OPi8.com :: Word

I was that woman you saw in Penn station that night you were returning home to your safe little suburban world from the big bad seductive city. I was just another temptation for you that evening, like the third glass of whiskey set in front of you as images of your wife and child played in your head while you waited with increasing drunkenness for your train to be called. And I was trying to tempt so many others, me with my animal print spandex and long curly black hair. I was on the arm of some generic businessman in the bar just off the main concourse. Surely you remember me, your sudden desire, your jealousy of the man in the cheap polyester suit whose arms I clung to in hopes of steadying myself as I wobbled through the crowd to the johns in the back of the busy bar...

Frankie, that was the man's name, he was just another rush hour blow job after a few too many drinks, his cellphone number was copied off of my hand for me by some mousy little girl smoking cigarettes quietly in the corner observing, judging. I knew that as soon as his train was called, I'd lose this phone number like so many others given to me before. His face, his numbers, even his cheap suit were meaningless and nothing to me. Even now as I write, his features are fading into the shadows in my mind. All that mattered to me is his heat, and that much is gone.

I didn't care that you knew why we were heading to the bathrooms together. I didn't care when you saw me come out more disheveled than before, still teetering awkwardly on far too high heels. The only thing that unnerved me was that girl with the pen and paper in the corner. The way she looked at me as she copied Frankie's # from my shaky and unstable hand into her pad, ripping the page out and pressing it firmly into my palm as if to show she knew that it would never stay where I put it. What right did that girl have to see me and Frankie right after I made him come in my mouth with his hands in my hair?

Why didn't you come over and rescue me, give in to your temptation, and allow me the few minute's bliss our clumsy pawing in the bathrooms would afford me. A train was called, it wasn't mine so I stayed and watched the rush of movement as masses of people ran for the platform. When a few minutes later the great surge subsided, Frankie, you, and even that girl with the pen and paper were gone.

Me, I never move from this bar stool at the end of the bar. If you're looking for me, that's where I'll be collecting phone numbers and bits of glamour I hope to trade in someday for hope.