Wednesday, January 2, 2013

Day 2 - Love Story

Love Story
Matthew Ryan Fischer

      “Are you an Alien?”
      She smiled, but shook her head.  
      “Why?  Do you want to be probed?” she asked playfully, lightly pushing against him.
      Evan wasn’t sure what was going on here.  He was at a house party and was talking to a lovely twenty-something red-haired female who had gorgeous light auburn freckles on her cheeks and nose.  He was clearly taking part in some silly game, but for the life of him, he couldn’t remember how it started or what he was trying to solve.
      “Are you a Nazi?”
      She frowned and looked highly disturbed by this.  Obviously not the right question, Evan thought to himself.
      “I don’t think you understand this game.”
      “I don’t think you understand this game.”  Evan’s head was swimming.  He had started drinking way too early and had had way too many beers by this point.  He wasn’t sure what time it was but he knew it was probably too early to be this drunk and too late to do anything about it.
      “That’s your best response?”
      Not good, Evan told himself.  He knew he was losing her.  He just couldn’t put it together.  But he knew he had to try harder.  But no single part of him was in the mood to help here – his mind was fogging over, his words were nearly slurred and he was pretty sure he was going to lose his vision next.  Now was not the time to panic.  Now was not the time to black out.  Now was the time to rise above and be better than he had been in a long long time.
      “Was that your best response?”  Jesus, he was doing it again – just repeating what she said and hoping that if he said it with a sardonic twist, it would constitute flirtation.
      He reached out and touched her arm.  She did not pull away.  That is a good sign, he thought.  He could still tell that much.  It wasn’t much, but it was a start.
      “Start over, start over.  Let’s start over, but you ask me.  How about that?”  She nodded.  Okay, he thought, this should at least give me a chance.
      “Are you a vampire?”
      “What?  No.”
      “A Werewolf?”
      “Why would I be a vampire or a werewolf?”
      “I don’t know.  They’re both romantic.”
      “They kill people.”
      “I don’t mean those types of vampires—“
      “You mean the ones that take their shirts off and run around half naked on TV and in the movies.”
      “Well yeah.  Why would I want to hook up with somebody that was just going to rip my head off or drink my blood?”
      Hook up.  The words rolled around in his alcohol infused mind and finally began to sink in.  She had said hook up.  The game became clearer now.  They weren’t playing some silly guessing game, they were figuring out a fantasy.  An excuse.  Just something interesting and playful enough to allow the other to fill in the blanks, imagine the other was somehow the answer, and allow themselves to go home with the other at the end of the night.
      “Well, I’ve always found a little biting to be a good thing,” he quipped. 
      “Yeah…” she stared at him for a little too long.  She let her hand brush against his arm.  She bit her lip is a sexy pouting sort of way.  “…me too.”
      There it was. In a moment of clarity, he was back on track.
      He just wished he could remember her name.

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