And so I found myself in a bar, in freezing December, just before Christmas, with $30 more in my wallet than I had counted on, and I needed to spend it. The money was burning a hole in my pocket and my throat was dry. It was cold outside and walking in through the door felt like walking into a brick wall. My glasses fogged up immediately, so I had to take them off. Looking around I noticed – I’d never been to this bar before - that it wasn’t the kind of place that people with money went to, and I liked that. There’s nothing wrong with money, but it makes real assholes of most people. Correction: it gives people the freedom to be the assholes that they really are, deep down inside. It makes their blackened hearts shine through the thin mask of human decency they try to hide behind. This was the kind of place that attracted winos, mean drunks and every kind of degenerate God put on this earth. It was my kind of place. I walked up to the bar and sat down on a stool. I was already starting to sweat, so I took off my leather jacket and put it in my lap. The bartender, a tall, lanky guy, walked over to me and asked what I wanted to drink. I wiped my glasses with the sleeve of my shirt, put them on and looked around the bar. A hand-painted sign caught my attention: Happy Hour, 2 beers for the price of 1. Nice. I bought a beer and two glasses appeared before me. I downed one right away and started on the second. It didn’t taste good at all. Like a mixture of stale beer, mineral water and a sweaty crotch. Didn’t matter much to me. All I wanted was to get drunk, drunk and maybe high if I could find some drug to my liking. I wasn’t really supposed to get drunk; I was supposed to be at home, writing an article for that damn magazine, but I felt more like getting drunk.

At some point between beer three and four I felt a strange need to socialize, so I picked up my two glasses in one hand and my jacket in the other, and made my way towards one of the long tables in the back. There were eight or ten people sitting there; they were either friends or drunk, because they were talking to each other. They seemed to be having fun. I wanted to have fun too, so I put my glasses down on the table and sat down. I had had a few drinks before I left my apartment, so I was feeling a bit drunk already. I downed my third beer, raised my glass to the bartender and gestured for two more. Actually, I think I shouted something as well, because everyone looked at me. Oh well, he nodded and brought two beers over to the table. He had a walk I didn’t like at all. I talked and drank for the next hour or so, before deciding it was time to leave. Happy hour was over anyway. I put on my jacket, counted my money and went back outside. It was freezing. Cold weather and lots of beer means one thing: you have to piss. I was just passing by another bar, so I went inside in search of a place to urinate out of public view. I still had enough money for a couple more drinks as well, so why not kill two birds with one stone, I thought to myself.

The men’s room was disgusting. Someone had puked in the urinal, so I walked into one of the stalls instead. It stank like hell, so I lit up one of my cigars (the cheap kind you can buy for a buck in any corner store) just so I wouldn’t have to smell the urine and puke and sweat. On the floor, next to the toilet, was a bucket half-filled with urine. I naturally filled it up even more. An interesting piece of trivia for you women and teetotalers: if a drunken man has the choice between pissing in a bucket on the floor, and in the toilet, he will choose the bucket. Always. I washed my hands and walked out to the bar again. It was another low class joint, but that meant cheap beer and cheap women, so I didn’t complain. I ordered a beer and sat down to drink and smoke my cigar. There was music. Some kind of rock with a touch of redneck jazz (country, that is), but it was impossible to tell what song, let alone artist, they played, because the PA probably hadn’t cost the owner more than my beer had cost me. There was a low rumbling bass with severe distortion (a sure sign that the speaker is busted), hardly any mids at all, and the treble sounded like fingernails on a blackboard. I sat there for a moment, trying without avail to figure out why they even bothered playing music at all, when a woman sat down on the stool next to me, leaned over and wailed like a banshee in my ear:
“You wouldn’t happen to have another one of those cigarettes, would you?”
I turned and looked at her, just long enough to make it awkward for both of us.
“First of all, it’s not a cigarette, honey. It’s a cigar. But if you want one, sure.”
I pulled one out of my breast pocket, handed it to her, and lit it.
“Thanks,” she said. “You know, my boyfriend stood me up, that asshole. He was supposed to meet me here half an hour ago, and now he calls and tells me he’s out with ‘the boys’ and that he might come by my place later. Goddamn jerk. I told him he was an idiot and that he’d better stay away from me if he knows what’s good for him.”
I looked at her again and was just about to say that I could sure understand him, but I didn’t really feel like getting beat up by a woman, so I didn’t. Instead my mouth got a life of its own; it was discarnate and completely separated from my brain.
“What a jerk,” I found myself saying. “He must be a real idiot to leave an attractive woman such as yourself alone in a bar filled with men.”

Now my brain reacted. What the hell ARE you doing? You blabbering idiot! Shut up, shut up! My brain panicked. The woman was in her 40’s, no doubt, but whatever sick mind applied her makeup obviously thought she was a teenager. There was probably something vaguely attractive about her, hidden under the layers of makeup. My God, did she put it on with a brush or a putty knife? Still, she was a woman. Then again, she was old enough to be my mother. Oh no. Now all I could think of was my mother. Quick! Think of something else.

I emptied my beer in panic. There. That’s better.

To make a short story even shorter, I ended up talking to her for a while, drinking even more beer, buying her a drink or two, until she asked me if I wanted to share a cab back to her place.
“Sure, just let me get another drink first, ok?” I found myself saying. Why I agreed I still don’t know, but I was drunk, so I guess I can blame it on the alcohol. Or I could say the Devil made me do it. No matter what compelled me to go with this mother-I-would-not-like-to-fuck, I knew I needed a stiff drink first, so I ordered rum on the rocks, a double. I quickly downed it and was just about to tell the woman whose name I still didn’t know that I was ready to go, when I noticed that the bartender had left the bottle of rum just on the other side of the counter. It was looking at me, talking to me. Taaaake me, taaaaake me. The bartender was at the other end of the bar taking orders, so I leaned forward, reached over, grabbed the bottle and shoved it down my pants. I took off my jacket and held it in front of me to hide the bottle. The woman looked at me.
“I think it’s time to leave,” I said, and so we did. It was even colder outside now, but we huddled together and passed the bottle between us to keep warm while we were waiting for the cab. She wasn’t a bad kisser.

It didn’t take more than ten minutes to get to her place, and I soon found myself in her hallway. She dropped her purse on the floor and kicked off her shoes. I was trying to untie my shoelaces. It took a while to figure out that it was way easier if I first put the bottle down, so I did. It was still half full, so I carefully put it next to the shoe rack. I put my shoes in the rack and just dropped my jacket on the floor. I took a step or two towards what I assumed was the bedroom, and hesitated. I went back to the bottle and took another swig. That ought to do it. I breathed deeply and walked into the woman’s bedroom.

I was prepared for the worst, but the sight I saw actually put me at ease. She was on the bed, wearing nothing more than a black bra and panties and a pair of socks, and her body looked a whole lot better than her painted face did. I let out a mental sigh of relief and unbuttoned my pants. I sat down on the side of the bed and we kissed as I pulled off my pants (I think most of my dignity joined them in a pile on the floor). Next was my shirt, and before I knew what was going on I was tearing at her panties, spreading her legs and exploring her wet crevice with my tongue. She tasted of sweat and something else, but I didn’t care. This was no Hollywood flick where farts smelled like roses and late-night-straight-from-the-bar pussies tasted like champagne. It dawned on me right then and there, in my drunken stupor, that this was one of the most genuinely real experiences I’d ever had, and that I should cherish it. Judging from her moans, she already did.

We fucked. There’s no other way of putting it. We didn’t make love. We didn’t have sex. We fucked, like two wild animals. When we were done I went into the bathroom to wash the sweat off my body. I was exhausted, and all I wanted to do was to get some sleep. Fate, it would seem, worked in my favor that night.

As I walked back into the bedroom to put my clothes back on, her cell phone rang. She answered. It was her boyfriend, and he was on the way over. She hung up and told me I had to leave, quickly. I was happy to comply, and asked her to please call a cab for me as I put my clothes on. I buttoned my shirt as I walked out into the hallway again. There on the floor was her purse. I could hear her washing every trace of me off her body in the bathroom. I picked up the purse, found her wallet and checked it for cash while she was washing herself. She had plenty, and I took a few bills – enough to pay for my cab and a little extra. I can’t say I’m proud of it, but on the other hand I’m not ashamed of it either. She treated me like a man-whore, and man-whores get paid, damn it. That’s the way I saw it anyway. On a more disturbing note, I also saw her driver’s license, which had her birth date on it.

I put my shoes back on, grabbed my jacket and the bottle of rum and left her apartment. Half an hour and $30 later I was back at my place, with half a bottle of rum and an experience more than I had when I left the evening before. I sat down in front of my computer, put some good music on and started writing the damn article. It never got published.