She gets asked one annoying question every now and then; When are you getting a man. It hurts whenever that happens at funerals and family functions. Others think that it must be due to her sinful past or, sinful pasts of her ancestors. She agrees not with any of it. She knows that making it in the business world these days requires one to be fully focused on tasks at hand or she may find herself twiddling her thumbs at home--doing absolutely nothing.
Lately, her life has been sour like an open wound. Every date left her wondering what wrong he may have done to them. But again, she remembered how city guys likes an easy lay. They even like boiled eggs! She remembered with a smile on her face whilst sipping straight from a beer bottle mouth. A trait which most likely, according to one of her closest friends, had to do with her being single.
At first she was a happy man-eater who chowed men's meat and their purses alive. She left most of them in their wake. And thought she would never be found out. It was not like she could not afford to spoil herself. It was just that, her money had to be kept safe for times when she got to have an accident. . Her closest friend told others and soon thereafter there was no more a secret or many of them. Three soon became a crowd and she hid herself behind books or beer bottles. It all depended on how she felt at any moment.
She thought having a man sparingly was as safe as having money in her ballooning bank account. She hated her friends and spent time alone scouring internet dating sites. Spending money uselessly trying to fill the void burning her chest alive. 'Me man-eater?' she'd protest to her friends between beer sips when her life was exciting, when she had a man, when she drank no beer by herself.
Forgotten, she started counting dates on her ringless, left index. Counted dates of her haters on her fingers and realised how never loved in this she had been. She counted; 'January First, Valentines Day, Good Friday, August Ninth, September Twenty Fourth, December Sixteenth, December Twenty Fifth,my birth day December Twenty Eighth.'
She was drunk, sitting on a bar-stool and staring at the barman-- afraid to ask him out on a date. She had been to the bar for four straight weeks and was slowly warming herself into the hearts of regulars. They had now found herself a new friend.
She had no other plan for the night and acted like she was passing out after she realised that the bar was nearing close. It was now her, the bar tender holding her tenderly to his car.
'Where do you stay miss?' he asks her in a husky voice for which she found romantic.
‘Two blocks from here,’ she replies.
The smell of her perfume tilted his nostrils like Casino machine
slots. And thoughts ran wild in his mind; ‘will she agree if I dared asked her
some?’
‘So who are you with?’ he asks her.
‘I’m lone and I find it hard to eat,’ she
replies. Some days, like tonight, I pass
out because I drink
my sorrows on an empty stomach, away.’
It’s a shame that in a big city like ours there are
still unsatisfied, single women like you.’
‘People always judge the book by it’s cover and
think that it’s due to I thinking highly of myself that
I end up being single.’
‘They don’t know what they’re talking about. Where’s
your car?’
‘I don’t have any and came here by a taxi.’
‘Will you mind be taken out on a date?”
‘No, not exactly. When will that be?’
‘I’m not sure. I just think that a woman like you
deserves to have more fun times than heartache moments. I can hear by the sound
of your voice that you’ve seen worst days.’
‘Me, no, never. It’s just that I’m unable to cope
when the night falls.’
‘I too am unable to. When the night falls I hide
behind a bar counter and I wonder how it
would be like if I got to lose my job.’
“Don’t dwell too much on that. When’s the date?”
‘Tomorrow morning at the club. Three ay am sharp!’
‘You must be out of your mind.’
‘Where else should a six days a week patron take his
date out at?’
‘At a restaurant or a hotel not his place of work.’
‘I was starting out on your first week at our club.’
‘So you always had eyes on me?’
‘Yeah. I’ve just lost my girlfriend to a long
sickness. We were a young couple hoping to
make our own family soon.’
‘I too would like to have a family of my own sooner
rather than later. I’m not getting
any young and thinking of it, I’ve been travelling wrong paths in this world. That’s why
whenever things gets harder, I find myself drinking
myself to death.’
‘I’m glad that you’ve found your feet quicker than
my ex. She died of alcohol related illness.
I see you as no replacement of a woman I’d ever been
with and I hope that you see me
in that fashion too.’
‘Yes, I do. I
too am tired of having nothing to brag about to my exes.’
His eyes pop out.
‘I mean my girlfriends my love not my boyfriends.’
‘Uh, that’s what I wanted to hear. I’m tired of
dating women who want quick fixings to their
emotional well-beings. ‘I’m trying to forget how empty my ex left my soul.
I love you.’
‘I was about to ask you just that. We women need
insurance and you can’t just be with me
without telling me how you feel. I think it’s now
time to go to my house.’
‘Yeah. Let’s go.’
He put a key into his truck’s ignition and off they
went.
