There's a blonde he calls "Dixie Chick." She's from the South, and she's tall and gorgeous and poised and her voice pours over you slow and warm in that drawl. She rests her hand on his arm when she laughs at his jokes, and she does laugh at his jokes, as long as they are simple and straightfoward. That means she appreciates the punchline only if it doesn't reference politics, literature, geography, history, or current events. She sparkles, but she isn't bright. But when you are a tall blonde Carolina girl and you sparkle, that's OK. The Russian lover will still stop you on the street to tease you - and to tell a few jokes, and maybe insinuate something about enjoying that infamous southern hospitality on some future encounter...
There's a petite dark angel he calls the "Hot Goth Mess." She's got black hair to her waist and moon-pale skin; she is never without blood-red lips, and black-rimmed eyes. It's rare to spot her before 10pm; she's usually lurking outside a diner with a cigarette, scowling. But when she spots the Russian lover, she straigtens up and and pouts her lips and strokes her hair until he notices (and he inevitably notices, pouting and stroking notwithstanding). She probably mastered the art of coy at age 12, in some suburban mall. She pretends to be insulted by his obvious advances, pretends to be indifferent to his attention once she has it...always hoping that she will be dragged home with him at his insistence. And he'll consider it, idly, while he idly plays with the fringe on her leather bag.
There's the med student whose appeal is less obvious...always with a coffee cup and hair in a scrunchee. Pretty girl, smart but distracted, too busy for things like flirting and dating. She writhes under his suggestive compliments and his teasing, partly with embarassment but partly as if he's just reminded her that she'd rather be in bed with him than studying immunology at a coffee shop.
There are more of them: "Barely Legal" and "Bar Maid." He has toys all over town...little diversions he likes to bump into, to stop and play with. They are without exception beautiful; the head-turners on the street. I think I know about most of them, but probably not all of them. And some of them know about me, but probably not all of them. But we all have our eye on him, and who he has his eye on...