Impersonal Attractions Read Online Free PDF Page B

earlobe was a parade of ten rhinestone studs.
    “Fuck you!” the blond man growled.
    “Well, pardon me,” the punker minced. “Creep,” he added under his breath, and then he turned and ran to the back of the café.
    The blond man rose to follow him, then sat back down.
    This wasn’t the time. He didn’t want to attract attention now.
    But he hated to let the freak get in his face like that. Nobody got away with that shit.
    He gulped down what was left of his coffee. He had to get out of this place. It was getting on his nerves. Niggers, spies, Jews, gimps. Scum. The world was lousy with them.
    But some of them weren’t going to live too long.
    He pushed up the sleeve of his black leather jacket and stared at the characters tattooed in blue on his forearm. They always calmed him down.
    Then he stood, without even looking at Dunbar and her friend.
    He didn’t need to wait around any longer. He didn’t need to walk them home.
    He knew where she lived.

SEVEN
    An nie returned Sam’s call. It was now or never. The Bay Guardian ’s deadline was tomorrow. She’d written the first ad, the query for volunteers to talk about their experiences with the personals. But now it was time for the second, her own looking-for-Mr.-Right personal.
    “Okay,” she could almost hear Samantha’s pencil poised over the phone. “What are you looking for?”
    “I’m telling you, I’m not really looking for anyone.”
    “God!” Sam was exasperated. They’d been over this before. “We know it’s just an exercise, okay? We know it’s just research. But you’ve got to pretend that it’s real in order to write an ad that will get some kind of reasonable response. And you might as well. It’s your fifty bucks.”
    “Okay, okay.” Annie sighed. It was so much easier answering ads. She’d done that lots of times. It was like window shopping. This had the potential of being real life. She pursed her lips.
    “Well, you know I’m a sucker for a pretty face, but that’s not number one. Tall. Healthy. Athletic, or at least not fat. Some hair, maybe curly. Reasonably good-looking. I’d settle for interesting-looking, if he’s sexy, if the magic’s there.”
    “You’re too good-looking to settle, babe. There must be something else you want.”
    Annie smiled at Sam’s compliment and thought about her ex-husband Bert’s warning when she had walked out the door six years before.
    “It’s going to be tough out there,” he’d said. “You’re no spring chicken anymore.”
    He was wrong. Her looks had more than held—she’d gotten better with age. Now, at thirty-seven, Annie was tall, lean, and small-breasted, with what lovers and men friends always called a great ass. She had her Grandmother Rose’s wonderful green eyes and slender, almost perfect hands. Her long, thick, dark blonde hair glinted here and there with a touch of silver. Smile lines at the corners of her eyes and the crook of her mouth had just begun. But Annie felt secure that regardless of age, despite the fact that she was not, had never been, a classically pretty woman, she was a very handsome one.
    “So he doesn’t have to be Robert Redford,” Sam was saying. “What else?”
    Annie took a deep breath. “Well educated, intelligent, traveled, urbane, mad about me, and funny. Mostly funny.”
    “You don’t want much, do you, lady?” Sam laughed.
    “Why should I be looking for somebody whose idea of a good wine is Budweiser and lusts after football and Big Macs?”
    “Come on, lighten up. I’m teasing.” Sam cleared her throat. “More. I’m beginning to like this. What about,” she paused, “values?” Her voice grew mock serious on the last word.
    They laughed together. Annie knew that Sam was thinking of Mario.
    Morose Mario, they’d nicknamed him, one of Annie’s ex-lovers. He was a short, intense Marxist, who took all the fun out of everything except sex by worrying about the masses. Annie used to complain to Sam. “Every time we go out