(Un)wanted Gift

“What would it be?” shouted the tense bartender so I could hear him after I approached the bar.

“Do you have something special for tonight?” I raised my voice, while I was quickly scanning through the hand-written drink list hanging on the wall.

“Just what’s there,” replied the tall, slim barman and nodded towards the blackboard behind him.

“Eh… wait a moment… hmm… One Moscow mule please.” 

He took a glass from the freezer, put it on the stone slab and reached for the bottle of vodka. I looked around. People of all ages, sizes, shapes, colors and dresses were crammed into this place, chatting dancing, drinking and kissing. Everyone came for the last big party before another lockdown will come on Monday.

The theme was the ‘80s and the every room in the bar, be it small, spacious or dark, was perfectly decorated. Bright colors reflected the stage lights directly into my eyes and hanging reflective swirls hanged from the ceiling were beyond annoying when one was walking. On the other hand, the metallic rainbow fringe curtains, and similarly themed accessories completed the feeling of a different time and place.

“That will be 4.50,” said the bartender.

“Keep the change.”

I returned to my friends. My blue jeans, checked shirt, and denim jacket didn’t draw as much attention as some of their outfits did. Andrew was standing and trying to imitate some unknown, jerky dance moves in his Elvis-like white disco suit.

Michael, sprawled on the seat, dressed in creamy denim overall and a Hawaii shirt, which he obviously borrowed from his father was applauding him.

Mark, who somehow got his hands on golden bag pants and a golden vest without sleeves and black, plastic shutter glasses not only looked outstanding, but was standing next to our table and rising his eyebrows on any girl that walked around.

“So, what’s your plan for today, Mr. safari man?” I mockingly asked John, who came in brown shorts, which were barely covering his butt cheeks, and combined that with a pink shirt with a neckline reaching down to his belly button. “Will you hunt some gazelle here?”

“That’s the plan,” he retorted and gazed into the room. “There are indeed some nice pieces here. Young, energetic, and carefree.”

“Meh…” joined Andrew in the discussion. “You want the older ones. Experienced, those who know what they want and like. There is a reason why they are here and aren’t sitting home with their husbands.”

“Will you two ever change?” I asked in a sarcastic tone, knowing very well that it will never happen.

“Come on, chill a bit. You look quite stressed,” said Michael and tapped me on my back. He raised his glass and yelled: “Cheers you morons! I’m glad that all of us are together, partying, like old times.

“Cheers,” we all joined and raised our glasses. As the glasses hit each other and ringed, Mark added “You old bastards!”

Yep, just like the old times. Like when we were at university, going out to parties every Friday and Saturday. Being wasted, sleeping on a street chair, using the first morning bus to get home, watching the sunrise through the dirty windows of the public transport. Yep, those were good times.

The discussion smoothly slid to the usual topics. Computer games, girlfriends, work. Normal, stereotypical lives, without anything extraordinary. Work, some activity, sleep. Over and over again. And two days for recovery, which are almost always used to blow off some steam or have some variety in the roundabout of daily life.

“Time to dance!” shouted Andrew, stood up, took a few steps, and looked back at us. “Come on you potatoes, it’s party time!”

Mark and John joined him immediately, while I and Michael didn’t even budge.

“Come on, should I kneel down for you two to join us?” asked Andrew with a smirk and came closer.

“Shut it,” I hissed. “You know I hate dancing. I am here only because I wanted to see all of you.”

“Michael?” he asked and extended his hand towards him. “Come on. This is a special night!”

“I am not drunk enough,” he replied and raised his unfinished into the air. “I'll finish this, get a new one and then I’ll join you guys.”

Andrew shook his head. “You two are lost cases. No wonder you are single. You don’t know how to have fun.”

“Yeah, yeah, that’s the reason. Just go dancing,” I retorted, slightly irritated.

“And don’t you dare to come back without some cute girls!” added Michael and winked.

“You bet!” replied Andrew with a huge smile and added: “I’ll be back.”

He put his arms around Mark and John and whispered something to them, while they were walking towards the stage. I glanced after them, in the direction of the dance floor. I enjoyed the view of the tight dresses and the visible, highly nubile bodies, moving in the rhythm of the music. I finished the rest of my drink, slammed the glass cup on the table, while my gaze kept resting on the twisting, attractive bodies.

Life. I would have never thought that it would be so shallow, short, and boring.

My mind started to slowly drift away, partially due to the periodic movements I was observing. My wandering thoughts were suddenly interrupted by Michael.

“Are you ok? You look quite absent-minded,” he asked in his typical, raspy voice. He pointed towards our cups. “I finished as well, you want something?”

“Whatever you drink,” I replied automatically, keeping my sight on the lassies.

“If you say so…” he jiggled, stood up, and left for the bar.

He returned faster than I anticipated and held two half-a-litre huge cups. He sat down, handed me one of those, and smiled. I looked down, trying to guess what kind of drink that was. I don’t remember any drink being served in a beer glass. It had mousse on the top, but the color didn’t belong to wine. It smelled sweet, but not after mead.

“What’s that?” I asked and my suspicion could be clearly heard in my voice.

“Bartender’s surprise,” he replied and raised his hand. “On a good night!”

“Well, as I see this ‘surprise’, rather on a headache-less morning,” I joked, cheered with him, and tasted the unknown liquid.

It was bitter, so there was either tonic, Campari, or something similar in it. I couldn’t recognize the alcohol, but from the taste, it had at least 40%. There was some kind of fruit juice or syrup and ice. A lot of ice. Outside of these few guesses, I had absolutely no idea what I was drinking.

We engaged in a small talk with Michael, going through our personal life issues, followed by work-related problems. Before we could move on, Mark, John, and Andrew returned, with a company of four girls. They laughed together because the guys were talking nonsense and exaggerated events from our past.

They all were dressed thematically as well, wearing mostly bright colors. One had a very short skirt, which matched the pattern of my shirt, combined with a rose-red singlet. Another, which was leaning on Mark, had long jeans with a denim crop top. The third one wore a pink ruffled skirt, pink stockings reaching up to her knees and a black top with a stitched-out sparkling heart.

The last one wasn’t paying much attention to us. Actually, she didn’t even look like she belonged to the other three of them. She had long, straight hair with the color of coal that reached up to her waist. She had high boots, with the laces from the sides and the binding ending in the middle of her thighs. Partially transparent, laced pure black skirt fluently transferred into a leather corset.

I looked at her from the head to the toes and back, absolutely captivated. She noticed me staring like an idiot, adjusted her hair casually, looked away, and kept ignoring me.

“So that’s the one?” asked the smallest one, with the ruffled pink skirt, which had black hair tied into pigtails. She looked like she barely hit the legal age.

“He doesn’t look like you described. I imagined him a bit differently,” noted the one who leaned on Mark.

“What did you tell them?” I asked, slightly irritated. 

“Nothing special,” Mark replied. “Only how you saved my life.”

“That was dozens of years ago,” I retorted. “Not only I already told you hundreds of times that you should stop mentioning it, but it also wasn’t anything special.”

“And if you didn’t, I wouldn’t stand here and have fun with these beautiful girls,” he said and genuine happiness shined in his eyes. “Right Tina?”

“You bet,” she nodded, grasped his arm tightly, and dragged him towards the dancefloor. “Come on, let’s go back.”

“Don’t screw it up you four,” mocked Mark and winked at us, as Tina was dragging him through a crowd of people away.

“So this is Lola,” Andrew started and pointed to a girl dressed in a pink skirt and stockings. She only waved at us and so he continued “and those two next to John are Anita and Emily, respectively.”

Anita was the little one. She grabbed her skirt and shyly greeted us with a “hello,” and a cute smile. Utterly adorable, but quite childish.

Emily was the gothic goddess which caught me gazing at her. Her greeting “yeah, hi,” felt cold, forced, and distant.

She didn’t bother with us and left for the bar right away. John looked at me and Michael and with “I’ll bring you something,” he stood up and went after her.

What a lost chance. I should get up and go after her before he did.

“Is she always like that?” I asked curiously, looking at the two remaining girls.

“Don’t take it personally, she-” Anita started, but Lola interrupted her. “Yes. Always. I have no idea why Tina called her.”

“Would you like to drink something with us? We have ‘bartender’s surprise’,” I pointed towards the huge glasses in front of us.

They looked at each other and exchanged some looks, which I, a man, was unable to comprehend. But it was obvious they were communicating. That female telepathy, where one look could mean a hundred words. And they knew exactly what the other was thinking. I sat there, observed, and patiently waited until they gave me their answer.

“We would like to,” started one and the second continued the sentence “but something more ladylike. Cosmopolitan or pina colada would be good.”

“Your wish is my command,” obligingly said Andrew, stood up and walked towards the bar.

I was left alone with two girls, a situation that doesn’t occur often. I was kind of lost, without any idea what should I do. I would either embarrass myself or embarrass myself.

“So, what did you study?” I asked after an awkward silence.

“Uhm… I finished the law,” said Lola.

“And I managed to complete Philosophy,” Anita joined her.

They didn’t look like they were older than twenty. Both of them. I raised my eyebrow in suspicion. They noticed my gaze.

“We’re older than you think,” noted Anita.

“Oh really? I didn’t notice,” I noted jokingly. “So then enlighten me.”

They looked at each other and started to laugh.”We’re more than three-hundred.”

I laughed with them. “You aren’t over thirty, right?”

They didn’t react to my remark and sat down. I have to admit that after a second look, they looked really attractive. There was something in their deep light blue eyes, which both of them shared. Something captivating, enthralling. One could get lost in them quickly.

“Are you sisters?” I asked after I realized I was gazing at them, probably longer than I should.

“Yes, but not blood-related,” explained Lola.

“Partially blood-related,” corrected her Anita.

“Please,” said Andrew, who returned with two pina coladas’ and handed them to the girls. He left again with “be right back with ours.”

In a minute he came back with four big glasses of ‘bartender’s surprise’ and placed two of them right in front of us. “Did you see John? I bought one for him as well.”

“He’s still not back after he ran after Emily,” explained Michael. “He didn’t return, nor brought any alcohol.”

“Maybe they are dancing like Mark with… hmm…” I totally forgot the name of the girl who dragged him to the dance floor.

“Tina,”  noted Lola. “She loves dancing. But Emily hates it.”

“Whatever, maybe they are talking somewhere,” I continued. “Poor girl. Having to listen to his boasting and cringe stories for hours.”

Michael and Andrew, being already tipsy, laughed. “That’s so true. I can’t stand his stories. They are good if you hear them the first time, but once you hear them for the tenth time, you have enough.”

Mark with Tina or John with Emily didn’t show up for the next hour, during which we talked with Anita and Lola.

“Well, I should go,” I said after checking the clock on my phone. “I would love to catch the last bus.”

“Already? It’s not even midnight! Stay for one more drink.” Andrew tried to convince me. “There is nobody who would wait for you at home.”

“Nah,” I canceled him with a wave of my hand. “I still need to go shopping tomorrow morning. And I wanted to visit the graveyard as I do every other Sunday.”

I could feel how the atmosphere changed after my last sentence. It became heavy and despite the surrounding music, there was silence among us five.

“Well, say ‘hi’ to John from me. And tell Mark that he’s a dick. He will know what I mean,” I smirked, and turned towards the girls. “It was nice to meet you, thank you for a good talk.”

I stood up, went to the dressing room to get my jacket, and towards the elevator leading to the ground floor. As I was standing there, waiting, humming a song, a known voice resounded behind me.

“Do you mind if I join you?”

I turned and saw Anita.

“Which way are you going?” I asked, not realizing her subtle hint.

“Well, I hoped the same way you will go,” she replied and gazed into the floor.

“You live somewhere close?” I asked.

She looked at me with her endlessly deep blue eyes. “No, I don’t.”

That moment it clocked within me. I replayed the conversation in my mind once again. Isn’t she a bit young? But, should I even care? I thought about the last few months. Alone, in the big flat. I looked at her, into those irresistible eyes.

“Then let’s go. Can I call you Ani?”

She nodded.

The night air was cold but fresh. The city was covered in a blanket of mist and all the streetlights were dimmed. We hurried to the station and took a shortcut through an unlit back alley. Somewhere in the middle, Anita suddenly stopped.

“Something happened?” I asked, confused.

“I… I can’t take it anymore,” she said and grabbed me around the neck.

I put my hands around her waist and leaned on the wall. She looked me into my eyes and I felt completely captivated and intoxicated.

She licked my neck and whispered in my ear “you smell so good. I can’t believe I held up until now. The others tried to talk me out of it, but I think I finally found my other half. I will make you mine.”

The way she talked and the tone of her voice gave me chills. Was it a mistake to let her come along?

“Take this as my first gift to you, my bellowed one,” she said a second before her sharp teeth pierced the skin on my neck.