Bar Wench

[p.s. Cargile]

The woman is real, the asumptions are mine.

----------------------------------------



She wore calm assuredness in the causal look in her eyes. Assuredness of her actions. Assuredness of her thoughts. Assuredness that she wasn't seen. To look at her one would get the opposite opinion. One would falsely assume that she wanted to be looked at, and it would be a honest mistake. She was crafty in hiding herself by making herself overtly visible. She drew the eye of strangers to her form. Eyes slid from her long magenta copper hair, missing the oval face, to the large colorful tattoo of a large red heart or some such centered on her chest, between breast, each a handful, and partially visible behind a conforming black, diaphanous midriff that did nothing to hide the silver bars lanced through jutting nipples. The eyes moved on, downward, ignoring slender arms and elegant, purposeful hands. They moved across a trim stomach, whose navel may have been studded, and found interest in an unusual miniskirt of woodland camouflage, hemmed closely along the bottom edge of her butt. Its shortness made onlookers curious if whether or not there were panties in that darkened cleft as she bent to tasks behind the bar. The eyes slipped down skinny legs covered with fishnet stocking stretching up underneath the skirt from thick olive-drab wool military socks protecting her skin from the chaffing interior of knee-high motorcycles boots adorned with polished chrome clasps.

With such attire she forced one to look at her attributes, never to look into her eyes. Never to see her, the person hiding behind such a costume. The outfit tricked many into thinking that she was sexy. She was not. She was neither erotic, nor exotic in her ruse. She was, however, intriguing in her deception. Intriguing because she took pleasure in that deception. Ironically, she wasn't aware that her choice of style was a defensive reflex to hide from those that she wanted to surround herself with. People could stare. People could comment. Men could come on to her. None of this mattered because they were responding not to her, but the idea of her. The idea of her that she controlled.

They wanted what she projected to them, and this gave her brazen confidence.

Calm.

Cool.

Collect.

She was a not a choice.

She chose whom she wanted. And that was that.

If I were to ask her why she dressed this way, why adorn herself with the tattoos and the piercings, she would say that she was just expressing herself. She would say that she was fulfilling her freedom of expression. I would have no argument. If I were to ask her that, that is what she would say, and I would not care to ask her anything else. And since I knew the answer, I never bothered to voice my question, finding a control in maintaining the silence and seeming indifferent.

What was she expressing? What does this manner of dress express? What is she saying to me and the rest of us? She is lonely and rejected, or so she fears being alone and rejected. She had been rejected in her youth and found a way to strike back, by giving more cause to be rejected by common norms. She took a stand and said defiantly, “I don’t need you that criticize so harshly!” She no longer gave a care to what they thought because she was better than them. This is what she would say to you and me and casual conversation if the topic arose. But I know she is hiding, if she doesn’t know it herself. She does care what people thing about her. She needs people to think about her. She needs the reaction of those around her. She wants to shock those outside her life. She is expressing rebellion of conformity.

Yes, opposing social norms of her community, opposing restrictions, morality, and decency, because she derived a wicked pleasure by upsetting people who wanted her to be the good little girl. They hurt her. She hurt them back. They did not know they were hurting her. Or if they did, they didn’t care. They did not know that they were denying her what she craved most, a sense of belonging and love.

But the music--ah the music, the heavy metal, the punk, the techno, it opened new doors to her. It made her aware of others that shared her feelings. It made her feel that she belonged to a larger family. And this family had been united in pain. The tattoos and body piercings had become proof of membership in a smaller sister- and brotherhood of people that understood her, people that accepted her, and loved her. Though they only understood, accepted, and loved her for what she was and not for who she was. She had never distinguished between those two blurred lines. She never bothered to understand the difference. She had convinced herself that there was no difference. She took the superficial pleasure of belonging to them.

But what really needed to be understood, accepted, and loved was what I saw hiding in the secret depths of her eyes. I saw the dark, desperate eyes of the little girl peering over the head of a clutched doll.

I wondered if she would ever reach out to that secret, hidden part of herself. I knew that she had to understand, accept, and love that little girl that remained with her.

I knew that no one else would.

That part of her remained, as if locked in a closet. That was her pain. She didn’t want to think about it, or comprehend it. She needed it. That pain, that little girl peering over the head of a doll in a locked dark closet gave her the reason for being what she was. To understand, accept, and love that little girl would weaken the relationship that bonded her to her sisters and brothers in tattoos and body piercings. To allow the abused little girl to grow into her would transform her into that person she always hated. She would be her parents, her teachers, and her schoolmates.

She was she! Goddammit! So **** that shazbot!

Every prick of the tattoo needle, every penetration of the piercing needle, traded emotional pain for physical pain. She enjoyed this pain, this necessary pain. It made the little girl’s presence less noticeable, easily forgotten. She wanted to be free from the very pain that defined her.

Of course, all this was lost to her. All this remained in the depths of her mind. These turbulences lost energy in the calmer surface waters of her mind. Here she reigned supreme, in control, choosing an image to allure and shock, choosing an image to belong and be rejected. By choosing this image, she controlled what people thought of her. She felt sexy exposing herself to near nakedness. She felt wanted, desired. She seemed to take no notice or bother that the men she made want and desire her were not the kind of men that would love her. That did not matter though. Sex was a willing substitute for love.

I would destroy her. I would not see her guise. I would see her. That would make her nervous. I would not find her sexy, and that would infuriate her. I would not love her body, or her quips, or her personality. I would love her pain. I would make her see it. I would be her salvation, and that would destroy her. She would hate me.

But, alas, those are the things I care not to do. It is not my place to save her. She does not ask it.

Nor does she choose me.

For if she did, she would regret it

[General Phoenix]

Damn - that's some dark stuff. But well done!

I might have chosen a few words differently, but overall, I really like it. Reminds me of a few girls I know...