Natalie The Server by Bill Kitcher

I raised my glass to my lips and, looking up, saw Natalie watching me. She smiled slightly, briefly.

She came over and sat beside me at the bar. “I’m off work in about half an hour. Would it be OK if I joined you for a drink? Or two?”

“Of course it would be OK. Why wouldn’t it?” I teased her, wondering why now of all the time we’d known each other she would choose to sit beside me.

“May I have the house red?”

“Small or large?” asked the bartender.

“Large,” she smiled.

We clinked glasses. “To what do I owe the pleasure of your company?”

She turned on her barstool and looked directly into my eyes with her own beautiful brown, no green, eyes. “There are too many idiots around, and...” She paused briefly. “I’m very attracted to you.”

“I’m very attracted to you too. But it can’t work. I’m way too old for you.”

“How old are you?”

“Too old.”

“Age doesn’t matter.”

“It does to me.”

Natalie lay on my bed naked, her arms extended to me. “Come here,” she said.

“No, I can’t,” I replied, and shook my head with a brief smile.

I took a sip out of my glass and glanced at Natalie, who was already looking at something else.

Bill’s stories, plays, and comedy sketches have been published, produced, and/or broadcast in Australia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Canada, Czechia, England, Germany, Guernsey, Holland, India, Ireland, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, the U.S., and Wales. His stories have appeared in Fiery Scribe Review, Ariel Chart, New Contrast, Spinozablue, Helix Literary Magazine, Granfalloon, Eunoia Review, Defenestration, Pigeon Review, Yellow Mama, and many other journals. His novel, “Farewell And Goodbye, My Maltese Sleep”, was published in October 2023 by Close To The Bone Publishing.