She ordered up a couple of shots, and before I could start talking again, she ordered up a couple more.
We were about five shots in when the bartender told us to slow down, but that was the wrong thing to say to me. I have a tendency to take warnings like that as a challenge.
In retrospect, I probably should have listened, but as soon as Wrigley told the bartender, “We’re not children. We can handle our shit. Now, pour, fucker!” I was set on not only out-negotiating Wrigley, but out-drinking her as I did.
The next couple of shots came and went so quickly I don’t really recall whether there were two or three of them.
Finally, as the liquor started to really sink in, I decided that I’d better say what I went there to say and get the fuck out before I started losing IQ points.
“We need to talk,” I told her.
“Yeah,” she said, “you mentioned that.”
“What are you doing? It’s not very dignified, is it?”
“Dignity’s overrated,” she said. “I’m just a woman who knows what she wants, and you just happen to be the man that has it hanging between his legs.”
“Do you really think this approach is ever going to work, though?” I asked. “All you’re doing is making me never want to see you again under any circumstances.”
“Well,” she said, “we don’t want that, certainly.”
The bartender started to walk off, but I called him back, ordering yet another round for Wrigley and me.
“Are you really that into her?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said. “I really am.”
“Then why were you so quick to go for having a relationship with me?”
“I was confused,” I said. “I didn’t think that Leila even liked me, much less felt the same way that I did. After you stormed out of the car that night and went down on the cab driver in my rearview mirror, I went home and found her making out with a friend of hers. Then, while you and I were doing it on the roof, I don’t know, I guess I was just overwhelmed. Look,” I said, “it’s not that I don’t like you, and it’s nothing personal. Leila’s just who I really want to be with.”
“What I don’t get,” she said, ordering another vodka, “is why that means you can’t be around me anymore.”
“It’s not that I can’t be around you,” I tell her, “it’s that I can’t be with you, not in the way we used to be.”
“Come on,” she said. “You’re not married. You’re hardly even with her. Besides, I have pussy seniority.”
“You come up with some of the weirdest phrases,” I told her.
I tried to order another shot of vodka, but the bartender informed me that we were both cut off.
After he walked away, though, Wrigley leaned over the counter and grabbed the nearest bottle. It was dark rum, but hey, it was alcohol.
After a stolen shot, I continued.
“You’re a beautiful woman,” I told her. “You can have any guy in the city. I bet there are a ton of guys out there who are into the things that I’m not. That has to have crossed your mind.”
“It’s not the same, though,” she said.
“What do you mean?”
“Like I was telling your roommate, it’s a sexual compatibility thing. You can be with someone—”
“When did you talk to my roommate?” I asked. Leila hadn’t told me.
Wrigley shrugged and said, “You can be with someone who technically does all the things you want to do, but if you’re not sexually compatible, it’s never going to feel anywhere near as good. You, for as much of a pussy as you are, rub me the right way, if you’ll pardon the expression.”
She poured a couple more shots and we drank them.