This is the last outing for A314, ver. 17. The bottle is finally exhausted and it has gone to the graveyard of Alphas on wings of flame. Yep, I burned it. The vapours now wander the skies as free as a bird. It seemed appropriate somehow.
With the last three drops applied to my neck - I managed to shake three from it instead of the usual two - I walk into the bar. I was casually dressed and soon blended into the crowd of patrons, giving and receiving smiles and nods of recognition, claps on the arms and back and I catch the occasional lift of a pint glass in salute. So far, so normal and nothing stands out as unusual.
I meet up with Megan, a friend of a friend, at the bar and we order a few drinks. I can count the number of times I’ve met her on the fingers of one hand and find her to be pleasant company. We fall into easy conversation with no trouble until this other guy starts hitting on her pretty hard and being really OTT about it.
An awkward situation. He knows her through the same friend that I do which limits my options. At first, we humour him, but it’s obvious he has designs on her. Megan’s looking more and more uncomfortable until she looks directly at me and asks for help.
I tilt my head in a ‘Get behind me now’ gesture. She complies immediately with the unspoken request, standing behind me with a hand on my back.
He doesn’t give up that easily and tries to follow her by stepping around me. Oh no you don’t.
I raise a hand. ‘Stop.’ I hoped to put just enough steel in that quiet word to stop him cold, but hopefully not enough to cause a scene. I’ll never hear the end of it if this blows up in my face.
Fortunately, he does stop cold and stares at me for a few seconds, his face unreadable. He then nods and backs down. I then get nothing but respect from him all night. Every time he looked at me, he touched his head with two fingers and flicked them away in a sloppy salute, but a salute nonetheless. Bought us both drink after drink after drink too.
Megan rests her head on my shoulder, a hand on my arm and snuggles close, remaining glued to me all night. We later leave arm-in-arm and I walk her home, guiding her all the way as she was practically sleepwalking. Nothing else happened as she was feeling drained and just wanted to sleep. She did give me one hell of a smooch on the lips though. Practically hoovered my face off.
I go home alone, but I see her out and about regularly now. We’ll see what comes up.
Musk
