text: [Themes: horror, drama, psychological]
  
  Hank glanced back at the beautiful woman. She still wasn't looking his way. He really wanted to go over there, but instead he just stared. She was leaning forward a bit while looking down, and that exposed just a little more flesh than before. Hank stared at the smooth, round globes of skin. Those were really, really nice and he thought he could stare at them all night long. There were firm. He imagined what it might be like to touch them and hold them. She continued to not look his way.
  
  Hank turned back to his beer and took a really long drink. He really should have gone over to talk to her. The worst thing she could do would be yell at him or something, and he could just leave. No one here really knew him anyway. And that bartender, still on his phone, would never even know. He looked back over to the woman and saw that there were now a couple of younger guys standing at her table, trying to talk to her. She had a look on her face that even Hank could recognize: she really didn't want anything to do with them. They both had bottles of beer on the table and were taking turns drinking and talking to her. She smiled politely, but Hank suspected she was about to leave.
  
  Hank finished his beer and pushed his bottle up to the far side of the bar. He thought that every bartender in the free world knew that meant he wanted another beer. Well, every bartender except this one. He glanced up, but then looked back down at his phone again. Hank picked up the empty bottle and waved it, trying to get the bartender's attention. He finally broke eye contact with his phone and looked over at Hank. He raised his chin as if to ask something. Hank blurted out, "I'll have another." The bartender nodded and headed for the fridge under the counter. He came out with another beer, popped the lid, and put it on the counter in front of Hank without ever taking his eyes off his phone. Hank took the beer while shaking his head.
  
  As he was pulling the cold bottle towards him, his elbow hit something rather soft. He heard a soft grunt and turned to see that a short, quite overweight woman had moved up to the bar next to him. She looked up at him and smiled and he noticed she was missing some teeth. She had very pale skin and more makeup than he had seen on some clowns. She tilted her head and gave him a very exaggerated wink. She bit her tongue and said, "Hey baby. You wanna get lucky tonight?"
  
  Hank was disgusted. He looked her up and down. She had a lot more curves than Hank would ever be interested in. He noticed there were curves in places where he had never seen curves before. She was wearing jeans that looked like they were large enough for him to fit in one leg. There were rolls in the jeans up around where he assumed her waist should have been. She had on a button-up shirt and he marveled at the strength of the buttons on that shirt. It had what looked like were supposed to be long, tall, vertical stripes, but they looked more like an optical illusion of wavy lines. There was some flesh sticking out in a few places, but he couldn't tell what he was really looking at. It was then that the smell assaulted him as well. She smelled like some combination of body odor, baking biscuits, and bacon, but old and moldy at the same time. Her hair was in short pigtails and looked like it might have once been blond, but he couldn't imagine the last time it had been washed.
  
  She elbowed him playfully and nearly knocked him off his barstool. She reached out and touched his arm with sticky fingers as she said, "You're cute, you know that?"
  
  Hank really didn't know what to do here. He knew that he had really blown it with the redhead. Now he had this, this, thing touching him and now rubbing up against him. Maybe if he just ignored it, then it would go away. He wasn't really sure how long he could stand the stench, though. He could just order another beer -- or maybe that was a better idea: since he had blown it with the gorgeous woman, this was his punishment. Maybe he should just start ordering some tequila and seeing if he could pass out before the big one did. He wished he hadn't blown it with the other woman. Then again, maybe he should just talk with her and see what she really wanted. He didn't imagine she was actually interested in him, so maybe if he talked to her, he could talk his way out and just go home for the night.
  
  > Hank just ignores her and concentrates on his beer.
  Hank wasn't sure what to do here. Usually he had to make all the effort. Now he had some, well, he assumed it was a chick, hitting on him, and he just wanted to get out of there. There really was nothing that she had that he wanted. The smell was really bad, he didn't understand why other people weren't already complaining about it. He knew he didn't want anything to do with this one, though, no matter how much beer he drank. He wondered briefly if there was enough tequila in the world to make her look good. There certainly wasn't enough in this bar. He figured if he just ignore her, then she would go away and find some other target. He felt sorry for whoever that might be, but as long as it wasn't him, he didn't really care.
  
  "Hey, are you ignoring me?"
  
  He closed his eyes and willed her to go away. Surely she could take a hint. He wasn't sure how much more obvious he could be. He was just facing the bar, refusing to look at her, refusing to even acknowledge that she was there. Did she really think he was going to be interested if she persisted?
  
  His question was answered when he felt himself flying off the side of the bar stool. She had shoved him with all her weight, and he didn't stand a chance. He crashed partially into the stool next to him, but mostly into the ground. Before he could get to his feet, the massive blob moved over towards him and pointed down at him. She yelled, "You got a problem there?" Before he could answer she continued, "You don't go coming on to a girl and getting her all excited, then just ignore her like she a'int there." Now Hank was plain confused. What had he done? Was she just drunk? She went on, "Now you gonna go start something, you better finish it, or someone else is gonna finish it for you." By now, nearly everyone in the bar was watching the two of them and Hank just lay there on the floor as she kept berating him, her flesh bouncing along with her gestures, "You a'int nothin but a tease, and I wanna make sure every body in this place knows it."
  
  At this point, Hank was done being confused. He didn't really care what she was going on about any more. He looked across the floor at the gorgeous redhead, and she looked like she was laughing at him. The girls in the booths looked surprised, and the guys were trying to look anywhere but at him. One of the guys at the bar, near where he crashed to the ground, was just drinking his drink. The other, at the far end of the bar, looked at him an shrugged while he shoved another chicken wing in his mouth. He wondered where the waitress was and if she'd even do anything with this situation. He couldn't see the bartender, but he was pretty sure that guy was just looking at his phone not giving a damn what was happening right in front of him.
  
  Hank looked back over at the behemoth standing over him. Her rolls were still bouncing, he idly wondered if they ever stopped or if aftershocks were just the state they stayed in. There were so many rolls bouncing around, it was almost hypnotic. He pushed himself backwards, a little away from her, and pondered his next action as he worked his way to his feet. He could just tell this fat beast to get away from him and get lost, but she might launch herself at him again. She looked to outweigh him at least three to one and if she got that much mass moving, he really didn't want to be in the way. Or perhaps he should just walk away, letting her yell at nothing. He didn't think that would work too well, but the men's room was just over there and surely if he went in there she wouldn't follow. He could just wait until she calmed down, left, or passed out, and then he could finish his beer in peace.
  
  > Hank yells at her and tells her to shut it.
  As Hank was backing away, he slipped a little and fell back to the ground. The fat woman laughed at him. He reached out to steady himself on one of the empty bar stools and made his way to his feet. He could feel everyone's eyes on him in the bar. He wasn't sure this was the best choice, but now that he was standing, he at least was taller than the creature. She couldn't have been more than five feet tall, but she had to be over five feet wide. She stood with her sausage arms poking out to the sides, hands on what he could only assume were her hips. It looked like just another of the many rolls around her midsection and he wasn't sure how she decided which of the layers to use as a handrest. She huffed and then burped at him. She was close enough that he could smell that, and that was worse than just the odor surrounding her. He chewed a little and tried to get the taste of that stink out of his mouth.
  
  She put her hands up in front of her, palms up, as if to say, "What?" Hank looked over and saw that the redhead was watching him, but so was everyone else in the bar. Even the bartender had lowered his phone temporarily, but he didn't say anything.
  
  Hank took a breath and then said, "Shut up you fat cow!" Her mouth opened involuntarily as she gaped at him. He continued, "I don't know who the hell you are or why you're talking to me. But you're so damn ugly that when your mom dropped you off at school, she got a fine for littering! In fact, the last time I saw something like you, I flushed it! And you're so fat, you need cheat codes to play Wii Fit." He stepped forward as she backed up a step and continued, "Oh wait, you're backing up? Don't you have a beeping noise to warn people?" He stepped a little to the side so that she could see the exit to the bar and yelled, "What? You're getting ready to go outside? I bet when you put on a yellow raincoat you hear people yelling 'Taxi!'" At this point everyone else in the bar was completely quiet and staring. Hank said, "You're like Monday mornings: no one likes you. Don't you need a license to be that ugly? I bet you think Cheerios are donut seeds. But that's okay, because you're so fat the only letters of the alphabet you know are K, F, and C, aren't they?"
  
  At this point, the fat-beast had clearly had enough. She had met her match and she knew it. She waddled past Hank with her head down and headed for the door. Hank wanted to get one more in, so before she left he called out after her, "And as for the 'Starting something,' you can just keep dreaming. The only way you're going to get laid is if you crawl up a chicken's ass and wait!"
  
  The beast waddled out the door of the bar and it was completely silent for a moment. The guy at the end of the bar looked over at Hank and just nodded. Slowly the conversation started back up. Hank looked around, but quickly everyone seemed to want to ignore him. Perhaps he had taken things just a little too far, but he didn't know why that disgusting creature would have tried to pick him up, anyway. He looked over at the bartender, and he was back to his phone. He glanced across the room at the redhead, and she looked like she wasn't too impressed. Well, he had drawn quite a bit of attention to himself, so maybe it was time to cut his losses. He was kind of exhausted after taking that fatty down a few notches. Maybe it was time for him to head home and call it a night. He took one more look over at the redhead and he shook his head. She really was amazing. Maybe he should head over there and see if he could salvage the evening and at least get a close-up look at that perfection.
  
  > Hank should quite while he's ahead and go on home.
  Hank looked around the bar. There was a low hum as people talked to one another. Occasionally one of the girls drinking the colorful drinks would break out in quite loud laughter, then cover her mouth as if that was having an effect. Bottles and glasses slid along wooden tables and counters. The bartender continued to look at his phone and swipe left. It looked like there was a line forming to talk with the redhead now. Hank wished he had just walked over there when she walked into the place. He stared at her clevage a bit between the different guys for a moment. Then he sighed and realized that he was done.
  
  This was more than enough excitement and stimulation for him. He'd just head home and find some series to binge. He used to think he would find a good series to binge, but these days they were all pretty much crap, but he could still manage to watch more than a few episodes in a row before he fell asleep. Either that or he'd start out binging and end up ignoring the screen in favor of whatever Steam had on sale the past month. He idly wondered how much total money he had spent on Steam in the past year. Then he realized that he probably didn't want to know.
  
  Hank pulled out his wallet and stepped over to the bar. He put a twenty on the bar and turned around. He wasn't really sure how much he owed, but hopefully that would cover it. And it not, well, he'd probably be back next week, not that the bartender would recognize him. He headed for the door and glanced one more time at the redhead. He got a good look at her as the guys around her shifted and he imagined that she would be in his dreams tonight for sure. He pushed the door open and headed outside, just as it was starting to rain. A young fellow with scraggly long hair pushed past him to get into the bar as Hank wandered into the street.
  
  Hank slowly walked down the street through the light rain. He didn't even really notice that he was getting wet. He stared at his feet and debated playing games or watching videos. He kept walking across the side streets and never even saw the bus that was careening down the road. He felt nothing as it slammed into him, killing him instantly.
  
  Good reader, you did manage to help Hank completely avoid the succubus in this story. You will have to decide for yourself if that was the best choice of action, now that you know the result of those choices. There are many options in this story, so please do feel free to try again. And thank you for reading!