gloria

It had been about two months since I had last seen or heard from Gloria. I knew that I had been a bastard that night, drunk and foolish, but I hoped my apologetic messages would have made a difference. I couldn't stand the thought of leaving without seeing her face to face one last time, so I walked through the rain to Pamplona's.

She was there when I arrived, and through the glass window she smiled at me.

I took this as a good sign.

She waved at me to wait a moment.

In the rain.

Twenty minutes later, she came out.

She hogged my umbrella, but I didn't mind, because she was closer then. We talked nonsense for a while, until I got fed up with it.

“I haven't heard from you in a while.”

“No,” she replied, “you haven't.”

I was ready for this. Gloria was queen of the standoff. Yet despite her bitchiness, I couldn't deny how much I wanted to sleep with her. After all, she laughed at me often, and women are always more attractive when they laugh at you.

“Did you get my messages?”

“Yes.”

“Well?”

“Paul, you were a true son of a bitch last time I saw you.”

That hurt. I knew it was true, but I still didn't like hearing it.

“Look, Glo, I know I was. That's why I apologized.”

She glared at me from under my umbrella. “I know you did. That's the problem.”

I was stumped. “The problem is that I apologized?”

“Yes.”

“ Fine. Fuck it. I don't apologize. I'm proud that I'm a son of a bitch. Now will you sleep with me?”

“Fuck you!” she snapped at me.

“Exactly!” I declared. I felt triumphant.

Then she slapped me.

We walked in silence for a while. I let her have my umbrella. Soon we had reached her apartment. I waited for her to give me my umbrella back.

She didn't.

“ Why don't you come up?”

For a moment, I panicked. I was sure that she had something planned, a trap of some sort. Somehow I knew that going up there was a bad idea. Then I thought that maybe we'd sleep together, so I followed her inside. We went up the three flights of stairs to her apartment. It was a spacious one-bedroom with the emphasis on bedroom. Hers was a huge, lavish affair with silk curtains hanging around the bed and those pointless French pillows at the head of it. It looked like a very comfortable bed.

Gloria must have realized I was staring at it. She pushed me past the bedroom from behind. I went past her kitchen and into her living room. She offered me a drink. For the first time in my life I didn't want one.

“ I'm going to get undressed,” she explained. I asked for a brandy.

She poured me a stiff one, then ordered me to sit down. I didn't argue.

She went into her bedroom.

I was starting to enjoy the quiet, but after a moment she popped half-out of the doorway. “So what, exactly, is your problem?” she asked.

My problem was that she was getting undressed. “I have no idea what you're talking about, Glo. I don't think I have a
problem, you do.”

She popped out again, she was naked. “Why do you have to be such a bastard?”

I swooned. I really didn't have anything to say.

She came out of the bedroom fully wrapped in a black robe and a vicious stare. I looked down into my brandy. “You do have a problem, Paul. Face it,” she declared, “You're
seriously fucked.”

I knew this, but hearing it from some pampered bartender princess got my defenses going. I was ready to attack, to destroy the spoiled little bitch. I thought of all the ways she had toyed with me, twisting my mind while inflating my ego. This woman could have kicked me in the balls and while I was doubled over, I would have kissed her feet.

But then I kept thinking. I thought about how intently she would listen to my stories, how she came to every show to cheer me on, and how she brought food to me when I was hungry, and I refused it. At the same time that I wanted so much from this woman, I couldn't bring myself to accept it when she offered.

It was my fault. I had created this monster. I envisioned a role for her, and once she realized it, she fulfilled that role beyond my expectations. It was my foolishness, I thought, that I didn't think ahead to write myself a happy ending.

While I thought, she kept talking. She told me how self-centered I was, in my own modest way. How I had become nothing more than a wandering drunk — using the excuse of experience to justify my indulgence. I was a source of destruction, she declared.

I realized that we weren't going to sleep together.

She was silent for a moment, so I asked her if she had ever seriously considered the two of us together.

“Briefly,” she responded.

“ Okay,” I said, “briefly. Now, I gotta get a definition here, because when I consider something briefly, it's for roughly a month. So how would you define 'briefly'?”

“About a minute.”

I felt that we were on to something. “Okay, this is it. Somewhere between a minute and a month it all comes together.” There was victory in my voice.

She didn't feel the same. “I think it's time you should go.”

I couldn't argue with her. It made sense the way she said it.

She walked me to the door. I took one more look at her bedroom.

“ Stop looking at my bed.”

I couldn't. It was too beautiful. “I'm sorry, but it's a nice bed. Princess Grace would have liked to die in that bed. I would like to die in that bed, which is convenient, because if you ever found me in it, you would kill me.”

She pushed me towards her door. Then she stopped. “You know, I do love you in some way,” she told me.

She embraced me. I embraced her back. “So, it would be really bed if I kissed you right now?” I asked.

The door slammed shut in my face.

I collected my still-wet umbrella and started from the floor outside the door and started down the stairs. About halfway down, I realized that a woman I had never been with, never kissed, never even been on an actual date with, had just broken up with me.

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