Uncomfortably close in an empty bar.

So I was at the bar tonight...

... and it was unusually quiet, so much so that at first I wondered, as I came on approach to the deathly still curtain that blocked off the inside from view, if I had forgotten a holiday and it was closed. I was quite disappointed, for the floors of the bar would click satisfyingly under the new, unscuffed, virgin edges of my boot heels on correspondingly new, leather-butter-soft, new-car-smelling boots. Then the gentle thud of house came through the door, and I entered, to a far less smoky bar, quieter, subdued. There was a new bartender, and he was interestingly good-looking, but not entirely hot. Unfuckable - too nice for me. Two glasses of grapefruit juice passed without occasion, until, nearing the end of the second glass, the bartender of posts past took interest (or pity) in me, and spoke with me for half an hour, while the girlfriends uncomfortably close to my right elbow, even though the bar was empty - but such is the nature of bar stools - chatted about everything and nothing, between lingering looks and kisses. And no one wanted to move. Perhaps we simply liked the ambient warmth in the otherwise chilly bar.

When I was finally unable to nurse my second drink much longer and was asked if I wanted another, it was then a moment of frowning. A Shirley Temple would be too cloyingly sweet, while a Virgin Mary too tart and salty. Grapefruit rapidly became boring, and orange was too fresh for so late at night. So I inquired after a new mocktail to sample, and after some thinking, bartender-of-posts-past (BOPP, henceforth) turned to the new bartender, who suggested something mildly experimental, to which I agreed, explorer of drinks that I am. The result was gently soothing, sweet, yet refreshingly clean, with a gentle hint at exoticism. And even two hours later, post-snack and -bus and -home, I do not know its name.