She was a shallow sunset in that dress, meandering clouds of cigarette smoke walked across her eyes. In retrospect, I wish they had obscured her from my vision. Maybe. I can think of a lot of things that would've happened differently had they kept her distant. But those eyes had a way of piercing you, even when her gaze was directed somewhere else. Maybe it wouldn't be a problem on a Wednesday night. Wednesday nights have that habit of passing by unremarkably. I think I would've been okay then.
But it was a Friday, and every nerve was amped to match her pomegranate red dress. I was alive, the kind of alive you only get from the brink of death, and there she was. Death, staring straight through me. Had she made some attempt at polite conversation, then the fight in me may have been enough to forestall the inevitable for long enough to make my escape.
No such luck that night though. I find the simple statements the hardest to argue. And so when she walked over and raised her hand to my lips, I just stood there, looking stoic and feeling quite the opposite. She whispered "Follow me," and there was no way in Hell I was going to refuse.
See, that's what happens on Friday nights, you just go, because every line of defense that you would have during the week falls apart beneath the glow of a city that lives and breathes for only a seventh of the week. You just go, and consequences be damned, because there is nothing in you that wants to say no on Friday night.
So I followed her, watched the way her dress clung to her without daring to restrict her movement in any way. I don't blame it, I wouldn't have stopped her either, as had become apparent by then. Once outside, I tried my damnedest to steel myself against the combined force of her will and my intoxication. At best I may have managed a hesitation in my next footstep, but even my legs had betrayed me by then. I was going with her, not against my will, but definitely against my weekday judgement.
We arrived at her place a few minutes after twelve. Her "place" was a bar a few blocks down from the one we had crossed paths in. The crowd parted for her as she walked in, and an expectant hush fell over the room as if I were the pope stumbling in drunk behind Lucifer. So I dug a cigarette out of my pocket, lit up, and took a deep drag. I asked her name as she spun around and began pulling me to the dance floor. "Does it really matter?" It didn't, I decided. I was asking more out of formality than any desire or need to know anyways.
The floor cleared as the 2 o'clock deadline approached, until we were the only two left dancing. She leaned into my shoulder, whispering in my ear.
"I can set you free, or I can take you with me. Tell me, which do you prefer?"
If only it had been Wednesday night. If only the cigarette smoke had been a little thicker. But it wasn't, and on Friday night, to go with her was to be set free. The choice was quite clear, there wasn't any.
Because it's Friday night, and by Wednesday, I won't remember a goddamn thing.
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