooth!), and we get outside the restaurant. We're continuing a conversation from inside, so we walk a block or so -- hands to ourselves -- talking. She stops to look in the window of a Capezio store, and I get up next to her and put my arm back around her waist. This was a good idea. She looks in the window for a second longer, then straightens up, twists in my arm so she's facing me, and looks up at me, smiling. I have a finely developed sense of the female psyche, so I was able to pick up on her subtle hint that, if I wanted to kiss her, the pot odds were in my favor that she'd let me. So I kissed her. And she kissed me, and I kissed her, and she kissed me, and...well, there was quite a bit of kissing. Along with some (tastefully discreet) groping. Even a guy like me is feeling pretty confident at this point, so I say, "I'll make a deal with you: If you give me a ride home, I can offer you...ah, well, actually not too much. I'm a little low on supplies. I have water! I can offer you a nice refreshing glass of spring water!". "Deal," she said, and grabbed my hand and off we went to her car. The drive home was...nice. Lots of leg touching and more kissing at the red lights. Up the stairs into my place and I'm like, "well, let me get you that glass of wat..." and she's pretty much all over me. And then...well, I know you're a bit squeamish about these things, and I'm really not one to kiss and tell, so let's just say that some brains were fucked out over the course of the next two hours. She was a wild one. Then we lay around for a bit, both of us, I think I can say, feeling pretty good. "Well, I really should be going. It's getting late," says Erica. "You can stay if you want. I'd love that," is my response, but she doesn't want. And she also doesn't want, I'm guessing, to ever see me again. There wasn't a whole lot said about the issue directly. She did not want my phone number, she did say that (but in a nice way), and I never did ask her for hers. I got a nice kiss at the door and she was off. My guess? She's unhappy with her boyfriend or (I hope this isn't it) husband for whatever reason, and she wanted to fuck someone else. Either to see what it would be like to be with someone else, or to get back at him, or something. I mean, "meeting" her was the easiest thing in the world. She came to that bar to go home with someone and fuck him, and I just happened to be that guy. I got lucky in the truest sense of the word. Let's see, then I wrote my column, and played some video poker, and...well, you probably aren't interested in the rest. |