Turn the Lights Out When You Leave

"Could you say that again?" I asked, taking my attention away from the road and stared at him for a moment. His eyes continued looking at the road.



"I said, I could take you to my place and you could call a cab from there." He turned onto another busy street. "I don't mean to rush your decision, but I will be needing one quite soon." He finally glanced at me and returned his gaze to the 3 lanes to choose from. One to the left, straight ahead, and the last lane went to the right.



"Your place is fine." I answered suddenly. He shook his head and turned into the left lane.



"Well, we should be there in about 15 minutes." He answered. "I've rented the same flat for years whenever I'm shooting in the area."



"Ah, I see." I answered. I listened to the low music playing from the radio and recognized the music from something in my childhood yet, I couldn't place it. Maybe it was the alchohol, maybe it was the butterflies fluttering in my stomach, but for some reason I felt oddly safe with this man I had just met. I slouched in the seat and looked out the window as the street below whirred by in an endless shade of black.



"So, you got any other movies you're working on?" I asked. Alan sighed.



"I've just finished a few things. I like to keep it to one at a time." Then he laughed "I'm not as young as I once was."



"You're as young as you feel." I commented, turning my attention to the radio. I stared at it for a moment then had an urge to smoke a cigarette. I realized there was nothing to speak about at the moment and we sat in silence, and weirdly enough, it was perfectly okay. We didn't have to chat about idle bullshit that had no meaning. I began to drift in my thoughts and closed my eyes.



Before I knew it, I opened my eyes again and looked around. I was in a house I didn't know, sitting infront of a fireplace. I looked around the room to the dim lights, and sat up. I brought myself to standing, stretched, gave a yawn and tiptoed around quietly. To the right side of the couch I was laying on was Alan sitting up in a chair, where he'd fallen asleep with a phone in his hand. I took a breath.



"Alan. Alan?" I called. His breathing sped up as his eyelids fluttered open and gleamed in the fire's light. "What time is it?" Alan looked at the watch on his wrist.



"Almost three." He answered as he stretched his arms over his head.



"Why didn't you wake me?" I asked. "I didn't want to impose." I apologized. He just waved his hand for me to shut up.



"No, it's no problem. Besides you looked like you were having a nice dream." He gestured for me to have a seat back on the couch. "What did you dream about?" I thought to myself and tried to recollect. Sometimes I couldn't remember at all, then I thought about my son and it clicked.



"I dreampt I bought my mother a new house and for once she was proud of me." I said, I grabbed my bag off the floor. "Mind if I smoke?" I asked. He shook his head no quickly and asked another question.



"You mean she's never been proud of you?" He asked. The subject of my mother's constant disapproval was not one of the open topics, I decided quickly to myself. I cleared my throat and felt a severe case of cottonmouth as I sucked on my tongue to gather some form of liquid in my mouth.



"You got anything to drink?" I inquired changing the topic. He stood and walked to the adjoining kitchen.



"I think we should. I only arrived yesterday, so I'm afraid the ice box isn't well prepared for visitors." He said off-handed. He came back after a moment.



"So, this is your place?" I asked looking around, amazed.



"Can't get nothin' passed you." He teased. He held out a half bottle of champagne and two wine glasses. "It's this or water." He said looking ashamed.



"This is fine." I told him, and he poured me a glass. I took a sip as soon as he handed me a glass and lit up a cigarette. "You're lucky. All I got is a dingy little two bedroom, one bath that I share with a roomate I don't even know named Melanie, who's an ancient woman with alchoholic friends that haven't worked in ages and consider themselves thespians because they had a short stint in a series of bleach commercials." I laughed. He chuckled to himself as he took a sip of his and put it on the table, then scooted his chair closer to the couch.



"Doth thou havest any bleach?" He asked in a Shakespearan tone.



"Why surely, sir." I replied. "One lid-full will givest thine whites their brightest shades of the here-morrows." We both laughed for a moment. I looked at his face and couldn't help but smirk to myself, he had a unique smile, just as I was told I had. I noticed a small end table with a lamp on it that caught my eye and the small gold framed picture of Alan and Rima wearing red sweaters sitting infront of a Christmas tree, opening presents and smiling. And as much as the picture must've been a happy reminder, to me it was oddly troubling feeling the way I was about Alan. I gulped the rest of the champagne and took a long drag of my cigarette. Alan pushed a glass ashtray towards me from the side of the table.



"Thanks." I ashed it and picked up the picture and looked at it, studying Rima's face. She had brown hair, shoulder length and sensible and very thin lips lined in red. She was short and all I could think about at that moment was how Alan must not be the shallow, self-centered actor I had first perceived him to be when we first met earlier today. I got poured myself a refill and quickly finished that off and put my cigarette out.



"Oh, that was me and Rima taken about 4 years ago." Alan informed me. "I like to have little reminders of her lying around here and there." He gestured to the pictures ontop of the fire mantle. I saw numerous photographs all framed and neatly placed together, lined up perfectly, much to my dismay.



"Well, thank you Alan, it's been a wonderful day, but I think I need to be getting home now." I mentioned casually as Alan continued sipping from his. I stood up quickly and my head spun. "Woah." I said casually and sat back down. Alan jumped to his feet, set his glass down and rushed to my side.



"You alright?" He asked, I shook my head yes. For a moment, we were both silent, before he asked, "Did I say something wrong?"



"No, no, I just thought that it was getting pretty late and we've got to the weekend off, so I was thinking how you probably have tons of things to do tomorrow." I lied. It was going on four in the morning it was true, but I honestly didn't want to be around all these reminders that the perfect perspective man already had someone.



"Well, since it's getting late, why don't you just stay here? We both have to go to the same place after all." He offered. "Then you can go home whenever you wake up." And that pretty much did it for me.

About an hour later, after convincing me to stay, we found ourselves looking at the bottom of the champagne bottle and giggling our heads off swapping funny stories.



"...then he accidentally hit me in the face, like, here get up." I said, swaying as I stood. He got to his feet and I reenacted how in karate when I was 12 how the teacher actually punched me in the face and didn't mean to. "He stood there and then he like threw a right cross, like this and went-" I threw my fist at Alan's face full speed. He moved to the side and I went down quickly. We both laughed as Alan caught me and helped me back to my feet, still giggling.



"Did anyone ever tell you how light on your feet you are when you're drunk?" He asked. It was true, I had more champagne in my system than he had, and I didn't understand why, but I felt really good and Alan had never looked more appealing than he did just then. I stopped laughing and my eyelids half closed and I brought my face closer to his and my lips met his and I began kissing him.



To my surprise, his eyes closed and he kissed back, passionately.