Tying The Knot

It was one of those nights at the bar, which started with a meeting up in the sunshine, as it shone hard through the neon beer signs and door slats of late afternoon.  We'd gather and talk about a book, sometimes we'd talk so much it seemed it could go on forever, but other times, we goofed off, and just make dirty jokes about each other, about the words at their play, and drank steadily.  Often one of us would disappear, the others run home to change or eat or feed a pet, and then the evening matches would begin.  

On this night, I was wearing my red and white polka dot dress. The one which slit far too much up the right side of my thigh. Luckily, the side facing the door.  I loved this feeling of community power, in the sense that I never gave myself away to too many people in the chit chat, swapping of bedfellows and general gossip of the neighborhood.  But I had earned my place here, survived, endured and from what I could tell people always remembered me, but couldn't think of anything bad to say, which is the way I liked it.  I was sitting there, at the end of the bar, talking to one of the many bartenders I knew and enjoyed.  We were all friends here, even when secretly we knew they couldn't pour a drink properly, or they didn't offer up a buy back like we felt they should. 
 

I was in between companions and friends at that moment, and you had disappeared after the afternoon as you usually did, living only 5 or so doors down the block.  You and I were always in between something or other, and our legendary "fights" at the bar seemed to entertain our fellow locals some.  The breakdown, as always, was the same.  You said lewd things, which disagreed with my lewd things, and I encouraged you more and more, grabbing your cheek and squeezing, or pulling your hair.  Me threatening you to stop saying what you might be saying, all while you smiled a big mischievous grin, and laughed, low, like a little boy jabbing at a caterpillar in the road.  It would drift back and forth, from talks about physics and literature to my mother and how you knew just what she felt like on the inside---hit, pull, smile, angry laugh.  I can't even now blame you for not taking my anger seriously, since I'd be grabbing your hair and I could feel my face wincing and widening, as the rest of me did, and could only imagine how big my fucking grin must have been.  Surely, it would have been an understatement to say that my grin fared so far reaching that you could have bore witness through the sunshine in its slats to my cunt, far below, practically about to jump from the bar stool I could barely keep her perched upon.  

Those nights the people talked about, they usually then included a standing encore, you and I, up from our chairs, me kicking at you far too slowly, and you always catching my leg and holding it up, just enough that you could peek up and through my stockings and dress.  I think you remembered that day one of my girl friends had slapped my ass in jest, and as I turned away, you followed suit but with the thunder of such perfect force, I stopped, put my drink down and turned back around to you, diverted my eyes to the crowd of females and asked "who DID that?"  Then looked to you knowingly, you safe in your hearty grin and satisfied eyes, as you said "I did.  It was Magnificent".

All this informed me, as I sat at the front corner of the bar, legs crossed so the slit climbed as high as it could, practically to my hips, with my slowly approaching watered down whiskey, in between conversations and friends.  Then you came in, as you always did, as if it was the first time that day.  I could always tell if you were making a night of it, or doing your special #1, which was the Budweiser drank in under 5 minutes, the half conversation or two around the faces of the bar you tried so hard to impress, and the leap into my airspace, to gaze, to frolic, to anger, or share some private tidbit of information that you had piled up somewhere, in one of your back rooms, the ones I would have enjoyed being kidnapped to on occasion, which bound you and I together.  Something about a book you found, a website about a topic I enjoyed, and how you would lend or email or send it to me, somehow.  There was always the promise of communication to come, with you.  

This night, there was that, and you had obviously gotten drunker in between reading books with us and coming back.  You noticed my dress most definitely, and picked up the ends of the long white ribbon strings, which tied in a small bow at my chest and hung down far too long, past my hips, and onto my thighs.  You talked about knowing how to tie knots, and I could see in your eyes you knew how much I enjoyed that sort of talk.  You took my hands gently, and slowly tied them into a perfect naval knot, which had them stuck together ideally, and neatly.  I sat there for a moment or two, as you quietly sipped your beer and watched me smile.  I then asked you, against my better nature, if you were able to untie it.  You did, with some chagrin, and then in a flash you were gone again, one of your many french exits, some of which used to make me so angry I would text you the most vicious of defensive retorts.  It didn't feel like me talking; you somehow brought out these things in me, or saw them and fixated just to the point of retreat.  You didn't always retreat, and those nights you didn't were quite magnificent, indeed.  But we could never ever really get past That, could we, and we both tended to always end up alone, finding each other in the variant tones of our meanings of pleasure.  

You disappeared again that night over a summer ago, I re-entered my conversations with refined hands which knew they had been brought together by yours, received a free drink, drank it and went home, erratic reverberations of you always in my dreams.

~ M. Lucia