Hell Date

It was Halloween, because of course it was. Heavy clouds hung low and held their breath, as lightning shattered the silence. I should have known to turn back, but I don’t always pick up on ham-fisted literary symbolism. So, I got out of my parked car and traversed the sopping leaves that covered the Hawthorne sidewalk, ducking underneath awnings whenever I could, and made my way inside Bar Of The Gods.

Stepping inside, the sludge of doom metal hit me between the eyes, obscuring the senses, until my vision slowly adjusted to the cavernous dark before me. I scanned the room looking for someone I hadn’t met. She wasn’t there—at least, I didn’t think she was. But, how would I know? All I had to go off of was her OkCupid profile picture. I took a seat on a bar stool, coddling a cocktail.

A woman stepped in from the rain, dressed in something darker and more cumbersome than the music. A narrow nose protruded from beneath her cloak, which she left on, eerily, as she ordered a drink. Then she looked my direction and I felt my testicles instinctively withdraw in fear.

"Not us, not today," they seemed to say.

"But, I’m doing this for you guys," I wanted to tell them. But, they had already clocked out for the night.

The witch sat a table away and twirled her finger around the mouth of her glass—eyeing me like she was thinking about feeding me an apple. The headlight from a passing car splashed against her face. I couldn’t tell if it was my date, because she looked about 20 years older than the woman I was expecting. She kept looking at me, like she was expecting me to approach her. But, maybe that was because I had been staring at her since she entered. Then I heard a disembodied voice say my name. It was coming from elsewhere, not from the witch. From an apparition?

I turned and saw a younger, prettier woman— the woman from the dating site. I sighed in relief. "I thought you were that old woman," I said, nodding.

My date seemed offended. "You think I look like her?"

"Not now, but maybe in a few decades," I said. I do not know why I said that.

She changed the subject. "What is the worst date you’ve ever been on?" she said. Come to think of it, maybe she hadn’t changed the subject.

"I don’t think I’ve had any," I said.

"Then why are you still single?" she asked.

That hadn’t occurred to me.

Then she told me hers:

"I met a man on OkCupid—Kyle, we’ll call him. He was from San Francisco, but was in Portland for business. We met up, had great chemistry followed by great sex and then he offered to fly me down the following weekend. It seemed a bit extravagant, but he was an extravagant man. He didn’t stay over after we had sex and said he sleeps better in hotel rooms. He’s done this before, I could tell. But, so had I. I knew the routine. He said ‘goodbye’ without a kiss. I didn’t think I would hear from him again. But, I did—the next day. He was back home, buying me a plane ticket. I had that uneasy feeling that you get...you know the feeling?"

Oh, do I. I let her continue, despite wanting to follow the example of my testicles and leave the premises.

"He mentioned that his girlfriend would be joining us. I didn’t know he had a girlfriend, but he sent me pictures of her—nudes— which told me that it would be strictly a sex weekend. I knew it would be anyway, but I guess the fact that neither of us had explicitly discussed sex (or, his partner) led me to think that maybe we were going to beat around the bush and let it happen naturally, instead of it being a programmed activity. Nevertheless, I consented and he bought the ticket.

It was my first time in San Francisco—the only time I’ve ever been there. I wanted to explore the city, but Kyle had sent his driver to pick me up. Kyle was about business. When I arrived at their apartment, the doorman led me to their private elevator. The only one in the building that went to the top floor—their flat. The elevator opened directly into their apartment—there was no hallway.

The first thing I noticed was she didn’t look like the photo. She had legs and arms in the photo. But the woman before me was a quadruple amputee. ‘You won’t believe what she can do,’ Kyle said, as he stood behind me and clasped his hands over my shoulders. Then I got drunk, fast, and we did all the coke.

And, he was right, about what she could do. My memory of the night is incomplete, but at times she was spinning, at times airborne. And, before I knew it, I was back home in Portland, where I gradually sobered back up—unsure of whether it all had even happened."

Then, my date went silent.

"And...so, that was the worst date?" I asked. A pause. Then she continued.

"A couple days later, I got a phone call from Kyle. I didn’t answer, but he left a voicemail and he sounded distraught. So, I called him and he told me that his girlfriend had committed suicide that morning. While he was in the shower, she used her teeth to drag herself across the carpet and onto the balcony. Then, she threw herself to her death."

Silence again. I looked around the room for anything to change the subject to, but the only thing in sight was a photo of the Golden Gate Bridge, leering above us as we sat at the bar. She followed my eyes to the photo and she gazed at it, mesmerized.

Then she said, "Wow. And, to think, I was just there last weekend."

I took my testicles and left.