THE ART OF SEDUCTION

I was tickling the ivories in the back of the smoky lounge; riffing on Coltrane. My cigarette glowed in the darkness like a red-eyed Cyclops and finally burned itself out, leaving an ashen tail as it sat precariously on the edge of my single malt scotch.

I made eye contact with her as she sat at the bar. She stood and walked toward me, her image splitting into a thousand fragments as it was reflected in the chrome and the glass. Her perfume cut through the heavy smell of desperation that hung in the air and she smiled as she slid onto the bench next to me.

She leaned her head back, exposing a perfect neck as she shook out her long red hair. “Do you know any Brubeck?” she asked, in a voice that any 900 number service would kill for. I segued effortlessly into “The Duke” without saying a word.

She closed her eyes and swayed gently as I picked up the theme to “In Your Own Sweet Way.”  “I like your style” she said as she wrapped her hotel room key in a wrinkled five and tossed it into my tip jar.

Luckily, I was almost finished with my set.

Ok..Ok.. what really happened is that I was sitting at the piano in my church auditorium before choir practice playing the theme from the Peanuts cartoons when an 80 year old woman walked in and asked if I knew “Harbor Lights.”

She did slip me her hotel room key though…