I was having a rather disagreeable time. What had started out as promising adventure had turned into a bit of a fiasco. At the moment I was sitting in a high-class hotel restaurant. The problem was that the woman with whom I had come to the restaurant had disappeared, and I was left alone, waiting for her return. The extravagant meal which we had ordered was still sitting on the table; but I no longer had any appetite; I only wished the woman would return.

My mind was a jumble, trying to remember what had led up to this point, thinking I might later want to write it down. Some of the scenes were still vivid, but they were scrambled together so I couldn't remember well the sequence of events. One aspect of the entire episode, however, stuck out quite well: the woman was the most beautiful woman with whom I had ever been; in fact she was probably the most beautiful woman I had ever seen in my life.

She was barely a woman (around 20 years old). She had the most wonderful kinky-blonde hair and flawless white skin. I had no idea what she saw in me; but it would be a tremendous coup for me just to be seen with her. And so it turned out. I recalled that during the course of the evening, before we had come to the restaurant, we had been out on the street and had been seen by a group of people I knew. The people had been sitting inside a couple carriages drawn by horses; both the woman and I had leaned into one of the carriages, with our cheeks touching, so everyone saw us. The men, dressed in tuxedos and the women in their elegant evening gowns, had shown obvious admiration (disbelief really) for my taste in women. Everyone was obviously impressed.

I had summoned a carriage myself to take the woman and me to the restaurant, even though we had only been a block away. I also recalled the encounter I had had with the coachman when we had arrived at the restaurant and he had told me that the cost of the ride was $120. I had planned to blow a considerable amount of money on the woman, and I hadn't wanted to seem cheap by not paying for the coach; but I had balked when I heard this price. Obviously the coachman had seen an opportunity and had simply been trying to gouge me. When he had heard my refusal, he had immediately dropped his price to $50. I had pulled out a $50 bill and handed it to him. I recalled also that the woman had reminded me of someone from my distant past: Jill Bell. Jill Bell had probably been the most beautiful girl I had ever dated. I hadn't been able to remember just how old Jill had been, but I did remember there had been a problem with the age difference. She had only been 16 or 17, maybe even 15, whereas at the time I had been around 20 years old. I had made love with Jill a couple times those many years ago, and I had hoped to have had a similar experience tonight with this beautiful specimen of woman-kind. I even dimly recalled that the woman and I had started to get hot and heavy at one point in the evening, but we had never made it up to the luxurious hotel room, the room which was still waiting upstairs. This was a severe disappointment.

I was in my 40s, and I couldn't figure out what such a young beautiful thing would want with someone like me. But she had shown interest, and my hopes had been for the date to climax in the room upstairs. Of course not all my attraction to the woman was physical. I had genuine feelings for her. Once, when we had been walking together on the street, I had seen some tough-looking characters walking toward us and I had told the woman that if anything happened, she should take off running and leave me there to deal with the thugs. I felt protective toward her, and I was concerned about her well-being.

It was now around 11 o'clock as I sat alone in the restaurant. I was also confused about this because I thought it was 11 a.m. But that didn't make much sense because the restaurant was filled with people in evening attire enjoying their meals. I overheard two men talking with polished British accents at two different tables. Some young women were gathering at a table not far from me. It appeared that the women were meeting each other for the first time. There were five or six of them and only one man with them. Since my plans appeared to be shot, I began to wonder if it might be possible for me to join their little group. The women were certainly attractive enough, and it was hard to tell what pleasures the night still might hold.

I was sitting close enough to one of the women to be able to strike up a conversation with her. She was a black woman, the only black in the little group. Although I normally wasn't attracted to black women, I found this woman to be particularly enticing. She was light-skinned and had excellent features. However it soon became obvious that any advances toward her were going to prove futile. It quickly became clear that she knew, indeed all the people in her group knew, and probably all the people in the restaurant, that I had been with the blonde woman, and that she had dumped me. I was thinking how ridiculous I must have looked as an old man in his 40s with this beautiful young woman. As the group of women rose to leave, I sensed that they were all laughing at me. And now I felt worse than ever because it looked as if not only was the blonde not going to return, now everyone was going to think I was a moron for having tried to pick up the black woman.

So, I was having a rather disagreeable time. The only small bit of consolation I had was a gold coin which I was holding in my hand. It was an ounce of gold, and I knew it was worth about $500. In fact, it was the gold coin which had partially started the whole evening. I had found the coin lying on the ground (it seemed as if it had been lying in some snow). After I had found it, I had decided to use it for a night on the town, to go out and spend all $500 on a single evening. Adding up everything – the room, the meal, the carriage ride – it hadn't been hard to accomplish my task. In fact, I may have even gone over the limit.

Just then three black men dressed in white, like busboys, walked up and stood right in front of me. They impertinently asked me if I was waiting for someone. It was quickly clear what their reason was: the restaurant was full, and they probably wanted me to leave so they could use my table. I was sitting on a sort of upholstered bench beside the table; all the food and plates had already been removed. Obviously now they wanted to remove me. I muttered that I was waiting for someone who had left. One of the black men asked, "Was she a nigger?"

I myself wasn't offended by the man's language; but I was offended by this low-caste character addressing me so familiarly. Realizing this man couldn't be acting on his own, I demanded, "Who sent you?"

I had deduced that the manager had sent the black fellows out to confront me. But I was having none of it. I told the black man to go back and send out the man who had sent them. They turned and left.

Immediately two white men dressed in light-colored suits walked up. One man (obviously the one in charge) was a portly fellow (about 40 years old). He sat down on the bench next to me. Although the man was quite polite, he quickly made his point. He explained that I couldn't leave yet because my bill hadn't been paid, a bill which came to around $500. I recalled that I had used a gold credit card when I had originally arrived, and I didn't understand why there would now be a problem. The man politely explained that the credit card had been presented almost twelve hours ago, and that the bill must be signed within a twelve hour period, and if the bill wasn't signed in that time, the credit card would have to be checked again. The man was obviously concerned that this time the credit card might prove to be invalid. I knew there would be no problem with the credit card; but I rather enjoyed seeing how concerned the man was, and so offered him no assurances that the credit card was still good.

The man seemed to know all about my misadventure with the blonde, and thus expressed no surprise when I suddenly jumped up and hollered that I had just seen her pass by in a car. The man and I now seemed to be sitting on a verandah of the hotel, and I wildly beseeched him to help me by giving me a ride to follow her. He seemed completely willing to assist and in a flash we were getting into his car. The only thing I found odd was that the second man also came along, and together both of them crowded into the bucket seat behind the steering wheel. I wanted to say something, but I didn't; instead I just climbed into the front passenger seat and away we sped.

Only minutes later we caught up with the car, which was parked in front of the very hotel we had just left. I raced into the lobby, excitedly thinking I would find the young blonde woman standing there waiting for me. What I found instead was something completely different, completely unexpected.

I stopped, frozen in my tracks, as I saw a woman stepping off the elevator into the lobby. But instead of being the blonde, it was another woman whom I knew very well. This was a mature, black-haired woman, probably in her late thirties. She was elegantly dressed in a tasteful dark blue dress. She was very attractive and had a big smile on her face. It was a little confusing, because I knew this woman had been my first wife, although she didn't look exactly like Louise. However, she was refined and poised, and essentially she reminded me of Louise.

She seemed glad to see me, as if she were waiting for me. I however wasn't of a like mind. I didn't mind seeing her, but she wasn't what I was expecting nor what I was wanting at the moment. I just stood there, dumbfounded.

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