I wouldn't really trust myself about my own feelings. It is one of those things that one slowly learns as time goes by, nothing particularly special, but just something that happens to occur. I didn't want to be in this position, but sometimes, it is hard to just tear myself away from the emotional mess that I had found myself in. After all, who could really predict that this was going to happen?
It all began a couple of years ago. I met her at the pub, on one of those exceedingly rare occasions that I turn up at such a place. I wasn't much of a drinker then, and was only at the pub because it was one of my colleague's birthday. I was cajoled into joining the small group, all in the bid for some notion of ``esprit de corps'', a strange notion considering that we were more of a corporate company than some general uniformed group entity like the soldiers or anything. Already I feel that I was too much of a loner, so I didn't really have much of a choice on the matter.
The colleague in question was one of those party animal types -- he was always out at night living up the night life, yet he still managed to find the energy to come to work early and contribute meaningfully to his work. I had always wondered if the ``party animal'' moniker was an act or exaggeration of what he really did, and I suppose that on the night that we were celebrating his birthday, I would find out.
So the group of us were sitting at a table that we had apparently reserved, pouring vodka mixers and talking and being generally boisterous. I took part in as much small talk as I could get away with, sipping ever so little from my first glass of vodka. I didn't really like the taste of vodka -- it tasted like really strong cleaning alcohol and burned my taste buds -- but that was all that they were ordering, so I just went with the flow. The attention gradually shifted toward the birthday boy, of course, and little by little I found myself quietly alienated by the crowd.
That was when I saw her.
She was sitting at the bar, wearing one of those little-black dress numbers with a rather wide and low cutting for the back. She had straight and long black hair, while her skin was fair, even under the strong yellow spot lights of the bar. Even though her back was towards me, I could tell that she had very long and nearly perfect legs, as seen through the bar stool that she was sitting on. I had no idea why I would suddenly be drawn towards someone like her -- she wasn't even looking at me or anything -- but something just happened at that point.
She suddenly stood up from the bar, a martini glass in her hand, and turned around. For a brief moment, her eyes met mine, and I felt a strange electrifying sensation. It was a very foreign feeling, and I had no idea what to make of it. I felt my face flush, and I quickly turned away from her. Through the cocktail banter of the pub I could hear the distinct clip-clop sound of high heels that was slowly increasing in loudness. Then, a soft and warm hand touched my forearm from the side, and I sensed a strangely warm body near me.
``Hi there,'' a soft voice said. ``I've been observing you for a while. This is not quite your scene huh?''
Startled, I turned around to the source of the voice. A pretty smiling face framed by long, straight black hair greeted me. I could once again feel the flush in my own face, and I wasn't sure if that was from embarassment or from the vodka that I had sipped on when I turned my head away from her earlier.
``Nah, I don't really like pubs,'' I said, realising in vain that my colleagues had completely ditched me when they started playing drinking games with each other (and the birthday boy of course) on the other end of the table, leaving me more or less alone on the opposite end. ``I'm only here because we're celebrating my colleague's birthday.''
``Mmm, I see,'' she replied, her eyes twinkling rather unexpectedly. She took another sip of her martini and I felt the flush again. There was just something about her that I couldn't quite place. I swallowed, hard, trying not to think about anything else.
``So, what's your name?'' I asked, trying to break the awkward moment.
``My, my, aren't you a fast one,'' she replied, winking. ``You can call me Sally.''
``I'm Tom,'' I replied.
``Hi Tom, nice to meet you,'' Sally said as she extended her other hand towards me. Bashfully, I took her hand and shook it. For the rest of the night, we were basically talking with each other almost exclusively, and it was only when the bartender came over to inform us that the pub was closing for the night that we realised the night was over. For some reason, my colleagues had left me behind; perhaps they saw that I was having a rather interesting conversation with a cute girl and decided to just let me be.
``Tom,'' Sally said as we both stepped out of the pub and into the cool night, ``will you send me home? I think I might be a bit drunk.''
