Nathan gripped the bottle of tequila and held it up to the neon blue beer light.  "Nasty, nasty stuff", he thought.  The bottle was short and stout and it's contents went from brown to orange under the hue of the hazy light.  He swirled the liquid in the bottle around, trying to dinbottle to find the worm.  He was relieved he couldn't find one.

 He always laughed at the ads for tequila.  He'd be flipping through a magazine and there it was, a group of well to do urbanites hangin  The fact that      People always hNathan always had a weird relationship with the stuff.  He thought about an old advertising jingle he'd made up some years back.  Tequila--Guaranteed fun 'til you puke.  Nathan smiled and ripped the shot.

The bartender extended his hand.  "Lime?"  Nathan shook his head and waived it away.  Although he wanted the comfort of that all powerful orb of sourness, looking tough was more important.  A young brunette had taken a seat two barstools down from him.  

She was the kind of girl that Nathan liked.  Not too skinny, not too fat.  Just enough to hold onto.  No tattoos.  No piercings (at least none he could see).  Nathan was please that he had only taken one shot at this point.  He hated what alcohol did to his senses, and he liked to appraise his potentials before getting too drunk.

The bartender poured another shot for him.  Nathan pulled a wad of crumpled bills from his pocket and the bartender waved him off.  "First six are on me", he said with a hint of false happiness.  Nathan nodded a thank you.  He looked back at the young girl.

She had sad eyes and a bright smile.  She was no hope for a beauty contest, but she was sexy just the same.  Nathan was a firm believer in auras and her's looked good to him.  He also noticed that her hair was damp.  This told Nathan two very important things.  

               1) She showers.

               2)  She probably lives close.

Nathan looked back down at his shot and gave himself the mental pep talk that he had been practicing since he was sixteen.  "Worst case scenario--she says no. Best case scenario--I get laid"  Nathan motioned the bartender over.  He acted real friendly towards him like they had been old friends.  Nathan learned from much experience that women liked men who appeared to be well adjusted and well liked.  The whole concept portrayed by Hollywood movies of weird loners attracting hot women was a farce.  It didn't work.  He had tried it before.  It didn't work.  

The bartender went into the back to take a phone call.  Nathan had sent him back there laughing.  He knew the girl had seen this and he liked that.  Nathan could feel the single shot affecting him. His blood pressure medicine made him get drunk pretty quick.  They made a half second's worth of eye contact that stoked the coals of Nathan's dwindling sex drive.  He was filled with youthful vigor that he had thought he had forgotten.

He slid his shot down to the wet-haired-almost-beauty and reached behind the bar to pour one of his own.  A few customers were surprised by this, but said nothing.     

"A shot for my birthday?", Nathan grinned.

The woman burst into tears nathan tries to comfort her.  She tells him that her husband had been beating her.  He looks for a sign of abuse sees nothing.  She shows him a cigar burn on her thigh.  before leaving to go kick his ****.  The bartender warns nathan that the guy is a bad ****.  Nathan--I have never killed a man, but then again, I never stared death in the face like I am now.   Death is more of a fact of life to me than ever before.  I'm gonna make this right.