Free Legs by Ian Cooper Page B

winter when he
wasn’t working as much.
     
    ***
     
    “ Hi, I’m Steve, but people
call me Slam.”
    “ Scram, Slam.”
    Steve Richmond coloured slightly,
swallowed his disappointment as quickly as he could, and tried
again.
    “ Aw, hey, that’s no
attitude. You’ve had a long day, let me buy you—”
    Those eyes froze in an
instant.
    “… a drink.”
    The tall person, he still
wasn’t entirely sure if it was a girl, even up close, towered over
him. They leaned
in, staring into his eyes. Steve couldn’t help but glance at the
chest area. He was looking for obvious bumps but that wouldn’t
prove a thing anyway, not in this crowd. She still had the jacket
on. He couldn’t really be sure. He preferred big breasts but in an
unusual case, whatever.
    A strong finger poked him in the
sternum.
    “ Still not getting
it?”
    Slam nodded glumly.
    “ My apologies.”
    He turned and moseyed, with as much
grace as he could muster, back to where a grinning, and yet even
then, a kind of admiring Brandon waited.
    Brandon tipped up his tall Pilsner
glass and drained it.
    He thunked it on the bar and waved at
the bartender, who hadn’t actually arrived with Slam’s drink yet.
Maybe he’d get lucky, but more likely Slam would tell the fellow to
put it on Brandon’s tab.
    “ Slama-o-rama. Strike
one.”
    Brandon chuckled. Yeah, and that was
about it with Slam. He’d keep on swinging, all right.
    Slamster. The Slam-Meister. How many
names had the man made up for himself?
    They weren’t the sort of names anyone
else would make up for him.
    Nobody could ever say, but he kept on
doing it. Richmond looked over in pure speculative fashion. The
tall newcomer sat on a barstool, legs crossed and with those crazy
shoes, as if they needed high heels anyway. Those legs were really
something. The eyes were on him, and he looked away, uncomfortable
with the whole meat-market thing right about then. The shoes were
fascinating, he’d thought Goth was all shiny black paratroop boots,
but these had high heels, high ankles, and yet the toes were cut
away in a most suggestive fashion.
    She was literally dressed like a
hooker, or maybe some kind of Halloween thing—Rocky Horror Picture
Show, he thought.
    But that’s just insane. He wondered
what she might be like naked. It couldn’t be all bad.
    He didn’t think he was a
fetishist, but one never knew. If all he could get was the feet, he might just give
in.
    “ Why don’t you give it a
try?” Slam slapped him on the upper arm. “Go with the
moment.”
    Another one right out of the training
manual.
    “ Yeah, I can hardly spoil
it for the Slammer now, can I?” It sounded bitter and it was. “Aw, forget
it man, just get over it. He, she or it, just doesn’t like
you.”
    “ Don’t like men, you
mean.”
    And they’re even less likely to like
me, Brandon thought.
    “ Ha! I wonder what
it does like.” A
connoisseur and a raconteur, and often a boor as well, Slam sipped
the colourless liquid in silent appreciation.
    He, she, or it. Brandon took another
look, slightly disappointed not to make eye contact
again.
    The person was busy talking with her
friend, who ordinarily, Brandon would have called lovely. But the
tall one was unique. And compelling…and a whole lot of other
things.
    He had himself another light beer. He
took the foam off judiciously with his first sip, studied it and
himself in the mirror over the bar, and thought some mournful
thoughts. Like, how soon can we go?
    I must try not to look at my
watch.
    That’s a good one, Brandon remembered
thinking and then to both of their stunned awareness, the person
under discussion was right there at Brandon’s elbow.
    His jaw dropped and he
contemplated the unthinkable. The impression of a kind of
attractive androgyny was even more overpowering up close. She was
just too big.
    What if this really wasn’t a lady, i.e., a
person of the opposite sex?
    He stood there in thrall.
    It’s not exactly what he had in
mind.
    “ Would