O-oh, here she comes.
Watch out boy, she’ll chew you up!
O-oh, here she comes.
She’s a maaaan-eater!
With confidently clopping heels, she walked straight from the jukebox to my table and sat herself down in the chair opposite me. I didn’t know her, but I’d seen her sitting alone at the bar a few minutes earlier and thought she was attractive enough, in a ‘milfy’ sort of way. No – ‘cougar’ was definitely the better word for her; she had a hungry look in her eye. On any other night of my life, a cougar wouldn’t have been my type; I was still young enough myself to be of interest to younger women, and it hadn’t escaped my attention how the other people in the room – the locals – kept their eyes down to avoid meeting hers and left her an extra valence-worth of personal space. But something about her – maybe her confidence, or maybe the smell of kitchen spices that wafted from her in place of perfume – captivated me. She had auburn hair – that too-red bottled color – that feathered away from her face and fell in loose curls over her shoulders. Beneath her black coat she wore the same black minidress every woman seemed to have; hers dipped down low between her breasts to show ample cleavage, albeit freckled and beginning to dimple. She wore far too much makeup – especially around her black-rimmed eyes – for anyone who preferred the natural look. Usually that was me. Usually the wrinkles around her eyes and the thin skin on the back of hands would have stood out like bright red stop signs. But that night I thought I liked her look just as it was.
“I’m Marguerite.” Her accent was a bit choppy for this part of Britain. I had already begun to develop an ear for picking out the local accents, and hers wasn’t local. She held her hand out, and I took it. Her skin was as soft as a baby’s against mine.
“Tom.” I gave her hand a gentle squeeze, then took my own back.
“Is that short for Thomas?”
I nodded.
“I’m going to call you Thomas then. You don’t mind, do you? I like proper names.” She didn’t wait for my response; instead she leaned forward so her voice could sink beneath the volume of the song she’d put on the jukebox. “Look, Thomas, a woman my age learns that when she knows what she wants, she shouldn’t waste any time before going after it. I don’t mind a little chit-chat, so long as I know that it’s going to lead to something physical, and I mean tonight. So how about you and I skip ahead an hour or so and you kiss me. To test the chemistry, you see. If it doesn’t work for us, I’ll buy your drink and bugger off. But if it does, then we go back to chatting and flirting like two adults, except we already know where we’re going. Are you game?”
She cut me off just as I was opening my mouth. “No, I’m not a ‘professional’. Not that kind. I’m just a lonely woman with loose morals who sees a new face she fancies. It’s as simple as that.”
I could hardly argue with her, and she was already leaning across the table. What else could I do? I leaned forward, and I brought my lips to hers. It had been at least a year since I’d had a real kiss – not one of those perfunctory goodnight pecks – and it was electrifying. Her lips pressed back against mine, and I felt tingles run over my face and down my neck and into my chest. Her lips were soft and pliant, and when they separated her tongue darted out and mixed her saliva with mine. I could taste a little of her in my mouth. That was enough for me – I was ready to verify a successful chemical reaction; but her hand slipped behind my neck and her tongue flicked out between her lips again, and I wasn’t going to be the one to break the kiss, even if I could feel half the room staring at us. I met her tongue with mine and brought my hand to her chin, and for at least three minutes we kissed like moviestars.
Finally she let me go and leaned back in her seat. “Very satisfactory, Thomas. Brilliant. So now you know what I’m about, and I know what you taste like, we can return to innocent flirting.” She winked as she said it, because beneath the table she was kicked off her heel and begun cinching up the cuff of my lucky corduroy pants with her toes. I spread my legs a radian or so to allow her better access.
“Perhaps I should buy you a drink? Or would you like dinner?” Behind her, I could see the inn manager waiting awkwardly for an opportunity to put a plate of sausages and potatoes in front of me.
“A drink would be lovely, thank you.” She raised her finger as the manager approached. He nodded wordlessly and when he returned to the bar he slid a wineglass off the rack. “I’ve already eaten, but don’t let that stop you. I wouldn’t deny a young man like you an appetite. So why don’t you tell me what brings you here while we wait?”
-
The whole story was far too personal to tell her, of course, which is why it came as such a surprise when the details came spilling out of my mouth. It was one thing to tell her that I quit my job – my excellent, wonderful job – because I was stupid and angry. I was especially stupid when I blew off my boss, who offered to leave the position open until I was ready to come back. It was quite another thing to explain to her why I was so angry, and why I had a right to be. I mean, it’s a Hollywood cliche for your fiancée to leave you standing at the altar, but what kind of bitch text messages you an hour after the rehearsal dinner? A point of fact: it only takes 17 characters to announce a treachery. The most shameful part of the night was that it wasn’t my best man, or my childhood friend, or even one of her bridesmaids from whose bed she messaged me. No, she left me for my bastard, drunken farther. My fifty-eight-year-old father!
I don’t even remember what little question or look from her cracked my dam, but once I’d started I couldn’t hold the story back. I had to tell someone every last bit of it, someone who wasn’t already invested and didn’t already have an opinion. It was such a release – as physically tangible as emptying a full bladder – to just blurt out every feeling I really had, instead of the feelings I was supposed to have.
Marguerite had moved into the chair beside me, and after I had pushed away the half-eaten plate of food she took my hand and began massaging my digits and kissing my knuckles. “You poor, poor dear.” She leaned over to squeeze my shoulder, and in the process she set my hand in her lap, at the hem of her hiked-up skirt. “You’re so lucky to have met me, Thomas. You traveled halfway around the world to escape your memories, didn’t you, and you never realized that the only solution was to find someone to pamper you and show you some real interest.” She leaned in to kiss my cheek, and whispered into my ear: “Oh, you’re a lucky one – I’m going to absolutely spoil you.” Leaning back, she let her voice return to a normal level. “Where are you staying the night, dear?”
“Here.” I motioned toward the stairs. “At the Foxhound.”
“That was a trick question, Thomas, because you’re coming home with me. No offense to James here, but I can offer a much warmer bed and better company than he possibly could. And I’m sure we can figure out some kind of arrangement for breakfast.” Her wink was anything but subtle.
“But I’ve already paid him for the room, and my bag’s upstairs.”
“Oh, don’t you worry about the details. He’ll put your things in my boot, and what you’ve paid for your room should adequately cover your meal tonight and my drinks.” Patting my thigh, she added a little louder, “Isn’t that right, James?”
From behind the bar, the inn manager nodded sullenly. “Sure enough, Maggie.”