Merlin's Rest was long a favorite haunt of mine, especially in my heavy drinking days. It was a British Isles pub that featured a tremendous selection of whiskeys (and whiskys for those who enjoy a peaty scotch).
I'd become acquainted with a number of regulars there over the years. One such was an east-African man named Abraham. He was a union organizer at the airport. He was quiet guy who spent more time looking at news video from home on his phone than socializing, but I thought he was a decent sort.
I'd brought Tina to Merlin's on our second date for Wednesday pub trivia hosted by the incomparably witty Bill Watkins. My friend Jeff showed up to make our team three and he seemed set on pushing the bounds of propriety with my new dating interest, talking about vinyl "gimp suits" with zipper masks and gag balls. Tina took it in stride and found it enormously entertaining.
After trivia was concluded and Jeff had departed, I introduced Tina to a few regulars, including Abraham and the pub's "cultural ambassador," Bill. The main mission was to get to know each other better, so I didn't linger long at the regulars corner of the bar. Tina and I sat at a high table near the window. At the table next to ours, two women were leaned in towards each other engaged in conversation. Tina was a people-watcher, it seemed. Her attention was neatly divided between her date with me and the lesbian first date she deduced was going on behind me. Astrology came up and one of the women said she was a Scorpio. Tina interjected. "Scorpios are highly sexual people."
I'm sure my eyes widened. I hadn't expected to be meddling in lesbian romance.
The women turned their attention to Tina. They looked intrigued. "What else do you know about Scorpios?" One of them asked.
Though she was the cause of the moment, she suddenly turned red, embarrassed. "Um. I think it's time for us to go," she said to me. We made a hasty departure and left the ladies to carry on their date in peace.
Merlin's became a fairly regular stop-off for us as our relationship progressed and Tina swiftly developed an affinity for Abraham. The two of them would chat at length. Something about their later conversations was making me uneasy, though. On one occasion, I was standing off the to the side waiting on our drinks order. I couldn't hear what they were discussing, but I saw Abraham make a "call me" gesture. I wondered if Tina had obtained his phone number at some point and if so, for what? She had taken an interest in his country of origin and I saw her reading up on Eritrea on her computer one night. That night, she commented to me on the drive home, "he's very handsome."
The next time I was at Merlin's alone, I tried to engage Abraham in conversation and he seemed nervous and disinclined to chat with me. On my way out of the bar that night, I clapped Abraham on the shoulder when I said goodbye and he flinched.
I never really thought too much of all this, except that something was making me feel uneasy when I saw them together.
After several break-ups and reconciliations, I brought Tina back to Merlin's after a lengthy absence. I was no longer drinking, but was happy enough to buy Tina drinks. She was so thrilled to see Abraham there and she talked to him at length while I chatted with some other regulars.
That night, Tina and I had been even more flirty and affectionate than usual and I was pretty hot for her. I was eager to get her home to make love. She seemed likewise inclined and after she downed a couple double shots of whiskey, we decided to call it a night.
Always a gentleman, I gestured for her to go first as we were leaving the pub, but Tina uncharacteristically froze in her tracks and insisted that I go by first. There was a look about her. An odd, abrupt shift in behavior that set my Spidey senses tingling.
I passed by her and put my hand on the door, but looked back over my shoulder to see what she was up to behind my back. What I saw sapped all the lust and probably color out me. I could actually feel my love for Tina wash down my body and right out of my feet.
Read the rest at the new Adventures of Dan and Tina.
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