She was there, and we all knew it, moving like poetry. Those delicate glances, chin down and eyes up with an awkward grin directed mostly at the floor. In another frame of mind I'd call it coy, but that depends on a certain realisation of allure, a realisation she denies herself. Two deft fingers point at a beer, the bartop, and as if by magic, her drink appears before her, expertly. Cropped blonde hair parting for her fingers as she takes a drink, all eyes on the aching geometry of her profile. All eyes but mine, fixated instead on pale curves that form the back of her neck, revealed by the ministrations of her fingertips aginst her locks, splaying cloud-pale flesh ready for lips and teeth. And somehow she senses my gaze, or so I think, boring scalding ever needing into taut pretty tendons, so she turns, and I avert my eyes, pretending to study the fixtures of the ceiling with nails digging into my palms.