Cocktail
A Short Story
By Maryanne Peters

It seemed as if all that Jack needed to do was to get drunk. They had been seeing each other for almost a month. He had been determined that this was a relationship that would work. Perhaps he just tried too hard. That was how she let him down – hard. It hurt more than he could ever have imagined.

He had not been to this bar before. It was tucked in behind a building with only a door to the street and no windows. Somehow that made it perfect – like crawling into a dark hole where he could not be seen. That was where he could drown himself in beer and whisky.

Jack was a little surprised by the interior. It was called “Tri Bar” and he could see that the floor footprint was a triangle. In addition, there were triangular tables, and light fittings set up in threes, and three pointed patterns on the walls and ceilings. It might have been called “avant garde” if it was busy, but he was satisfied with it because it wasn’t. There was only the barman and maybe one or two others in the shadows.

“I’ll have a beer and a shot of whiskey,” he said. Then looking around he changed the order – “Make that 3 shots of whiskey”.

Jack did not want to stay seated at the bar, it was too bright, and the barman looked too jolly.

“Don’t worry sir, take a seat and I’ll bring it over,” he grinned, infuriatingly.

Jack found a seat in a dark corner and sat, trying to empty his mind. He had never considered himself as being inclined towards depression, but he recognized it for what it was. He had fallen into a hole, and there was no way out. Liquor was not a ladder. It was a blanket to curl up with.

Then a drink appeared on his table. It was not a beer and three shots and the man standing behind it was not the barman.

“That is not what I ordered,” said Jack. He was not in a mood for pleasantries.

“No, it’s not,” said the stranger. “It’s called “A Change of Life”. I bought it for you. It is better than what you ordered, and it is free.”

“Is it alcoholic? It had better be.”

The man smiled. “Try it,” he said. “That is the name of this place after all. The Try Bar. Try anything once, right?”

“I thought it was T R I – Tri bar – like with the shape it is and all the décor, and this drink is even sitting on a three-cornered coaster.” It was tall and colorful and had a slice of orange and a cherry and one of those toothpicks in the shape of a parasol.

“It’s a Change of Life. It’s what you need. Try it.” The stranger was insistent.

“You don’t know me. You don’t know what I need,” said Jack.

“I know what we all need,” said the man. “Purpose, intimacy, happiness. You don’t have that.”

“I am the perennial loser at love,” Jack admitted. “Can’t find the right girl. No, that’s wrong. I always find the right girl, but the right girl doesn’t want me. Go figure.”

“Women do see more than most men,” said the man. He pointed at the drink on the table. “If you really want, I can add some of this to your drink.” He pulled from somewhere a small sachet of white powder and sprinkled it in the glass.

“I would be crazy to try something without knowing what could happen to me,” said Jack.

“You’re alive, aren’t you? That is what life is. You never know what is going to happen until it has already happened. This is another blind corner for you to go around. The difference is that I am telling you it will be positive. Just try it. What have you got to lose?”

It seemed as if Jack had heard those six words all his life without really understanding them. Now he did. He was a loser. He was spent. He was done. There was nothing.

“If I drink this then you can buy me that beer and three shots after,” said Jack. It did not look like strong drink. A beer to prepare the stomach and then 3 shots followed by 3 more. What the hell.

“Sure,” the man said. “For you, I’m buying.”

It seemed like a good idea to chug it down. It was sweet and sour and bitter, all in one. Like life perhaps?

***

Warren Kilby woke with a start. Her hand was on his cock. Her soft breasts were pressing against his hair chest and her face was close to his – her hair brushing his cheek, her breath in his nose, and her eyes intent on his barely open. There were still traces of last night on her face – her eyelashes and the lipstick stain that her cleansing the night before had failed to wipe away. But he recognized the look.

“As of last night we have a contract,” she said. “I accepted your offer and now I am here to collect.”

He smiled. He protested – “But we did it last night – twice in fact.”

“I can never get enough of you, so you had better get over it,” she said with mock seriousness.

He brushed a lock of her hair away – soft and blond with last night’s curl intact, smelling of roses. He kissed her lips that were begging for just that. He rolled her over. The touch of her hand had been enough, or perhaps that kiss. He was swelling to size. She watched him intently – expectantly.

Her vagina was off limits, but he knew what to do. He lifted her legs to get full access to her rear entrance and he entered, unsurprised that it was prepared for just that. She had been up before him to make herself ready. She worshipped him and his cock, the way that no woman could, but her.

She gasped, then smiled, then gave him the come-on look that seemed to have always been on her face, from the very first night. He responded as he did, with pure love, in long slow strokes that made her body wrack with ecstasy. He came with a shudder. She squealed with delight. He slumped beside her.

His hand reached out to cup her lightly haired pubis. She was everything that he dreamed of.

“No regrets?” he asked, stroking what was closed to him … for now.

“None,” she said. “You saved me. God knows where I would be if you had not walked over. But I was thinking – I do have a question.”

“Ask me,” he said, turning his head to face her.

“What was in that cocktail?” she said. “What is in a Change of Life?”

“It is not what was in the drink it was the man who was carrying it,” he said. “The man who saw the woman in the boy. The man who was not surprised to hear that your relationship with women could never be sexual or even intimate. The man who understanded what you really needed was a man, and that you needed to be a woman.”

“I am just curious,” she said. “I have been too afraid to ask for another Change of Life. I am happy with the one I have now. I could not risk losing it. I could not risk losing you.”

“That is not going to happen,” he said. “We are going to be married, remembered. As soon as you are healed we are going to wed in every sense.”

“But what was in the powder?” she said. “What made me so easily respond to you the way I did that night? What freed my mind so much that I allowed you to take me the way you did?”

“It was what you really wanted all along, isn’t that right?”

“It is,” she said. It seemed as if he was always right. She loved him for that. “But what was the powder?”

“Sweet and Low", he said. “Saccharin powder. That was the final sweetener on the deal.”

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2023

Author's Note" Thanks to Erin for the idea and the last line!