The unknown woman

The place reeked of anonymity, nameless faceless anonymity. And I for my bit played a part in the anonymity in keeping the conversation, smiles and liquor flowing , flowing into the greedy, ailing and happy mouths of a plethora of sad populace. It’s funny and sad to think that people come to me to be high only when they feel low. They knew me, I seldom cared. To me they were just a mass of writhing, sweaty bodies. The shroud changed and the people under it? Rarely.
But Cass was never the one to drown into anonymity.  How did I know her name?  The heart has a uncanny way of seeking , segregating  and assimilating the eccentricity.  Cass was never the one to settle anything between high or low, although I’ve been fortunate enough to see only the former. Black hair highlighted pink, long sleek almost covering one side of her face with a drink in hand, a compliment from an admirer I suppose, shoulders hunched from laughing at some unknown anecdote she heard on the way and  a man draped on the other hand, she was what a chaste woman would call “a whore”. But since there has never been a chaste woman who had ever been good to her female counterpart, I would rather say a chaste woman is also a whore, a self whore.
Cass had never been crass nor was she classy, she was neither too hot for her own good  nor hideous. She was neither sexy nor did she ever wanted to. She was impulsive, loud, boisterous, sugary sweet and she never came nor went with the same man. The men changed every day but Cass never did. Oh no, she never did and that made me take a strange pride in her.
Nights passed, I rarely see Cass these days. But when I do, I see a half a Cass with the same man. Cass changed the man didn’t. She looked happy though, a sad form of happiness. Like a sand in a sieve she was slipping away. I could see her, the man couldn’t. And during the last evening I ever saw her, she turned and gave me that true to Cass rich infectious smile of hers and I cried. A week later the man came with a woman who wasn’t Cass