"Well, Mark. Shall we head out?" propositioned the strangely attractive giraffe woman whom I'd inadvertently chosen as my escort for the evening.
"Absolutely," I replied. "How about we catch a movie?" I asked, thinking that was probably a safe place to begin our evening. After all, what could go wrong in a movie theater?
With Jessica leading the way, we began our walk through the narrow streets of Pleasure Island's red light district. It was dusk and here and there under soft glow of the occasional gaslight (how quaint!), I could see what were obviously prostitutes, standing and casting about for a john. All were remarkably beautiful, although not all were of the pink-skinned human variety. Some, like Jessica, resembled animals of one species or another: a skinny rabbit girl wearing a tight yellow mini-skirt, her giant furry feet strangely alluring; a stunning arctic wolfess, her blue eyes matching her light blue overcoat barely covering the thick snowy white fur of her large breasts. We passed them all, and I realized how lucky Jessica was to have her place in the tidy brothel, rather than walking the streets like these girls.
Finally, we reached the oldest theater I'd ever seen. It looked like a relic from the age of silent movies, a single screen movie palace of days gone by -a true anachronism in our world of suburban cinema megaplexes offering 24 screens of entertainment. I didn't recognize the name of the film on the marquee, but Jessica swore she'd heard it was good. We purchased our tickets from a bookish but attractive-looking ticket attendant (in the 'hot-for-teacher' kind of way), and entered.
It looked like we were the first people to arrive for the show. We took our seats in the middle of the theater and through the dust, I admired the elaborate murals which adorned the domed roof. Alone together, Jessica and I quickly fell into conversation and found that we had many commonalities like any other couple, in spite of our very different appearances. She liked classic jazz and I liked classic jazz. She liked old mystery novels and I liked old mystery novels. It was a great match. Eventually, there came a lull in the conversation and Jessica spoke.
"You know, you really didn't have to do this. Take me out, I mean."
"No," I replied. "It's really my pleasure. As soon as I saw you, I realized they gave me the most beautiful girl they had." I really meant it too. Jessica had a thoughtful grace about the way she carried herself that I'd noticed the first time I'd seen her. Carrying her twelve foot frame -somewhere between animal and human- she looked otherworldly.
Even through Jessica's spotted cheek fur, I could detect the hints of a strong blush.
"Thanks, that was nice. You're really handsome too!" she replied earnestly, placing her large hoof-like hand into my comparatively puny one. Resolutely, I grasped her hand and held it, giving it a gentle squeeze as I looked up, way up, into her eyes.
Our gazes locked and her head began to come down as I started to stand up, ready to kiss. Her eyes were closed, and I admired her long black eyelashes that Maybelline or any other cosmetic company would kill to duplicate. Suddenly, this magical moment was interrupted by the loud din of voices which broke over the silence of the ancient theater, as the rest of the movie patrons entered. Jessica withdrew her head and I sat back down, still holding her hand and wishing we'd had just one more second to ourselves.