Watching

The beer is cold and the glass covered in condensation. The humidity is stifling, un-seasonal, unnatural. I watch the bubbles migrate from the walls of the glass and merge with the head on my pint. My tongue wets my lips in anticipation of the first mouthful of the amber nectar.

The rim of the glass is cold on my lips, the cold liquid breaks on my tongue, carbon dioxide is liberated on its rough surface. I swallow.

Lowering the glass from my mouth my eyes focus across the bar. She’s standing alone, in a crowd of what appear to be her friends, apparently. She listens, nodding, laughing, trying to join the conversation, but on the edge of the group, physically and metaphorically.

She’s drinking from a bottle, something pink, fruity and deceptively intoxicating. As is her hair, black and streaming down her back. Her red painted lips accept the open neck of the bottle, wetting her mouth with it’s exotic fruitiness.

A single drop of condensation falls onto the exposed, expanse of exquisitely exhibited cleavage. It rolls across her skin and between her breasts. As it disappears from sight my mind chases it with my tongue, down across her belly to her navel.

She notices me watching, her hand rises to her upper chest, as if to wipe away the droplet that has already disappeared. She looks at me. I look back. Should I look away? No, too obvious. She smiles and eases the tension in the moment. I reciprocate and punctuate my embarrassment at being busted with larger full stop.

She looks back to her friends, one of whom has just told the worlds funniest joke. As she laughs she sneaks a look across to where I’m sitting. I see her in my peripheral vision and formulate my first line. Nothing like fluffing the intro to blow your chances.

Well, no rush just yet. Half a pint of carbonated brain anaesthetic until that endless nerve-wracking walk across the sticky pub carpet to where she is.

My mind is already there though, touching her through the tight jeans, feeling her chest against me, nose filled with the aroma of her hair … we’ll see.