I used to watch him out of the corner of my eye as I cut hair and he worked on the wiring. Though it seemed sometimes on those days when he was in the salon that he was there more to flirt with the girls (the other girls, the single girls) than to fix the electrical systems. I could have sworn as I watched him that he was watching me out of the corner of his eye, but I was married at the time and I didn't want to believe he was watching me, and I didn't think I was supposed to be watching him.

That was twelve years ago. Twelve years ago that he married one of the other girls, bought the big house in the suburbs, had the three kids, bought the bigger house in the suburbs, while my marriage fizzled out from lack of interest and I moved to an apartment in the city closer to work and just stayed here cutting hair, enjoying my life, having the on and off boyfriends, envying a little the ones who got away and settled down with the three kids and the larger house in the suburbs.

It's actually been closer to ten years since I saw him last. A year after they were married my then-husband and I went to a Halloween party at their house. My former coworker was already visibly pregnant and answered the door wearing a cow costume, which I personally thought was incredibly distasteful. Even worse was his farmer costume - a hat, overalls, and a plastic devil pitchfork, and obviously nothing at all under the overalls. It was distasteful, but definitely hot, much hotter than anything I had been experiencing with my husband since we were married.

My husband and I were soon separated, a harbinger of the future, and I felt the same relief that night as I would end up feeling after the divorce, and on a much smaller scale I felt free and eager to drown my frustration in drink.

I was standing by the alcohol, several drinks already inside me, another in my hand, and an entire table of potential drinks in front of me, when I felt the tips of a plastic pitchfork against the nape of my neck, and then down my back and across my ass and down the backs of my legs to my ankles. "You're going to hell if you keep drinking like that" he whispered in my ear.

That line was the first thing I remembered when he walked in to the Salon today, ignoring the other girls, making a straight line to an empty chair across from my station, sitting down, staring at me, asking me how I was. I heard what he was saying, dimly, but what I was really hearing was "You're going to hell."

"How's your wife?" I asked pointedly, continuing to cut my customer's hair, not about to let him fluster me.

"Great!" he answered cheerfully, "and pregnant again. She sends her love," and then, pulling his cell phone out of his shirt pocket, "Do you want to talk to her?"

"I'm busy right now," I answered in my most professional voice. "What do you want?"

"I was in the neighborhood," he replied jauntily, ignoring my brusqueness, "thought I'd stop by, see my favorite girl."

All I can manage is a nervous laugh. "I thought your wife was your favorite girl."

Which she may be. But I remember thinking, remember wishing, that I was his favorite girl, that I was in the place of honor, up on the bed, on the bed he shared with his wife, that I was on the bed naked, not just on the oval rug next to the bed with my black cat tights down around my ankles and my black cat turtleneck up over my breasts and his red plastic pitchfork next to my head and my legs wrapped around his back as he fucked me to orgasm after drunken orgasm with that same insane smug smile on his face.

Realizing he is not about to get lucky again he stands up and hands me his card. "Call me if you ever need anything," he says with a leer.

"I think he was serious," says my customer as I stick the card in the drawer muttering to myself in disbelief.

"No," I answer firmly, "He's not serious about anything."