Shirley had ideas. Soaked in scotch. Soaked in rum. Shirley had all kinds of ideas on how to change her life. Countless ideas on how to improve her life. All these ideas spun in her head each night as she sat on her couch while she drank and smoked. Every night after work she would drink at home unless she was meeting a friend at a bar. For hours she would drink scotch or rum and the world would soften around her while her ideas danced brilliantly in her head. Most nights, she rarely made it to her bed and fell asleep on the couch.<\/p>\n
For the last 30 years, Shirley worked as a receptionist for various law firms and accounting firms. For 25 years it was the same old, same old, and she knew there had to be something more, something better. Something new to do with her life. She always tried to take stock of herself in order to know her strengths and weaknesses.<\/p>\n
The one thing Shirley knew she could do quite well was draw a man’s attention. Men of all ages were attracted to her. She always got their attention. It had been that way since she was 15.<\/p>\n
It’s a matter of attitude, and I got plenty of that she often told herself.<\/p>\n
Shirley also knew how to dress. Even at the age of 51, she was still able to keep her thin figure and she always wore clothes that showed off her slim waist, her long shapely legs, and her firm ass and breasts. Even her face looked young. She could easily pass for 35. “It’s a matter of good genetics,” she often told people.<\/p>\n
She always dressed in black. Black dresses, black skirts, black slacks, black sweaters, and black hosiery. Her long blonde hair tumbled in thick curls to her shoulders, a sharp contrast with her black clothes. And she would decorate her body as much as possible. Heavy silver bracelets on her wrists, thick silver rings on her fingers, maroon lipstick, maroon nail polish, and primitive tattoo markings wrapping from her wrists to her biceps. The only real evidence of her age could be told by her hands. They were weathered and thick, and ropey blue veins circulated along her hands and fingers.
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It was not only her appearance that got a man’s attention, it was also the way she would look at men when they talked to her. Her dark green eyes would sparkle, her head would tilt slightly to the side, and she would focus on that man as if he was the most important person she had ever talked to. And that, more than her looks, made men fall for her.<\/p>\n
Shirley had ideas. Soaked in scotch. Soaked in rum. Shirley had all kinds of ideas on how to change her life. Countless ideas on how to improve her life.<\/p>\n
While she drank, she would tell herself, I must have a thousand ideas, these ideas just don’t stop. But when the actual counting of ideas was done, Shirley had only five ideas on how she could change her life.<\/p>\n
One idea was that she would change careers and work for an ad agency. She thought of being a writer, though she really didn’t have any idea of what was involved in being a copywriter except that they wrote ads. Shirley liked the idea of being around creative people and getting away from the stuffiness of law and accounting firms. She was certain that ad agency people would accept her for who she was and let her be herself. They wouldn’t make a fuss with her coming in late in the morning, leaving work early, or wearing sexy clothes to work.<\/p>\n
That’s the place for me, she thought, being with idea people, people on the fast track. She saw herself as a creative person with tons of ideas. She was certain being a copywriter was a perfect fit even though it was difficult for her to compose even a few sentences. What can be so hard about writing, she wondered? It’s just a matter of putting down the ideas that are in my head. It can’t be that hard, and besides, I have ideas all the time.<\/p>\n
Shirley was in trouble with her present job at the law firm where she worked. Her late night drinking made it hard for her to get to work on time. She was reprimanded a number of times about her short skirts and her blouses with plunging necklines. She was put on probation and knew it was a matter of time before she would get fired.
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If I worked for an ad agency, I can come in at eleven in the morning and work until three, that’s how those creative people work. I need to work with people who are just like me. Ad agency work would be a snap.<\/p>\n
A co-worker once gave her a book on how to break into the advertising field. Shirley read the first three pages of the book as she sat in a bar waiting for a friend. The first couple of pages stated how one needs perseverance to break into advertising because it is such a competitive field. She underlined the words “perseverance” and “competitive”. In fact she underlined those two words twice since they made such an impression on her. But after a night of heavy drinking, she lost the book in one of the many bars she and her friend went to that night. Weeks later, many nights after drinking alone in her living room, she regretted that she lost the book.<\/p>\n
A damn shame, it seemed like a good book to me, she often thought. But it never occurred to Shirley that she could get another copy at a bookstore or from a library.<\/p>\n
Shirley’s second idea was to work at some trendy dance club, those cavernous nightclubs that were once warehouses. She loved the feel of those clubs. The loud music, the fog machines, and the heavy industrial music. She loved being around the club people. She loved the way they dressed and loved their stamina for partying. But Shirley had gone only once in her life to one of those clubs. Every night when she came home from work she thought of going out to a couple of those clubs to seek employment. She wasn’t sure what kind of work she would do there. Maybe she could bartend, be a hostess or a waitperson, she wasn’t sure. All she knew was that working in a club would sure beat working in a law firm. But each night when she came home from work, she would drop herself on her couch and start to drink and chain smoke and never made the effort to seek employment in one of those clubs.
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The one time that Shirley did go to a dance club, she went alone and after knocking back a few shots at the bar, she mustered up the courage to dance on the crowded floor by herself. Normally on the street, she would be the center of attention in her black lace blouse, her leather mini and thigh-high boots, but on that night, she was one of many women dressed more or less the same way on the crowded dance floor. She was lost in the mix.<\/p>\n
At one point a man half her age who was wearing black lipstick and eye shadow, a black fishnet t-shirt, and leather pants started to dance with her. She loved his outfit. Now he must be a very creative person to dress that way, she thought. She was convinced he was a higher creative being. Shirley loved the way he danced, though he was only just shuffling around and bumping into her. After they had danced for some 30 minutes, he said he needed a drink. She invited him back to her place. She wanted to get to know him more. She loved his look. Shirley was certain she was the envy of all the women in the club.<\/p>\n
Back at her apartment, they danced some more, between shots of Wild Turkey. Heavy industrial music exploded against the walls of her apartment as they grinded against each other. She felt his cock pushing through his pants. When she first met him in the club, she wasn’t certain if he was gay, bi or straight, but she figured he had to be straight when she felt his hard on pressing against her.<\/p>\n
He told her how he wanted to fuck her, fuck her hard, as he continued to grind against her. But Shirley didn’t want to fuck, she just wanted to dance and drink.<\/p>\n
Just dance with me pretty boy and you can go home later and jack off as you think about me, she thought. Right now I don’t want to fuck, I just want to drink and dance and get out of my head.<\/p>\n
They danced for another 30 minutes in her apartment before she sent him on his way once she found out he was a grad student in some MBA program. She was disappointed he wasn’t interested in hearing about her ideas on how she wanted to change her life, and that he had no interesting ideas of his own.
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Shirley didn’t go back to that club or any club again. But she still loved the idea of working in some kind of dance club. That’s the life for me, she thought.<\/p>\n
Shirley’s third idea was to be a dominatrix. She thought it was a perfect job since she had felt asexual for the last two years. She had no sexual desire to be with a man or a woman. Shirley didn’t hate sex, nor was she afraid of it. She just lost total interest in having to do it with someone.<\/p>\n
Shirley never thought her lack of sexual desire was due to her depression, never thought it was due to her heavy drinking that had dramatically increased over the last couple of years, nor did she think it was due to a hormonal imbalance her body was experiencing. She just thought it was a natural thing to lose total interest in sex at the age of 51 though she still loved to dress in a sexy manner and gain a man\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
Being a dominatrix is the ticket, she thought. I can make over a 100 bucks for an hour’s worth of work. She knew that as a dominatrix she wouldn’t have to engage in sex with her clients. She can dress sexy, tease men, humiliate them, and her lack of sex drive wouldn’t make any difference. Shirley thought it was a perfect job.<\/p>\n
As she drank on her couch she would read the ads in the alternative papers advertising for a dominatrix position. She read the ads, highlighted them, and read them all over again, but never called those numbers. Eventually she would throw the section away only to do the same thing when the alternative paper came out with a new issue the following week.<\/p>\n
She once confided to a friend about her desire to be a dominatrix. Her friend asked her if she ever got into S&M in any of her relationships in the past. Shirley looked dumbfounded at the question and said she never experienced S&M in any shape or form. Her sex life had been pretty vanilla, she never saw sex as a creative act. It usually consisted of the missionary position and nothing more. Her friend then challenged her as to why she wanted to be a dominatrix when she had no idea what it was all about?<\/p>\n
Shirley had no answer to that question as she sipped her drink.
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Shirley’s fourth idea was to start a different kind of exercise club. An exercise club that would have no locker rooms or showers. It would be just one large room with a dance floor. People could come in off the street during the day or at night and dance in street clothes to industrial music. The lighting would be dark, there would be flashing lights, a fog machine, in other words it would look like dance club but it would be a health club of sorts. The customers would work up a sweat while they danced for an hour or so and then leave. Shirley envisioned herself dressed in leather as she danced on a high platform above the others.<\/p>\n
She would call the place Paris Blue because “Paris” sounded classy and “Blue” because she thought it sounded good with the word Paris. When Shirley would think of this idea, usually in the middle of the night when she was drunk, she became anxious about putting the idea into action. Dammit Shirley, she thought, of all the great ideas you have this is the best. You better do something about it before someone else does.<\/p>\n
One night she shared this idea with a temp who worked in her office, a young man who worked on the side as an actor. She was impressed with his energy and his bohemian lifestyle, so she invited him to go out with her for a drink. He was attracted to Shirley, he couldn’t help eyeing her legs that were accentuated by her high-heel shoes and her shapely ass that was wrapped in a tight skirt. He was confident he could lay her. He thought she was an older woman looking for a younger man, an easy score for himself.<\/p>\n
As they sat in a bar, Shirley told him her idea about Paris Blue. He wasn\u2019t at all impressed and told her he had reservations that such a concept could ever work. But in her drunken state, Shirley thought he was being dismissive as a ruse to steal her idea. She pleaded with him not to steal it. She was almost in tears.<\/p>\n
After a couple of more drinks, he was finally able to convince her that he had no interest in stealing her idea and she felt better. While walking her home, he told her how he was attracted to her and how she was such a sexy woman. He told her he wanted to lay her so bad. He had no idea about her asexuality. When they got in front of her place, she gave him a peck on the cheek and left him standing on the sidewalk. He stood there for a couple minutes and couldn’t believe she didn’t want to go to bed with him.
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I’ll make Paris Blue a reality one of these days, Shirley thought. It’s just a matter of getting organized. But many drunken nights passed and she never could think of how to get the idea off the ground.<\/p>\n
Shirley’s fifth idea was to become a psychic. She would start a business where people would come to her so she could interpret their dreams and tell them about their future.<\/p>\n
Shirley had never gone to a psychic although she was curious about it. There’s never enough time she thought, I barely have time to buy groceries. But Shirley never went food shopping, her refrigerator was usually empty. Shirley remembered how a few people once told her that she had a knack for interpreting dreams, but that was over 30 years ago when she was living in a commune with a group of new-age hippies on an abandoned farm in Indiana. They had planned on raising crops and living off the land, but none of them had any knowledge of farming, so they worked odd jobs at neighboring towns and at night they spent hours getting stoned. At that time, Shirley was living with her boyfriend on the farm.<\/p>\n
As they all sat around getting high, they would tell Shirley about their dreams and she would try to interpret them. She said anything that came to her drugged-out state and it always sounded good to them. She became the designated interpreter of dreams on the farm. Years later, no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn’t remember all those dreams they use to tell her. All that she could remember was the compliments she received when she gave an interpretation.<\/p>\n
Also back in those days, a girl named Joy, who also lived on the farm, once said to her, “Shirley, you always know what I’m thinking you must be psychic.” Joy made this remark because twice in one week Shirley asked her if she was hungry and Joy in her state of being stoned was amazed that Shirley had somehow known that both times she was indeed hungry. Joy was convinced that Shirley could read her mind and told the others on the farm about it. They were in even higher awe of Shirley’s psychic abilities.
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Shirley and her boyfriend lived on the commune for about a year. Then one day he told her he was leaving the farm to go back to Chicago. He explained to her that he was tired of the hippie life and wanted to go to college to finish his degree. Shirley thought he was selling out, but followed him to Chicago anyway where she took a job as a receptionist for a small law firm while he went to school. She figured this line of work would be temporary until he graduated. She always hoped of going back to that farm in Indiana because she had no interest of going to college and had no career drive to find a better job. But a few months after their move, her boyfriend broke up with her.<\/p>\n
Shirley could have returned to the farm, but never did. She continued working office jobs and living on her own while she had countless relationships with other men and a few women. None of them lasted for over a year, but they all shared the common denominator of staying up late and getting stoned. And through it all, she stayed in the same line of work as a receptionist for the last 30 years, never sure of her course, but feeling somehow there had to be a better way to make a living.<\/p>\n
Shirley felt she was letting her psychic gift go to waste. She once bought Tarot cards, but the deck was still wrapped in cellophane laying next to the ashtray on her coffee table. She also bought a book on how to improve one’s psychic powers but she never once opened the book. The book laid on her kitchen table in the store bag with the receipt still inside.<\/p>\n
Shirley wondered how one gets into the psychic business. Do I need a license? A certificate of some kind? Some training? She told herself someday she’d find out. One of these days. How hard can it be? One of these days.<\/p>\n
And each night, the ideas of how to change her life swirled in her head as she drank and chain- smoked cigarettes on her couch. Shirley would always pass out on the couch and never make it to her bed. In the morning, she would awake still wearing her clothes from the night before and there would be a half-filled bottle of scotch or rum and an ashtray filled with cigarette butts on the coffee table.<\/p>\n
Shirley had ideas. Soaked in scotch. Soaked in rum. Shirley had all kinds of ideas on how to change her life. Countless ideas on how to improve her life. Ideas that spun in tight circles as she drank her nights away.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\u00a9 Copyright Wawzenek 2013<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Shirley had ideas. Soaked in scotch. Soaked in rum. Shirley had all kinds of ideas on how to change her life. Countless ideas on how to improve her life. All these ideas spun in her head each night as she sat on her couch while she drank and smoked.<\/p>\n …<\/span><\/p>\n