“If you see her, say hello, she might be in Tangier”
I was outside on the balcony smoking a cigarette with a Corona in my other hand. Behind me loud music was playing: Nirvana - “Smells Like Teen Spirit”. Outside, on the street, people were hurrying home or to a bar or to wherever people go after work on a Friday night. A girl standing on the other end of the balcony noticed me and started walking toward me. I immediately recognised her. She was the girl whose drink I spilt when we bumped into each other earlier. Well, it was all her fault, but I still bought her a new drink.
“Let’s have one of those conversations” she said when she finally reached me through the crowd of drunk-as-fuck middle aged men in suits. Walking on narrow balconies through drunks with cigarettes in their hands can be pretty dangerous.
“What kind?”
“Well, you know. The kind where I don’t tell you what my name is, you don’t tell me yours, we talk about something meaningful, leave each other with something to think about and never see each other again.”
“What makes you feel we’re not gonna bump into each other again in some other place?”
“We’re not. I’m leaving tomorrow. Are you in?”
“Fuck yes, I’m in!”
She let out a small giggle. She also smelled nice. And by nice I mean she smelled exactly like the only girl I have ever loved. I don’t know whether it’s shampoo, perfume, body odours or whatever, but girls who smell like that, like her - I can’t resist them. It might be the memories, it might be that the smell takes me back to my happiest years, it might also be the fact that it’s the best smell I have ever smelt.
She looked nothing like my old ex. She looked good though, she was a very pretty girl despite the fact that I don’t usually go for short haired girls. In fact, she was like a little white angel; a rebelling white angel with tattoos on her arms and one going up her hip. By “white” I mean her dress - she was wearing a white dress. Not to be racist or anything, but I’ve never seen a black (as in African-American) angel ever in my life; not that I’ve seen real angels..
“Can I borrow a lighter?” she asked. I fiddled around my pockets and found the little yellow fucker at the very bottom of my right pocket under my keys and a pile of change. I lit the lighter, she got closer with her cigarette in her mouth. Fuck, she smelled nice.
“You smell nice” I whispered in her ear.
“You smell like ass” she replied with a cheeky smile on her face.
“I know. And I probably look like ass too.”
“That you do. But look like an extremely handsome ass who drank his way to a strip club earlier and got himself a couple of lap dances, ‘cause I can smell the pussy on you too.”
“Guilty. Hats off to your smell palette.”
She smiled.
“Some conversation we got goin’ on” I said and threw the cigarette but out on the street.
“Don’t do that! Why’d you do that?” She hit me on my shoulder.
“Well, I like to think that I’m creating jobs when I’m littering.”
“Oh! Let me guess.. You think if nobody littered the City Council wouldn’t employ people to clean up the streets? Am I correct?”
“Well, you’ve got me all figured out, don’t you?” I replied and lit another one.
We stood there for a while. Smoking, looking at each other from time to time, smiling lightly. I watched the people inside the bar dance to Alien Ant Farm’s version of Smooth Criminal.
“Alright, think of this - ” I said, “picture this bar, us, these people; imagine looking at this from the top, like you’re playing a fucking computer game, or watching a movie or whatever. Stick with the computer game example.. Imagine, you could control me, and you can choose what each of us does next. You with me?”
“I like the movie example better”
“Well you get the point! OK, it’s a movie, you’re the director or the screenwriter or whoever the fuck comes up with the story. What would you choose for each of us to do next?”
“Oh I get you. In fact, it’s more like Sims. Have you played the Sims? That’s the computer game you were talking about.”
“Yeah, I’ve played it.”
“I’d choose for us to chat. Have the conversation I was telling you about earlier.”
“Really? Out of all the possible things we could do right now. No limit, you control both of us. Think about it.”
“I’m not gonna have sex with you if that’s what you’re getting at.”
“No, just think about it,” she wasn’t getting it, “not that I wouldn’t wanna have sex with you.. But that’s not the point. See, in the real world, right now, you don’t know me - so you wouldn’t know how I would respond to some things. But in the game you can control me as well, so the decision would be mutual. Unanimous.”
“I’d give it to you in the game. I’d do it here. Right here in the bar. I would blow you.”
“You can’t do a blowjob in the Sims” came out of my mouth.
She laughed. I smiled.
“But it’s not a game, Stranger” she stated, “this is real life. When we screw up, we can’t restart in real life. We can’t pause, we can’t do things just for the hell of it, we can’t fuck around with people’s lives.”
She had a point there. Fuck I just hate when somebody outsmarts me and ruins the fun in my usual “What would you do” games.
“You’re right. You totally ruined my game, but you’re right.”
“That was a game?”
“Kind of. In a way. That’s my thing. I ask people these types of questions. It all started with the ‘what would you do if you had a million dollars’ question.”
“Ah, that! So how many times have you asked this exact question before?”
“Just this once. They’re never the same really. They greatly depend on the situation and the conversationalist.”
“Do you still have hopes that we’re gonna fuck tonight?” she asked out of the sudden.
“Why wouldn’t we fuck tonight?”
“Because that would ruin my game.”
“Oh, the one where you’re supposed to be this mysterious hot girl, in a white dress, that asks me these deep, meaningful questions; with whom I have a life changing conversation and to whom I’d end up dedicating a paragraph or two in my memoirs? That game?”
“Now you’ve ruined my game…” she said with genuine sadness.
“Sorry… Wanna fuck?”
“Let’s!”
