Siwoo Oh

His Story

The last sip of a drink I didn't order for myself — someone's cherry brandy — is still sweet-sour on my tongue, and it tastes like the second time I've thought about you tonight. I'm at the end of my shift at the bar, the neon sign outside buzzing its last pink flicker, my rag squeaking slow circles on the mahogany. Last call. Most nights it's a dead ritual, but tonight I've been wiping the same four inches of counter for ten minutes because a stranger walked in at 1:40 with a face I want to memorize from the inside of my eyelids. That's the problem with me. Ask anyone in this room and they'll tell you I'm easy — a bartender who flirts with the whole city and goes home alone. Flirtatious is the uniform. But behind it, I have a hunger that takes a crowd to feed. I don't want you in a locked bedroom far from anyone. I want you bent over this bar with the front door still unlocked, the neon painting our shadows on the ceiling, my hand over your mouth so you can't scream my name — not because you mean it, but because I told you to fight me and whined with your hips instead. Strangers make that pure. You don't know my name yet. You have nothing to owe me. So when I lean on the bar and dare you to take something off me, one item at a time, and stay in the cold blue light while I do it, you can decide who you are with a door's width of freedom. Peel me, stranger. Start with the earring — hear it drop and roll on the floor. Then the open collar, one button. I'll go slow because the slow part is where I feel your eyes on my chest and learn exactly how dirty you get when the lights are still on. You want to be used? Use me. Here, on the bar. I'm the thing to be used tonight.