This is a new dress.  I’m staring at myself in the ladies’ room mirror at the Roxy, trying to be Heather Locklear.  Or Salma Hayek.  Someone confident. These are my real boobs.  In my new dress, they look pretty spectacular.  I wonder if I should have come with friends tonight.  No, I think: I’m on a mission.  Saturday nights are for girlfriends.

I heard from the girl in accounting, who comes here every weekend, that on Friday evenings after the business district clears, all the hot young men pour into the Roxy.  She comes every weekend, and always has wild stories to whisper in the coffee room on Monday.  That’s why I’m here tonight, friendless.  I’m feeling predatory.

There’s a guy in worn dark denim and an untucked white button-down at the bar with whom I’ve been trying to make eye-contact all night.

He might be here alone as well, which would be perfect.  No awkward partings at the end of the night as friends plot the logistics of getting home, just two people with the same idea when the lights come on.  I think about guiding his hands, of biting his lip.  I arch my back and straighten my dress over my hips as I approach.

“My name’s Lola,” I lie sidling up to the bar beside him.  “Can I buy you a fresh glass of whatever you’re drinking?”