A Shadowy Night On The Town

  Last night, in downtown Auckland, there were some devastatingly beautiful ladies out. I got a number from one. There was also another who was keen on me, but she was seemingly preoccupied with a male friend in front. The situation quickly became awkward as she kept looking back. I was laughing with another patron at the time - an amiable and intelligent teacher. Soon the women's male date also began staring back at me. I shook my head and paid little attention. However, my friendly patron and a newly acquired friend made some wisecracks about the situation. He insinuated something rather funny about the man. I laughed hysterically, smacking my knees, and howling with laughter. I was only one beer in.

  After observing for a while, my friend and I then began chatting with the women in front. She twisted her head round to talk to us before swivelling her petite body. She was in business, and subsequently, bored us with complicated and dull jargon. The minute aspects of back end software sales and development were beyond us. Clearly, the woman was intelligent. Sadly, it appeared she was prettier on the outside than within. What caused me to come to this conclusion? Her rigid body language and flitting eyes. She seemed to say one thing and think another. I grew tiresome over her. When the women's male date returned to his seat, the woman was still all too willing to chat to us, or perhaps more accurately, to chat about herself at us. 

I grew bored and left after a time. I didn't feel like wasting my time talking to a persona. Despite this, being very much a fool, I tried to intercept the women as she was leaving. I managed to do so for all of 20 seconds. Like a speedy and ill-fated ninja, I quickly asked her out, and horror of all horrors, she just stood there and steered at me blankly. I didn't panic, much. For I could see little cogs clinking away in her head as she furiously tried to compute the situation. Either that, or she was just plain drunk. Her eyes dug deep grooves into me. Then suddenly, she ran away to be once again reunited with her date (who was only meters away - standing behind a concrete pillar). She did not so much as utter a single syllable, and as you can guess this didn't go down well, I got to feeling the tiniest bit rotten for all of three minutes.

In a state of superficial melancholy, I revisited how moments earlier, my friendly patron and I had talked to the woman who had fled. She had bagged on her man that had accompanied her. The man did seem to be missing something possibly some self-respect, after thinking about the whole charade that had unfolded. I decided the woman was living in 'bad faith', and in deeper than she cared to admit with this man she apparently deplored but refused to throw off. Perhaps, she needed a transportable human supply of adoration? Regardless, what lemony bitterness brew up in my heart. To be fair, the women had looked exquisite in her white dress. I had told her as much when meeting her verbally. Although I did question whether the symbolic purity of white matched her nature. She seemed the women to have been in harmony with red, if not black. I felt foolish for allowing her to have power over me. Would you believe it, I didn't even like the women's face.   

  In fact, it can be jarring, when one comes across a woman whose face grows ever beautiful the closer and longer one stares at it. On last nights adventures, there was one such woman I can remember who was like this, but, if I think harder there were likely countless others. 

I only exchanged a few words with this apparition of women. She was younger than 22. I knew this because she had been bounced by the bar who denied too younger patrons. I met her languishing outside the establishment in a state of disbelief. She had dark, longish hair and a pleasantly angular face with freckles. Her makeup was applied sparingly, but effectively, and the tone of her voice was agreeably husky. She wore a leather jacket and leaned against the wall when I struck up a conversation. Talking to her, it became clear that this woman wasn't a dullard, she had a sense of humour, and there was life in her that operated beyond the vacuous mask of the persona. You should've seen her male friend as I chatted to her. 

He instantly grew hostile, threatened by my presence. I felt a mischievousness euphoria rise up inside of me. He misread the situation. I was just being friendly towards the woman. But, even then, the woman's beauty quickly began to draw me in. I felt as if I were a piece of driftwood floating on an ebbing tide already lost in the depths of a blackened sea. For her beauty was a siren's call, unbeknownst and what a classic archetypal ruiner of men it was.