Author : Ian Rennie

The first thing he noticed was her neck.

She had a certain way about her when she laughed, like she had to throw her whole head back, like this laugh was something bigger than she could easily contain that emerged from her like Venus from a seashell, and when she laughed, it exposed her neck.

Joey was out on the pull when he saw her, not in a sleazy way, but looking for a girl he could really get to know. When he saw her at the bar, he plucked up the courage to go up to her and…

…they were talking, and it was so easy, they’d only known each other a few minutes and it was so natural, like their aims were the same in life. He was listening to her talk, not like he sometimes listened to girls, waiting for an opportunity to get a good line in and slowly persuade them he was a good catch. No, this time he really wanted to know about her. Already after only a moment she mattered to him, and…

…they were kissing almost before the cab door closed. he had to break away from her to give the driver his address, and when the cab got to his flat he left way too much of a tip, but he just didn’t care. She was amazing, he was crazy about her, she was crazy about him, and…

…afterwards they cuddled, sharing each other’s post orgasmic glow. This is where he’d be smoking a cigarette, if he smoked. Instead, he looked at her and she looked at him, and he couldn’t think of two people in the world who were happier. And then…

…she opened her eyes, saw the ring, and she knew. She said yes before he could even ask. She saw the ring, and she knew, and that in itself said everything he needed to know. They would be getting married on the eve of midsummer, and…

…he realized it had been half an hour since either of them had said anything. There was a TV on that neither of them was watching. He looked over at her and tried to think of something to say. She looked up, and his eyes went back to the book he wasn’t reading. Silence, never broken, descended again, and…

…she was leaving him. The bitch was leaving him. She’d met someone who made him happy, she said. Joey wondered how it was possible for anyone to make that cold woman happy. God knows he had tried, for years. Without knowing he was doing it, he broke the seal on the second bottle of whiskey, and…

A slight buzzing sound let him know the simulation had finished. He realized, self consciously, that he had been staring straight ahead for a minute or so. The woman at the bar saw him, met his eyes, and smiled. The smile was so familiar to him and he didn’t even know her name.

He shook his head very slightly.

“Sorry,” he said, “I thought you were someone else.”