Sara and the Bar

Sara was a very pretty girl, she knew it and so did all the men around her. She was rich and bored. She had everything she wanted and wanted everything else. Cars, drugs, men, women. If it caught her fancy she would own it.
Bar hopping was her latest entertainment. Big classy creme de la creme places one hour, the shitist hellhole the next.
Tonight’s drinking hole was a small affair that was pretty well hidden.
Almost a dive, JD’s lounge consisted of two bars and a small dinning area. The rear bar was a filthy place that could only be reached though an unmarked door around the back. It was a place for the unwanted. The pool tables filled every available breath of space not occupied by the bar and drew crowds of all kinds ranging from average kids looking for fun to heavy pool players who hoped on day to be pros.
The front bar was well lit and almost classy. A place to go for drinks as opposed to a place to go get drunk.
Sara found it by chance.
Her normal driver quit, and the new guy had the worst sense of direction ever; though Sara’s sudden decisions that they should turn down random streets certainly didn’t help.
She found it odd that she had even seen it. It did nothing to stand out at all despite the fact that it was pretty well tucked away. The place was surprisingly full considering.
Sara went in the door to the rear bar and was confronted by the smell of smoke and the blare of music.
“HEY! Turn that the fuck down!” a voice yelled. The music dulled but never let up its constant pounding on Sara’s ears.
Sara took the stairs slowly, a feeling of anticipation growing in the pit of her stomach.
Down in the bar the room was hazy and loud. There was a group of tough shit teenagers playing pool who had had too much to drink, an aged biker sipping whiskey, and three or four middle-aged men who Sara took to be regulars.
Behind the bar sat a young man, maybe thirty but more likely twenty. He was dressed in a black suit with a red shirt and black tie. He was perched atop a bar stool behind the counter.
“I said turn that the fuck down!” he yelled again to the pool players.
“What? It’s down!” one of them yelled back.
“Not enough, we’re not a club!”
“Hey fuck you Alex! We pay!”
“You still owe me for last week, bitch!”
Alex humm? It was a perfect fit for him in Sara’s opinion. It was strong and masculine but not overly so. It had a certain grace, without being frail. Definitely someone who could distract her for a while.
The pool player didn’t seem to hear Alex’s reminder and Alex didn’t seem to particularly care about it. He started to head back to the bar stool then noticed Sara.
“What’s your fancy?” he asked nonchalantly putting his hands on the bar. If he saw that she was beautiful he gave no sign of it.
A conquest was he? Very well then Sara would have him.
“A shot of cherry vodka.”
He raised his eyebrow but said nothing otherwise. Instead he reached under the counter and rummaged around.
“We’re out of cherry. Something else?”
“Plain vodka then.”
He poured a shot of cheap vodka and then went back to his stool. He settled into it and got comfortable.
“Hi I’m Sara.” Sara said extending her hand.
“Alex.” He was curt and to the point, and if Sara didn’t know better uninterested. He shook her hand firm and even, not to hard not too soft. Almost as if she was a man. “Do you need a menu?”
“That depends, how’s the food?”
“It’s good enough but not for the price.”
“I don’t mind.”
“Knock your self out then” he tossed her a menu, and went back to his stool. He settled in and closed his eyes.
The menu was the standard fair, hot dogs, hamburgers, club sandwiches, and as Alex had said an inflated price.
“What’s good?” Sara asked trying her best to draw Alex into conversation.
“Henry makes a mean turkey club and the burger's good to. Unless you’re vegetarian then you have your pick of salads.”
“I’ll take the club.”
“Right.”
Alex once again hopped off his stool but this time he headed to a door on the left side of the bar, leaving Sara alone to deal with the bitter concoction they called vodka.
Alex came back quickly. He said nothing to Sara
In fact he pointedly ignored her.
She spent the evening brooding.
By her third shot she had decided that Alex must be gay and that’s why he didn’t want her. No straight man would pass her up.
Her sandwich came out relatively quickly and she ate it without much relish despite the fact that it was indeed better than she had been expecting.
At some point Alex decided that the pool team had had too much to drink and cut them off.
The pool team decided that Alex had made a poor judgment call, and tried to convince him to see things their way, violently.
This didn’t surprise Sara; in fact she would have been more surprised had they not tried to start a fight. Nor did it surprise her that since the bar had no bouncer that Alex would have to deal with them, all five of them.
What did surprise her was the cool calm utter efficiency that Alex used when dealing with them. All the emotion went out of him and he waded into the thick of it unarmed and unflinching.
One of the regulars named Doug had asked if he should call Henry to help him out but Alex just calmly told him no and that it would be fine and to pay for the drink he had been trying to steal.
The fight was something that Sara had only seen in the movies. One man against five. He stood no chance in the real world, no matter how much they had had to drink.
But Alex was no mere man.
He was a stone in the sea, cold, hard, unmoving. Then the fight started and he was the sea its self, all fury and power, but still utterly serene no matter how much damage it did.
Three of them rushed him at once, and he stood his ground until they were upon him. Then he lashed out with a sweep of his leg and threw one of them off balance and into the other two. He kicked one while he was down high in the back knocking the wind out of him and ensuring that he would not rejoin the fight. He turned to the other and delivered a swift kick to the ribs.
One of the two who hadn’t attacked had managed to get behind Alex and attempted to bash his skull open with a pool stick. Alex merely turned and using the momentum of his turn punched the boy in the face.
“Get out of my bar. NOW!”
The fight was over and the pool players knew it.
Alex turned and walked back to the back of the bar and settled onto his barstool.
“Can I get you anything else?”
For the first time Alex looked Sara straight in the eye, and she saw eyes that were an unnerving shade of green, almost cat’s eye.
“Just the check.”
She paid and left.
Once she was out, back into the parking lot that the rear bar shared with a seven eleven, it all seemed unreal. Like a movie or a really good book.
It had been a long time since she had read a book she recalled, maybe it was time to pick one up, a nice mystery perhaps, or a good romance novel. Anything would do as long as it didn’t remind her of those cold green eyes and the emotionless battering they had dealt to five teens in there prime.
Sara never went back to JD’s lounge, except once. She asked after Alex and been told he had just walked off one day and that he hadn’t been seen since.
It was no great loss in her book.