A Night to Remember
By Tom Gilmore

He met her in a bar in a neighborhood not his own. He’d done this before, in other parts of town, considering it a way to avoid awkwardness later. She wasn’t too drunk but nonetheless opened up: Her job wasn’t enjoyable, barely paid, and she felt stuck. He bought her drinks and she was grateful, saying too that he could probably lend her some money if necessary. She wasn’t paying attention or chose to ignore him. She was the one who asked where he lived.

At his place they kissed in the kitchen. In the bedroom, after a while, the mood allowed him to make a request that he tried to present in jest. He asked her to refuse him. So long as he knew that she was in control, she replied. If she pulled his hair it meant stop, but she never did. He asked her to be vocal, specifically to say, “No,” repeatedly. He seemed harmless enough that this didn’t strike her as dangerous. She told a friend later, who reacted adversely and with concern, thus she felt she had failed to communicate precisely. But she also understood how it must sound to others. So, she decided not to share the story anymore. When she was in the bathroom the next morning he found her change purse. It was empty and he filled it with all the cash he had, nervous in doing so. It wouldn’t be until the afternoon that she’d notice. They said goodbye when she said she had a cat to feed.

For months he thought about the night and often fell asleep thinking about it. Although he remembered being attracted to her, he eventually couldn’t recall her accurately and replaced her face with other women’s. Then, more than two years past, he told a friend he’d paid for sex once and she acted out his fantasy; the more he thought about it the more he believed it unfolded that way. She seemed so comfortable, so convincing, he remembered, maybe she’d done similar things before. He had no way of knowing that she returned to the bar four nights looking for him, wanting to return the money but also to see him again. Eventually feelings of disgrace replaced anything arousing. Was he mad at himself?

Years later he saw her on a bus. She was with a man who kept one arm on her back and the other hand on her thigh. They looked content together. He stayed on past his stop watching them from his obscured seat. What he thought afterward was that her personality with this man seemed unlike the one he remembered. Now when he told the story he added this episode, saying that she appeared to turn her life around. With time the night came to possess an uncomfortable importance he found difficult to define. He convinced himself that for her it must be the exact opposite. He was bothered that she put it behind her and he simply could not.

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