The wrong bar in Cologne

Lust Doctor Memories 7: I am the hottest guy in the bar. The only other man under 50 is bucktooth ugly and almost Lilliputian in stature. He makes a whistling noise every time he talks, his sentences end with spittle rather than full stops. I am definitely hotter.

This dubious honour leads to attention. A tough chick with dreads comes over and asks me for some Euros…for the jukebox….she fixes her eyes on mine…there’s menace in there. She looks a fighter and I don’t fancy a fight so I give her some change. She says she is Brazilian and likes needlework, repairing dresses and other broken things. Claims her brother plays football for Belenenses in Portugal (I google him later and he exists, looks just like her with football boots and kinder eyes). She does a mad little dance, three inches from me (a lot of arm-moving) to a bad Snoop Dog tune and looks at me expectantly...until I nod my head in self-conscious recognition. There’s a lot of old men in there, drinking coffee, respectable looking granddad types, relaxed in their secret garden, away from their fraus. “Hotel?” asks a rough Turkish woman with too many miles on the clock. “I’m fine” I explain sheepishly. She looks dumbfounded at the refusal.

The tough chick keeps telling me this rough woman or that rough woman is interested in me and I should buy them a coffee to introduce myself. She keeps banging on about me buying coffee. I just sip my high strength beer and try to nod coolly at every weird turn the conversation takes ("It is I who makes the most fashionable dresses"), bat away the unwanted introductions until I finish my drink.

A hook-nosed girl with bird nest hair keeps checking me out and I find myself returning her gaze, double-taking, is she really that ugly and trading on her looks? It’s a flawed business vehicle, but who am I to tell her.

“I just came for a quiet beer,” I say to the tough chick as she tries to make the introduction.

“Yes,“ she says, “I can tell…. Would you like to buy her a coffee?”