Playing With Fire

Thursday, June 16, 2011

I knew things were going to be different about Napalm when she finally showed up at the New Nostalgia bar. She was pretty late, wearing a fancy prom dress and high heels, which caught me slightly off guard. Before I could really say anything, she rubbed her hand against my back with a friendly “Hey!” and hopped on the stool next to me, as if we’d been dating for a year. “Uh oh,” I heard myself think.

Talking to Napalm was a brutal experience. I usually miss about 5 to 10 percent of what people tell me until I get more used to how they speak — one of my die-hard traits as a non-native English speaker. Years of practice have taught me to reconstruct gaps in sentences and get out of sticky situations, but Napalm proved to be too fast for my conventional methods. I felt myself sinking deeper into stupidity from minute to minute, failing to register the details of the conversation. I kept asking her questions that she already answered. In my head, I was counting: “strike one ... strike two ... your’re outta here!” as a third reference failed to stick to my slowly-panicking mind. I did manage to maintain my calm, however, and ended the date on a rather positive note and a polity kissed her goodnight on the lips as she got into the cab. I sighed with relief and escaped the battle scene like a wounded dog, ready to attend to my wounds — and sexual frustration — alone at the apartment. On the way back, a red light was flashing, “FAIL!” at me before I crossed the road, as I was mumbling under my breath. I am usually in control. What the hell just happened?

I must have been a bit bored, a bit crazy, or very possibly both, to text her later on. I slipped into my false-confident big-boy outfit and figured that, hey, at least I could be polite and say I had a good time. I somehow managed to ask her out again instead, as I worked things out logically in my head: (“she’s pretty hot, she’s still talking to you, you like to make an ass out of yourself, why the hell not?”)

She must have been bored or a bit crazy, too.

Determining our next rendezvous point was up to me, so I made a fine choice of one of the darkest dive bars I know. To face this woman again, I had to hide and speak from the shadows - this much I knew. I was also somewhat self conscious and couldn’t figure out what to wear, so I figured darkness will help there, too. Finally, I couldn’t decide if I wanted to bring up the usual polyamory discussion or let it sit a bit longer. I usually bring it up on the very first date if not before. Second dates are usually for games. What is going on ...?

We sat close, real close. Her eyebrows were talking, her eyes making quick decisions as she gazed at me, the corners of her mouth defying her control and outlining her smirks. Alcohol made things move faster, including the time. She blamed me for keeping her up again on a work night. I almost made the terrible mistake of not walking her home (I never read the manual to traditional dating. I don’t do traditional dating), but I managed to redeem myself at the last minute.

I knew kissing her that night was an introduction, but to what, I could not even imagine. In the days that followed, my already upside-down world was brutally shaken. Years of carefully planned lifestyle spilled on the sidewalk as I grabbed her by the throat, cutting her air supply, pinning her against the wall of her building. I think I heard myself growling. I wasn’t kissing her neck, I was tasting her. I didn’t just rub my nose against her skin, I was sniffing her. Suddenly, I wasn’t really there ... I was looking at myself from the outside. Somewhere far, far in the back of my mind, a demon was nodding, his red muscular scaly arms were crossed over his chest. “Now, that’s what I’m talking about,” he said.