Lingering thoughts

I kept thinking of the Stranger. I remembered his touch, and the way he looked at me, just before leaving, I replayed our conversations in my mind, I found myself wondering about him. First of all, he had to have a name. I started greeting  him with “Hello, Stranger!”, as if we were two characters of an old Western. He would answer smiling, or with “Hello, Stool girl!”. At least this would set our relationship in the correct perspective: I was meant to wait for him at the bar, perked on my stool, ready to listen to his stories, about his working day – and he would always be a stranger, not too many explanations about the why and  the how such a decent, respectable professional (this is the way I saw him) would come almost every night to The Fish Bowl and spend the evening flirting with a girl like me. How long would this thing last?

And now he touched my wrist and I found myself thinking of the sensation it gave me. I had no trouble in removing whole nights of drunken sex from my mind: I could forget the guys who genuinely wished  to demonstrate me they were the best shag of my life and those that simply felt too lucky to be able to spend a night with me, even if they knew they were expected to pay something for it.

But this guy, this Stranger, with his pink jumper and silk scarf around his thick neck, with big strong hands and high pitched voice, with gray hair, not too tall, stocky... he touched my wrist and I kept recalling him, every single detail, every word he said. What was happening to me?