her story

he dressed himself in blue that night. a blue tweed jacket, over a checkered blue shirt, which lay under a blue tie with scattered bamboo leaves as decoration. all this because she mentioned once that the color suited him.

when she saw him she thought, he looks like he robbed his clothes off a trendy smurf. but she told him he looked nice, since she was hungry and broke, and because she felt his lust for her was great enough that any kind of insult would damage him. and she wasn't a bad person -- she was just hungry and broke.

the way she figured, she wasn't doing anything wrong. obviously he liked her (even i could see that, from way over here), and being able to spend time with someone he really liked for an insignificant portion of his paycheck was a favor, if anything. sure this was the fourth dinner, and he'd sent her flowers earlier in the week and bought her a cashmere scarf yesterday (it's currently wrapped around her neck), but she never asked for any of those things. some people find pleasure in giving. she'd give too, if she wasn't so hungry and broke.

but she wouldn't sleep with him, no. he wasn't bad looking or anything like that, but he was alarmingly passive, which bothered her. and he had these small, creepy hands. whenever he put his hand on her back (which was all he'd dared to do physically) she thought of the time she slow-danced with her nephew at her sister's second wedding. that was the kind of impression he left -- that of a nephew. definitely not a lover.

the dinner went similarly to their previous three, mostly in silence, with the air of awkwardness only relieved by the sporadic visits made by their waitress. the lighting inside the restaurant seemed to make his blue outfit luminate, and with their table situated next to a giant aquarium, all she saw was a floating head whenever she looked to her right.

the meal went by uneventfully, but it was when the server brought them their dessert that she saw his eyes follow the waitress back to the kitchen. he'd been doing it all night, but she had been too busy staring at the floating head. she felt indignant. why would he stare at the waitress when he had a more attractive woman sitting right in front of him?

she reached across the table with her left hand and gently stroked with two fingers the back of his small, creepy appendage. "you think she's pretty?" she asked with a coquettish smirk.

he looked up from his cake and gave no reply.

"i'm prettier than her, right?" she pressed the back of his hand a little harder to indicate she wanted a response.

that was when he blurted out, "i'll give you a thousand dollars to sleep with me tonight."

**********

a thousand dollars is a lot of money, she thought. but i can't say yes! i'll seem like such a...like such a...

her thoughts trailed away as she heard him speak.

"i don't mean to offend you, and you can say no if you want. but you're obviously not with me because you like me. let's stop fucking around. i've spent more than that on you already. what's the difference?"

to this, she had nothing to say. she said nothing as she wrapped her scarf around her neck, nothing as she left the restaurant with a full stomach, nothing as she realized she was short on her rent for the month. and after fifteen minutes of silence, when her mouth finally began to form words again, what came out was, "i'm gonna need the money first."

and just like that, the matter was settled.