With Hesitant Stride - A Blog Novel - Excerpt 1

With Hesitant Stride
by
Derek A Benner

It was his stride that first caught my eye. He prowled to the bar, never hesitating, never dodging or weaving around the other patrons. It was as if they unconsciously withdrew from his desired path. His motion riveted my attention; I felt compelled to watch his progress to the bar. As I watched, he reached his destination, drew the bartender's attention with a casual wave of his hand and leaned possessively against the rail.
"He's definitely easy on the eyes, don't you think?" Jimmie's comment crashed through my concentration, whipping my head away from the scene and back towards my friend.
"Ummm. . . Yes," I stammered. "I mean, no. I really didn't notice. I was just thinking about something."
"Riiiight. You keep practicing on Mamma Jimmie; one day you might just be convincing when you tell a lie," he said. "Here you sat, telling me all about how beastly you've been treated at work and you just stop talking, your eyes go all 'focused' and you track on him like you're a starving lioness and you've just spotted your next meal. " Jimmy turned and gazed back at the bar. "I think I'm jealous."
"Jealous? You? Mr. Seven-Dates-Per-Week, jealous? Of me? I haven't dated for the last two years, much less had a serious relationship and you're jealous because I look at someone. Get real, Jimmie," I said, staring at Jimmie's head. "Besides, I don't know him and he doesn't know me. It's not as if he's going to just waltz on over here, sit down and strike up a conversation because he's enthralled by my beauty," I muttered into the glass holding my Black Russian.
"You better put that down; you wouldn't want to spill it. He's headed this way." I coughed and spit out the meager swallow I had just taken. For the second time in less than 5 minutes Jimmie managed to surprise me. A shadow fell across the booth just as I set down my glass and fumbled for a napkin.
"Excuse me, am I interrupting?" Deep, velvety, smooth, his voice stroked my ears the way cashmere did my skin. I couldn't help but look up.
Eventually, after hours of contemplating his eyes, his beautiful, Yogo Sapphire eyes, I noticed the rest of his face. An eternity later, it occurred to me he had a look of questioning concern. At this rate, I might find my voice minutes before the heat death of the universe.
"Don't mind her, she's got the hots for you and it'll take her a while to re-engage her brain." Once again, Jimmie scored against me. It truly was not my day. "I'm Stanley Torres, but you can call me Jimmie. My brain-dead friend is Stephanie Hardesty, but she responds best to Elaine. If you want to sit down and join us, I'm sure she'll re-boot shortly."
I exploded. "Stanley James Torres, if you don't shut up right now you'll find yourself sleeping in your car tonight!" A few heads turned at my outburst, marking those who were not regular denizens of Harry's Bar. The usual crowd were never surprised when Jimmie's button-pushing drove me to raise my voice. No doubt some were flashing knowing smiles at each other. Turning to the stranger, I said, "You are more than welcome here. Sit down and introduce yourself. But ignore Jimmie; he's barely house-trained, much less ready for company," I smiled as, under the table, I kicked Jimmie in the shin.
As he slid into the booth, forcing Jimmie to move and give him room, I took the time to examine him more closely. His sandy brown hair was cut long enough to appear full, yet it had been trimmed off the ears and neck. It shone with a lustrous depth that spoke to me of expensive shampoos and conditioners. His skin was just smooth enough to make me want to run my fingertips along his jaw, yet clearly exuded a manliness so at odds with the baby-faced androgynous look favored by so many metro-sexuals these days. For a wonder, his teeth, while clean and straight, were not the dazzling bright white from porcelain caps or daily application of tooth brightening strips. Yet one more check for the "Plus" side of my internal checklist.
"I'm Richard Leonard, but I feel most comfortable with Rich. I saw you, Elaine, when I was over at the main County of Sacramento building," he stated. "I've just recently been hired to do some consulting work to train workers in the new intra-net email software Sac County bought."
"I wish City would update their email programs. We're constantly running into storage issues. But we're using the email software that came with the computers so no luck there."
"If they ever switch to Opera, let me know. We'll bid to train you," Richard replied. "Oh. Elaine. I forgot to give you this. I asked the bartender what you liked." He slid a Black Russian my way.
"Thanks, but I'm not done with my first one yet." I held up the glass for inspection, realizing as I did so that my glass was, indeed, empty. "Or maybe I am. It's been a rough day. Were you part of the that group wandering through the cube farm around 10 this morning?"
"Sure was." And I saw you prairie-dogging with the rest of the office. God. I love not living in a cubicle all day. I didn't expect to see you until tomorrow at work. After the intense meetings we had today discussing the training schedule and the goals for the contract, I decided to wander in here to relax and unwind." Looking around Harry's, he continued, "This is a rather nice place. Quiet, not too dark, cozy and private. A guy could feel almost at home here."
"A lot of City and County workers come here. In fact, I met Jimmie here one day, what, about 4 years ago wasn't it, Jimmie?"
As the silence drew out, I looked over at my friend, only to meet a sulking glare. "What," he asked? "You were drooling over him. And we met September 17, 2002. It was a Wednesday, if I remember correctly. I had an extremely bad day teaching my new supervisor how to do his job."
"Yes, and you were quite expressive in detailing every single one of his shortcomings. Even those you had no knowledge of." I giggled. "Do you remember how you described him?"
"Of course I remember. I'm the one who described him to you. He still looks like a walrus in a tweed suit. He even wears a vest, for crying out loud." Thawing a bit, a wry smile graced his lips. "Do you know what he did today?"
"No, please tell us."
"He harrumphed! I kid you not. He harrumphed! At our weekly status meeting, Sanjay was trying to explain why we couldn't use the reports from the temporary contracting services agencies as the basis for verifying the hours reported by those agencies for the temp workers. And Elmore Jackson, his royal majesty of City of Sacramento, Department of Finances, Temporary Services Division, harrumphed and said any competent IS worker would be able to do so. Sanjay tried to explain that comparing a report to itself would not catch timecard errors and that we needed to either compare the reports against our copies of the temp workers' timecards or create a spreadsheet of them to compare against the agencies' reports, but Jackson was having none of 'that nonsense' as he called it."
"Is he the one with the large, bristly mustache and almost no hair," Richard asked?
"You've met him," Jimmie replied. "It's a small world after all. When did he inflict himself upon you? I've never seen you down at City Hall."
"I met him when he worked for the California State Legislature. He was one of their budget analysts. He didn't impress me. It's one thing to be detail-oriented; it's quite another to be so obsessed with following each step with such nit-picking precision as to preclude any possible change to account for changing situations." Richard said. "Yes, I've met Elmore Warburger Jackson. Met him and experienced my fill of him."
As Richard and Jimmie traded war stories, I watched the interplay between them. Jimmie finds it easy to get along with just about everyone so it didn't surprise me in the least to see him behaving so chummy. Which left me plenty of time to pay attention to Richard. Pay attention? More like devour his every move, commit each word to memory, imprint his scent and appearance. Who was I fooling? Richard was hot! And I wanted him.
Which was crazy. I'd ended a relationship just last year; I couldn't possibly be ready for a new one. Obviously, I was suffering from rebound syndrome. Still, I didn't have to try for a long-term relationship. I could just go for friendship. As if any man this gorgeous would settle for being just friends. Nope, better to plan on having a torrid affair with plenty of sex. I've already got a man friend in Jimmie.
"Girlfriend, we've been sitting here swapping tall tales and leaving you completely alone over there," Jimmie said, bringing me back into the conversation. "Seems Rich and I have worked for several of the same bosses, just not at the same time."
"Whereas I've been working at County since I graduated college. You know me, I'm just a Sacramento home girl. How about you, Richard, are you from Sacramento," I asked.
"No, I'm an Angeleno, born and raised. But I did go to UCDavis for my Bachelor's. I liked it up here, found a job and stayed. Sac's grown lately, but it's still not the madhouse you see in LA. My parents and my older brother still live down there so I go down to see them over Thanksgiving and Christmas if I'm not too tied up at work. But, for the right friends, I could be tempted to stay here," he smiled.
"Very interesting," said Jimmie. "Elaine has been threatening to stuff me full of poisoned turkey this year. Maybe if you come, I'll be safe."
"We'll have to talk about this again because it sounds very tempting. However, I've got to go. I have much work to do before tomorrow's meeting. I look forward, Elaine, to seeing you at work."
"I hope to see you there," I replied.
Richard got up, leaving Jimmie and I in the booth. After he went out the door, I said, "Did you just invite Richard to Thanksgiving Dinner? And what's all this nonsense about me threatening to poison you? I thought we'd agree to celebrate Thanksgiving with your parents this year?"
"Calm down, girlfriend. It's obvious you're attracted to him and you know as well as I do, we hadn't confirmed with Mom and Dad. Let's go home and discuss this later."
With that, we headed for home.