Every classy lounge in the universe has a femme fatale to counterbalance all the male lounge lizards who seek prey on a nightly basis and Think-A-Holic Lounge is no exception to that cosmic rule. It’s almost as if these dedicated and mysterious females are placed there by the very hand of fate to exact justice for all the predictable lounge lizardry that invariably takes place when men imbibe adult beverages without the benefit of think-a-hol. That’s when pick up lines are hurriedly polished and pride and prejudice are thrown out the window. The unknown target for l’amour is zeroed in on and stealthily approached.Unfortunately, the woman in this picture is one of the two silent partners who own and operate Think-A-Holic Lounge. Her name is Ethera and no one seems to know her last name or where she comes from or if she is single or married or whether or not she is a significant other of the male silent partner that most of us have heard of but have never seen. Last Saturday night, the Lounge’s biggest and busiest night of the week for lounge lizardry, Ethera settled into a booth and gauged the competition. Angus McCloud, the Lounge’s big-ass head bartender and protector of all things female in the universe, personally mixed and served her cocktail.
Ethera looked calm and collected as she was immediately approached by one of the regular lizards, the astral body of a slick, smooth-talking, traditionally-published mainstream fiction author from Earth. But when he tried to sit down opposite her, she spoke something that only those of us with acute hearing could hear, the kind of penetrating and practiced auditory ability that cuts through all the noise and commotion of revelry to the very core and definition of interpersonal dialogue.
“Not in this lifetime,” I heard Ethera tell the lounge lizard. Then she calmly sipped her drink.
He backed away from her like he’d been bitten by a snake. When he finally managed to belly up to the bar again, Angus set him up with a double shot of think-a-hol and a single bubbly chaser.
“On the house, pal” Angus told the lizard. Then the big ol’ ghost of a dead Scottish poet lost his professional demeanor and tried in vain to suppress an I-Told-You-So smirk.
“Better let me have a double think-a-hol, as well,” I said quickly as I laid a Solar Fin on the bar and loosened my tie. Just seeing such a thing had snapped me out of my romantic delirium and peaked my thirst for plenty of antidote.
