A Meeting

She stood in another part of the club, surrounded by an ellipse of fawning and vying men two or three deep, an island of attraction in a chaotic sea of seekers. Each man, with drink in hand, was posing and displaying his imagined or proven point of attractiveness to women in competition for her attention and favor. There were wit, charm, humor, handsome faces, athletic statures, expensive clothes, intelligence, sensitivity, self-assurance, and money. The whole kit.

She was poised, self-confident and slender enough to make whatever she wore look good. She was quite comfortable playing the role of cynosure in the company of men. She listened, smiled, nodded and laughed delicate, mirthful laughs, all of which served to hide her deep boredom with all of this hopeful flattery and plying.
With a brief sideward glance she caught me watching her and our eyes locked for the shortest of instants.

Now, just moments later, she was leaning gracefully against the barstool next to me and looking directly into my eyes. It was not a flirting look or a piercing, invasive look, but a controlled look of query and study, like a prospector examining yet another hunk of rock for hidden gems.

Still captured by her direct gaze, I heard myself say, rather too indifferently, "If you're looking for a seat, that one's free." Her face relaxed into a pleasant smile that lingered in her eyes and she said, "I don't mind standing." She was interested, but not willing to commit to sitting down just yet.

The magic hold of her look weakened just enough that I finally felt free to turn away and look back into the black depths of the Guinness in my hand. My thinking mind was numbly occupied with the unfocused sight of the beer glass, but my deeper emotional self was struggling to adjust to the situation. My heart beat noticeably under the strain.

"Are you gay?" It was a simple, want-to-know question, not accusative.

"Would that be any business of yours?" I asked back with attempted flatness, but an unintended edge of defensiveness inserted itself. I was still staring into the beer with outward calm, but emotions were churning below the surface.

"It might be." She waited a moment, but continued after seeing that I was not going to react. "Whenever an interesting man treats me cooly, he turns out to be gay."
"Oh, I see. Let me guess. You're the only one in your circle of lady friends that doesn't have the obligatory pet gay guy to speak of, and you're out fishing for one."
She was not offended and even displayed a slight smile of satisfaction, one that I didn't see because my eyes were still hiding in the Guinness. She was quiet, but I knew she was still there.

In earlier days, I was aroused by the beautiful women I met. There was always sex, physically satisfying, but usually impersonal and perfunctory, just a technical procedure for attaining orgasm. And there was embarassment, awkwardness or disinterest afterwards.

Those women were not interesting beyond their bodies and they thought of sex as something that was done to them, or merely for them. Sometimes they were just boring people, used to being fucked and forgotten. But, sadly, they were often women of depth and potential whose sense of self and urge to develop had been distorted or smothered by the roles society or the men in their lives had defined for them. Those women were usually married, covertly very unhappy and often bitter or cynical. I had begun to feel like an unpaid prostitute.

As a shield from women of that sort, I developed an aloof gruffness. The cold shoulder was usually enough to make them leave their drink on the bar and walk away muttering "Jerk", "Asshole" or "Queer" under their breath. Infrequently one of them was not put off by my coldness and stayed. She would take a leisurely sip on her drink, draw on her cigarette or use some other prop to mask her reaction to being rebuffed so unexpectedly. She would see me as a challenge not to back down from. I was now either a potential pride-feeding conquest or a hurt little boy to be saved with ‘mother's kind caring'.

The worst cases, though, were the ones that were both deep and beautiful. They were women who had risen to various heights in society independently of a husband, but still not on their own terms and not solely by their natural competence and drive. They had sacrificed dearly to make it in the man's world. Now, they were out to tease, titilate, humiliate, frustrate, and belittle random men with a vengence. To them I would say something like, "Look, I'm really not enjoying your company." was usually enough to be rid of them, but sometimes it took a crude "Fuck off." Either ploy would cause them to leave with an angry and very audible transfer of blame: "Jerk!", "Asshole!" or "Faggot!"

But now here I was, on third base, and feeling very fearful of the dash for home.
When I turned my head to apologize over my shoulder, I saw that she had not stopped looking at me. Her eyes phase-locked mine again, and unseen lines of force drew me slowly around on the barstool to face her fully. She showed no sign of affront or anger, but chuckled with bemusement instead.

"Sorry. I'm very uncomfortable talking to women of uncommon beauty these days. It's usually ... a bad experience for me."

She leaned toward me and with eyebrows slightly raised said, "Oh, been hurt have we? Wanna compare scars?" It was not a dry attack on self-pity or a mocking taunt, but a gleeful challenge to a competition she felt sure to win. That smile again; it seemed to always involve her eyes, and her eyes could continue to smile, whatever her mouth was doing.

Her words and smile relaxed me and I felt myself smiling with her, entirely at ease, but tinged with the excitement of not knowing what to expect. There had been a transition. I no longer feared her as a spiteful Aphrodite incarnate amusing herself by teasing and tormenting us mortal men. For the first time I was open to her as a person. The contact through our eyes continued unbroken for what could have been many minutes, or only a few seconds. It was not intense or probing, just a comfortable touching in equilibrium, a steady state that felt no need to change as we each adjusted our understanding of the other.

"I wish you weren't so beautiful," I lamented sincerely.

"A problem only if you let it be one. Anyway, that old hack about beauty being in the eye of the holder is completely true, you know, for the kind of beauty that really matters."

Throwing it back to me she said, "But you're quite a work of art yourself. Fair warning, though: if you turn out to be just another hollow Adonis, there will be a quick end."

More timeless, silent touching with the eyes.

"Are you out to break my heart?" I wondered out loud. Or maybe she just read the question on my face.

"No," she said softly and with simple honesty. She then feigned a subtle change in attitude and said, "Well, we can can always keep it simple and just be friends." It was a straight-faced tease, but it disguised the final test. Our hearts were already past this, but the words had to catch up.

I answered truthfully. I knew that anything other than utter honesty at this point would be a moronic mistake. "Uh, no. Definitely not. No sterile love-you-for-your-mind stuff for me. Platonic relationships? Sorry, they're nothing but a sad open lie for the man and a mean vanity for the woman. No, intimacy will come as naturally and surely as the morning sun."

"Yes, as naturally and surely as the morning sun." And after the slightest of pauses, "Only sooner," she added, both surrendering and commanding at the same time.

I had unconsciously slid down from the stool some time ago and was standing with her. We had gradually drawn closer together as we spoke, but I was still surprised to suddenly feel her hand, moist and warm, press gently against the back of my neck, as she raised her chin to kiss me very briefly, with closed lips and closed eyes. I missed her eyes immediately, but I could still see them as my own eyes closed with her kiss. She wore no makeup or fragrance and I could smell her skin and hair and feel their textures. I pulled her tight against me and willed our clothes to melt away.

"Come home with me," she whispered past my cheek.