I’m not sure why I tried my first bar pick-up, but it had something to do with my college girlfriend Michelle. At the end of our sophomore year in June 1975, she was starting to get flaky after going with me for nearly nine months. She suddenly found excuses not to meet me, and she often didn’t return my phone calls.

The word going through the grapevine at my student newspaper was that she had been seen with an older guy – older as in his late twenties – who would come uptown to meet her on the campus and then leave with her in her car. Somebody told me he had a good job down on Wall Street. I, however, was attending the City College of New York, but I was otherwise unemployed.

I suspected I had taken Michelle for granted. Although she was a full-time student, she worked steadily at a typesetting company and at the age of twenty already maintained her own apartment and car. Being young and callow, I just took advantage of these girlfriend-supplied amenities without any thought about my own lack of ambition. I’m busy enough with schoolwork and the newspaper, I thought.

One day I was hanging around in the newspaper office when I got into a conversation with a fellow staffer named Peter Rodino. He styled himself as some kind of rogue although I didn’t necessarily believe every story he told. The exploits he liked to brag about included picking up women at bars and clubs.

When I complained about my troubles with Michelle, he suggested that I “branch out.”

I said, “You mean find somebody else here on campus?”

“No, the girls here are all looking for boyfriends. You need something shorter-term while you figure out exactly what is going on with Michelle. I mean like for the summer only. Then in September, you could start over with something more serious.”

He suggested that I try a bar as a place to meet someone new. In fact, he had a plan worked out for me. This was back when the drinking age in New York State was still eighteen. In fact, although I was rather young-looking for my age, I rarely got carded when entering a place.

He said, “Try someplace in the afternoon. It’s quieter and there isn’t so much of a scene going on – fewer distractions.”

“What kind of women go to bars during the day?”

“Some of them are playing hooky from school or work, or maybe they’re working from home. Or they’re between jobs. You know the economy is not so great right now.”

I mentioned a handful of bars I knew in Greenwich Village, all of them, places that I had been to with Michelle. Peter had another location to suggest.

“Try this place called the Albion. It’s on Seventh Avenue in Chelsea. It’s a nice neighborhood kind of place.”

He related a tale of how he had met a girl there who was some kind of writer and how he had connected by telling her about his work on the student paper. It sounded plausible although I had no way to verify that it had actually happened.

I pressed him for techniques on approaching someone.

“I admit, I’m not sure how to do this. I’ve never, you know, picked up a woman in a bar or in fact anywhere.” The campus itself was where I had always met girls.

“Well, this will give you a chance to learn by doing. It’s sort of a dry run the first time out anyway.”

Then he begged off and said he had to get ready for an end-of-term exam. In any case, I wasn’t that eager to go off by myself to look for women.

What changed my mind a couple of days later was when Michelle flaked out on another promise to meet me. It was an oppressively hot and humid afternoon, but I decided to leave campus and head downtown. I decided halfway through the subway ride to get off at 23rd Street and check out the Albion that Peter had recommended.

When I arrived outside the place, I was feeling better. I’ll just have a couple of beers here and relax.

As I opened the door and walked in, I noticed there was only one person at the bar, a young woman who appeared to be in her mid-twenties. She was to my right and I could see her in profile.

She was on the tall side and she had dark hair. I inventoried her clothes first, from top to bottom: a straw summer hat with sunglasses perched on the rim, regular dark-rimmed glasses on her face, a white short-sleeved blouse, black slacks – what do they call those, clamdiggers or Capri pants? – and white sandals.

She looks neat but casual. I wondered why she was here and I tried to convince – or perhaps delude – myself into believing that she was approachable. Maybe her glasses gave her a hot librarian look. My faithless Michelle had glasses too, steel-rimmed ones.

Then too, I had met two girlfriends at City College already and a lot of my freshman diffidence had disappeared. Yet this was my first foray into the adult world beyond my school.

I considered my own appearance, my college guy hot-weather sloppiness right down to my no-name sneakers. A related detail was that I had a loose-leaf notebook and another book under my arm. It was the custom for males in college then to continue the high school practice of simply carrying these things under one’s arm. Nowadays everybody from nursery school students to Ph.D. candidates has some kind of bag or backpack. Back then there was something not quite macho about bags, although one ever spoke about it.

I had the option of just leaving and correcting these wardrobe and accessory mistakes on another visit. I decided to a least sit down and see if I could get a conversation going.

With all the stools available, I sat on the second one to the woman’s right; I was between her and the door. I had no choice about the books; I had to put them on the bar. That made me feel like I should be ordering a milk shake.

I glanced at what this lady was drinking. I guessed it was a gin and tonic or a vodka and tonic, so I ordered a vodka for myself.

When I had my drink, I sipped it for a few moments and tried to look at her again without being too obvious about it. This lady two stools down from me didn’t look at all delicate. For one thing, she had a solid pair of hips, which I liked. Beyond that, she looked poised; she seemed completely confident that her barstool was the place to be at the moment. She had not acknowledged my presence in any way. She looked straight ahead and seemed engaged in her own thoughts.

I wasn’t sure what options I had to approach her. She seemed to be at least twenty-five, a half-decade older than I was. The seconds were ticking by and I had nothing to say. Well, I had to come up with something, so I tried talking about my real situation.

“I have had a lot of final exams to deal with this month, but I decided to take a break this afternoon.”

That seemed really weak; I was already boring myself. She glanced at me and I expected her to say, Are you talking to me? Instead, she said, “Yeah, really?” It seemed to be a noncommittal response as if it would have been rude to completely ignore me.

I tried, “Ah, I go to City College, it’s up in . . .”

“I know where it is.” Again, she was not unpleasant; it was just a flat statement of fact.

Something kept me going with this conversation. Maybe she would want to amuse herself and see exactly how inept I could get.

The ball was in my court. “So I figured I'd go downtown and get a drink. Originally I was going to this place called Googie’s, it’s on Sullivan Street.”

“I’ve been there. It’s such a dump. Their unisex bathroom is really a mess.”

Wow, I got three sentences out of her. I said, “So I saw this place and it looked pretty good.” I offered no explanation of how I’d gotten off the train in Chelsea instead of the Village. Then I realized the details of that probably didn’t matter.

She said, “I like coming here.”

That was good; I wouldn't be tempted to say, do you come here often? I thought of asking her if she lived nearby, but it was too early for that.

So again the ball was there to hit. There was more of a tennis rather than a basketball analogy to this game. However, unlike an actual tennis match, I did have a second or two instead of a half-second to think about my move.

I came up with, “They considered selling beer up at City College, but they shot down that idea.”

Despite the irrelevance of my comment, it prodded her into asking me a question, “Don’t you have a girlfriend or somebody up there?”

Peter had given me a piece of advice about just this sort of test. His idea was that women liked men who were “pre-selected” by other women. Thus I should fudge the issue and make it sound like I did have other options going.

Fortunately, the truth might work here, “Yeah, well, things are a bit up in the air with her right now.”

“Up in the air, huh? I suppose she doesn’t know you’re out here bar-hopping.”

“She hasn’t seen me in a while so I came down here myself.”

I noticed that she had turned slightly in my direction. It seemed that she was prepared for some kind of conversation, no matter how silly or brief.

She said, “So of all the bars in this town you had to walk into this one.”

“Oh yeah, Bogart.”

She just nodded. I thought, please don’t make me work so hard on this.

I said, “It is sort of a nice place.” She had already said that, so I needed to continue. I decided to lunge for it.

I said, “Really, the best thing about it is that you’re here.” What would she do with that?

She looked up and down the bar and said, “I noticed it’s not at all crowded and yet you placed yourself two chairs away from me.”

“I guess I walked in and I liked your - hat?” That was bad; it had come out as a question.

“You have a thing for women’s hats?”

I was aware that I was willing to take chances if I assumed I had nothing to lose. Maybe that was a good lesson to learn.

“Of course there is more.” She was obviously thinking, Like what? It was not yet time to be praising the shape of her ass even though I had indeed noticed it.

I had an inspiration, “I like what you’ve done with your hair.” Compliments seemed good as long as they were plausible. I continued, “A lot of girls just grow it out and part it in the middle.” Maybe I should have said women, not girls, but I had a fix for that. I said, “Besides, I like dark-haired women.”

So there, I had served or volleyed or whatever the correct term was. I was curious about how she’d hit it back.

She said, “So have a better look.” She took her hat off - sunglasses and all - and put it on the bar. She put both hands up and fluffed her hair even though it didn’t need that. Simultaneously she crossed her legs and put a sandaled foot against the panel under the bar. Is she being flirty or just messing with me? Maybe both?

But she said to have a look, so I did. Her hair was short by the standards of the time. It went down just below her chin, and it was neatly cut with bangs so she had a Louise Brooks/flapper thing going. She had a yellow hairband across the top to hold it in place.

I tried the celebrity gambit, “It looks like Louise Brooks.”

She smirked at that, “Good line. You thought of that pretty quickly.”

I was hit with an intense pang, a physical and emotional interest for this stranger. I had forgotten about Michelle entirely. Maybe Peter’s suggestion was making sense. Then I saw I had barely touched my vodka and I took a deeper draft of it.

I was grateful that she had something to more to say, “I assume you must be - what, a sophomore?”

“That’s right.”

“You should know that I’m twenty-six so I must have a few years on you.”

“I sort of knew that when I first saw you.”

She looked me up and down, assessing me, “You’re not the most snappy dresser I’ve ever seen.”

Don’t apologize. I shrugged and said, “Hey, I’m a student.”

She nodded. She chose that moment to uncross her legs. “It’s so obvious that you don’t know how to do this – it’s almost endearing.”

That could have been a compliment, but damnation with faint praise seemed more likely. I decided on my next moves.

I said, “I’m Paul, by the way.”

“Well hi, I’m Charlotte.”

Pleased to meet you? No, don’t say that. But now that I had her name dropping it into the conversation seemed worthwhile.

“Charlotte, I guess you must work near here.”

“No, I’m up in Midtown.”

“So then you must live around here.”

“Oh, I get it.”

I just kept plowing ahead, “I’m not sure if I’ll ever be able to afford a Manhattan apartment.” Immaterial, Your Honor. Sustained. “But you like your apartment, right?”

She shrugged, “Yes, I do.”

That seemed like an important junction. I said, “I’d like to see it, I mean your place.”

“Are you planning a career as a real estate agent?”

“Maybe I will, maybe I will go into real estate.”

She chuckled. It had been my first attempt at a joke, albeit a feeble one. But even if I hadn’t killed with it, I hadn’t completely bombed either.

I added more, “We could go there, have another drink, chat for a while.”

“So you expect some free liquor and an air-conditioned place to hang out.” That was a statement, not a question.

“No, I want to talk to you.”

She could have said, Why not talk to me here? Instead, she thought about it for a few seconds. She turned the stool so she was really facing me for the first time.

She said, “You could use a few extra pounds.” True, I was quite thin. “And you may be twenty or so, but you look younger.” That was true too. She moved forward on the stool and leaned towards me; she had enough reach to flick the hair on the side of my head. “You could use a decent haircut too.” Like most guys my age back then I didn’t cut my hair until it had turned into a tangled mess.

I decided to be quiet because I sensed she had her own follow-up ready. She did, saying, “In some strange way you are completely sincere.”

I thought that just a smile was enough here; I didn’t have to fake that.

Then she turned back and said, “You might as well finish your drink.” Was I going somewhere, somewhere with her? If she was truly tired of me, she’d be the one going somewhere, even if it was only the other end of the bar.

About half of my vodka was still in the glass. I didn’t want to gulp the rest but neither did I want to linger in there. I took a couple more sips and just said, “Okay.”

She exchanged her regular glasses for her sunglasses and said, “Let’s go.” I wondered if I had really been convincing or if she merely wanted a change of venue. We left our tips on the bar and a moment later I was holding the door for her. I had an unpleasant vision of her throwing a curve at me; maybe she’d get to the sidewalk and say, It’s been nice meeting you. Bye!

She turned up the block and I fell in next to her. Even though it was hot and humid on the street, I was glad to be outdoors again. We started a fairly unforced and natural-sounding conversation about the neighborhood - the selection of stores, the easy commute to other parts of the city.

I wondered what passers-by going in the opposite direction would think of us. Were we a couple or just two co-workers out socializing? Probably they’d think the latter. They might also be thinking, He doesn’t have a chance with her.

I looked over at this Charlotte as we walked along Seventh Avenue. I thought, What a fine lady this is. I didn’t mean that in a tongue-in-cheek way. Michelle, on the other hand, still seemed like a girl.

****

We reached her building on a side street, an old walk-up place. The phrase “pre-war” here would mean pre-World War I, a New Law Tenement to use the exact New York term. However, it was well-maintained for a Manhattan building of that vintage. Her apartment was on the third floor.

There were two sofas in the living room, facing each other, and each had its own coffee table. As I was standing there looking around, she said, “Have a seat. Don’t make yourself at home, but you can sit down.”

I had heard Michelle use sarcasm too, but it was usually in a good-natured and funny way so I was rarely bothered by it. Charlotte’s crack didn’t seem good-natured.

She said, “You wanted a drink, right?”

“Do you have some wine?”

“I’ve got a bottle of white that I opened.”

“That’s good; white is best for a hot day.” I didn’t know if that was actually true, but I hoped Charlotte was not a wine expert either.

She came back from the kitchen with a glass for herself too although she had left her hat and sunglasses somewhere in there. She placed my glass on the table in front of my couch; then she placed her drink on the other table, but she didn’t sit down yet.

She said, “Oh, I forgot to turn on the air-conditioner.” It was indeed uncomfortably warm in the apartment. She turned on the window unit, which was to my left, and hit the high button. Her apartment was in the back, and her windows faced an interior courtyard.

Then she started to move things along. She unbuttoned her blouse, took it off and dropped it on the floor. She stretched - preened really - in the air coming out of the unit. She put her arms behind her back and pushed her breasts forward; then she raised her arms and stretched them up and out.

Her bra perhaps was really the top of a bathing suit; it appeared to be mostly orange with a floral pattern. If she intended for me to get an erection while I sat on the couch, she had succeeded. In a few moments, she turned to face me.

“Hey, Charlotte, I like that bra.”

“You do? I have a matching set of panties that go with it.”

“Are you wearing them now?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?”

“Yes, I would like to know.”

“Well, I’m not sure I really want to show you.”

That was more irritating than playful. Was she going to have me sit around here for a while with my boner and then tell me to leave? At least I had gotten a glass of wine out of this. I started to drink it as she flounced over to the other couch; she sat there and gazed at me.

I said, “I really think you're cute.” Maybe that should have been, “I think you’re really cute.” Anyway, a grammatical quibble.

She said, “Well of course you do.” She continued, “So what else do you like besides my hair - and hats?”

I decided to look back at her for a moment and make another assessment.

She was not someone who could ever be in fashion magazines; her face was a bit too wide, her nose a bit too big, there was a bit too much junk in her backside trunk. However, I didn’t care what magazines put forth as standards. I really wanted this woman, right there in her living room.

I still owed her an answer. I rummaged around for a joke of some sort but settled for a something straight. “I like your face. I find it intriguing.” That had the advantage of being true.

She smiled and drank her wine. Her next sentence came at an unexpected angle and completely surprised me.

She said, “Have you ever been laid with your socks off?” I laughed at that, and I think I knew what she was referring to. It was dialogue from a novel, a conversation between two soldiers in which one is ribbing the other. I would have bet it was The Naked and the Dead but about four years had passed since I had read it.

I asked her, “Is that from Norman Mailer or Jack Jones?”

“One or the other, I just don’t remember.”

Maybe this woman wasn’t so unobtainable after all. I said, “Hey, I’d like to sit over there.”

She patted a place on her sofa and said, “Come on over.”

Once I was there I needed a second or to two to think of something. She got in ahead of me. As she leaned forward, she said softly, “What, if anything, do you have to offer me?”

“How about: youth and enthusiasm?”

“Yes, youth all right. You can do a three-minute mile.”

I didn’t get that. She explained further, “I mean three minutes of sex and it’s all over.”

“Oh, we can fix that.”

“No, you can fix it.” She pointed across the room. “You can do it over there on your sofa.” Thus my ploy for a pre-coital handjob was thwarted.

I had just moved and now I was going back. But there didn’t appear to be another option now.

As I went over there, Charlotte rustled around in the other side of the room. She came over to me with a jar of Vaseline and part of a broadsheet newspaper. She spread that out on the table - it was part of The New York Times and it was obvious what the purpose of it would be.

She said, “Oh look, the real estate section. You can check apartment listings.”

Now I had my most nasty thought yet, something like, Yes, and fuck you too. I could have said that but that would have left her with few alternatives beyond throwing me out of the place. I’d rather stay; I was curious to know how bad - unpleasant really - she could get.

She sat down and took her regular glasses out of her purse, “The better to see you with, my dear. I am going to watch; I’m sure that will inspire you.”

“I like women with glasses.”

“And by coincidence dark-haired ones too. Maybe you like the hot librarian look?” That was exactly what I had thought in the bar.

“Sure I do.”

“So let’s see what you can do.”

Actually, I was feeling a bit bashful. My memories of jerking-off in front of other girls were not registering as real. Yet I still didn’t want to bail. The situation hadn’t resolved itself yet; maybe I could still nudge it in another direction.

She didn’t help matters now. “Just so that this is clear, I’m not guaranteeing anything.”

“Guaranteeing what?”

“Let me rephrase that; I’m guaranteeing nothing.”

Depending on how it was interpreted, that could mean that nothing was the promised outcome. Her attitude inspired me to try anyway. I got my pants down and went to work on myself with the Vaseline. But I was completely limp now and getting nowhere.

It was a mental thing; I needed more inspiration. I closed my eyes and tried to conjure up a fantasy. That didn’t work; I couldn’t come up with anything. She noticed my lack of progress.

“Could you use some motivation about now?”

I couldn’t hide my impatience. “Yes, Charlotte, I could use some motivation.”

“Okay, look at this.”

She got up and went to the side of the room next to the window. There was a zipper at the back of her pants which she undid. She lowered those and there they were: the matching orange panties. She slowly swayed her hips back and forth. For my twenty-year-old self that was more than adequate; I quickly got a rhythm going.

I had to give her some credit. “Great panties by the way.”

She said, “Would you like to see more?”

Fuck yes. I had to be more subtle than that. “Charlotte, whatever you’ve got I’m ready for.”

“That’s fine; I’ve often imagined being a burlesque queen.”

“Then do your best Gypsy Rose Lee act.”

She took her outer pants all the way off; then she did the same with her underpants. She faced the wall and braced herself while presenting a rear-end view to me. I enjoyed looking at her wide ass, her thick bush, and her reddish-pink slit.

That seemed to be the most encouraging sign yet. If I had gone from a barstool to gazing at her bare pussy and I was masturbating while doing that - that alone had to qualify as a success. It seemed plausible to imagine even better things to come within a few minutes.

However, she had stopped talking to me and I had nothing to say either. I saw her glance over her shoulder at me a couple of times. Perhaps her silence didn’t matter. I was so charged up, so tense from what had been going on, that a purely physical release suited me. Probably about three more minutes passed and then I moaned and spattered all over The New York Times.

I was resting against the sofa back when I opened my eyes and realized that I was still in this game. It was like a queasy, confusing dream that had gone on for much too long. Charlotte was ignoring me while putting her underpants back on.

I said, “Hey, don’t do that!”

She was moving towards the kitchen and then she stopped, arms akimbo, next to her sofa. She said, “I’m getting hungry; I’ve got to put something together for myself.”

“Didn’t you like seeing me come?”

“It’s not exactly a novelty. I’ve seen guys do it before.”

Then I realized I’d like dinner too. I said, “I could go and get something to take out.”

That immediately struck me as a bad idea. If I went out there alone, I could be locked out. I’d end up eating a Chinese dinner for two on her stoop. She’d likely have talked me into picking up the whole tab.

My takeout proposal elicited no response. Expectations of having her coming over and straddling me evaporated. I tried to clean up and get my clothes in order while still conversing with her. Compliments seemed worth another try.

“Charlotte, you’re so pretty.” I had an inspiration, “You remind me of Cyd Charisse.” That was a bit of an exaggeration but not completely implausible.

She did smile at that. “I thought I reminded you of Louise Brooks. So which movie are you thinking of?”

Good; I had a Charisse fan. Fortunately, I also had a response, “I liked that green dress with the green shoes she had on in Singing in the Rain.”

“Oh, yes, she was practically banging Gene Kelly right on the dance floor.”

I said, “And the red dress and shoes in The Band Wagon, with those black gloves.”

She gave me a skeptical look and said, “This is all very interesting but shouldn’t you check in with your girlfriend by now?”

“I said I’m not really going with her now.” At least I thought I had implied that.

“That’s not my problem.”

Then I was watching her panty-covered ass as she went into the kitchen. For a few moments, I heard her moving things around in there. Then she peeked through the doorway.

“Are you still here?”

She hadn't explicitly told me to leave, so I felt I was still in bounds by staying on the couch. She came out, Charlotte with her hairband, glasses, orange underwear and white sandals. “Look, you’re sort of a nice guy I guess, but I’d like you to leave now. Clear enough?”

“Charlotte, I like you.” Close enough; actually I lusted after her. “How about we have dinner or something this weekend?”

“I don’t date guys as young as you, sorry.”

“Isn’t this a date?”

“It was an encounter, a stunt.” She pointed to a spot behind me. “There’s the door; I’m showing it to you. Please go through it.”

I got up from the sofa. I had to have a parting shot, but I wanted to remain calm, in control of myself. It still came out sounding whiny, “What’s wrong with you anyway? Do you like watching guys masturbate and then sending them on their way?”

What a shot she’d be if she could shoot at me with those angry eyes. “What I do in my life is absolutely none of your business.”

She had to top herself, “There are those peep shows; guys pay good money to whack off while watching women gyrate in front of them. You just got that for free, plus a complimentary glass of wine.”

That was a very low blow; frankly, it was appalling. Then she softened a bit.

“Look, we had some fun. I admit I goofed on you a bit with my striptease, but you can’t be that thin-skinned.”

But my feelings were indeed hurt. And I was weary of this whole thing. I tried to be snotty by making a reference she surely wouldn’t get.

“I’m going to call this Perfidy at the Albion.”

But she did get it, “Ah, a history major I bet. I was psychology but I did pay attention in the other classes.”

I considered asking her where she went to school, but there seemed to be no point in dragging this out. As I turned for the door she said, “Don’t forget your books.” As I retrieved them, I had one last look at her going back to the kitchen.

The apartment door closed behind me. Two flights down, and then the outside door locked itself. I was out in the humid street; I was hot, angry, depressed and still horny. I tried to distract myself by considering the trip home. 14th Street at Eighth was an express stop where I could get an A train. My chances of catching an air-conditioned train on that line were close to zero.

I wondered where Michelle was at that moment.

****

The Albion is fictional although there is now a bar with the same name in another part of Manhattan. Googie’s on Sullivan Street was a real place that has since closed.