The Revere
Apparently mysterious women are the current hot topic is this psychotic... er, um, overactive imagination of mine lately. I blame the heat. Or my traumatic, childhood experience with clowns. Wait, I blame the rest of my psychosis on that... Ok, so we'll stick with the heat and leave it at that. In any event, here's another new premise that popped into my head today. Let's see where it goes.
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All he wanted to do was sit there, alone, and drink. He wasn’t in the mood for conversation or company. Most of the time, no one bothered him except for the bartender. Even then, the exchange was simple: The bartender would ask “you want another?” and he would reply “sure, but stop me at two.” And he always did stop after the second pint. There was something about just sitting there and holding the glass in his hand that soothed him. He had never left the place with a blood alcohol level even coming close to the legal limit. He was that regimented. At least he was, until now.
“Here’s your tab,” Joe informed him. Joe had tended bar at The Revere for as long as Michael had been a patron there. A mainstay from back in the days of free flowing liquor and less discretion, The Revere was one of the oldest hotels in the city. It had once fallen into decrepit decay, but had been gloriously restored over the last decade. In fact, at the ribbon cutting ceremony, one of the invited guests, an original bell boy who was now in his early nineties, declared it to look as good as the day it originally opened.
The restaurant bar at The Revere had been Michael’s getaway for the better part of the last six years, ever since he went to work for McCormick & Brown. For a larger firm, McCormick & Brown bucked the stereotype. They were a family-first organization through and through, and insisted that, unless it was an emergency, everyone was to leave the building by 5:00 p.m. on Fridays, attorneys and staff alike, and not return until 9:00 a.m. Monday morning. While Michael appreciated the gesture, he had one problem: He had no family to go home to.
He had moved to the city and taken the position at McCormick & Brown several years after his mother had passed away from breast cancer. He didn’t speak to his father, who now lived upstate. Aside from his younger brother Alex, Michael had no one. A bit of a social misfit, he excelled in his role at researching and writing legal briefs, but he had never set foot in a courtroom except to be sworn in, and he’d never spoken to a client directly in the ten years he had worked as an attorney. He preferred it that way. Joe was the closest thing he had to a friend.
“You know what, I think I’ll have another, Joe,” Michael replied. Joe raised an eyebrow in reaction to Michael’s atypical response.
“Coming right up, Mike!” Joe replied cheerfully. The foam head on ice cold lager he placed in front of Michael dripped slowly like a glacier down the side of the chilled glass. Michael watched it slide downward until it almost touched the coaster before he wiped it off with a cocktail napkin. He had barely swallowed his first sip when she sat down next to him. People didn’t sit down next to him. The regulars knew that, and he had purposely distanced himself at the end of the bar to avoid just such a circumstance.
“Can I get a dirty martini, three olives please?” she called to Joe. Joe nodded, and glanced at Michael, sensing his anxiety. Michael waved him of as if to say “it’s ok, I’m fine.” He wasn’t though, and he could have jumped right out of his skin when she spoke to him.
“Hi! I’m Melody!” she said and held out her hand.
“Of course you are,” he said dryly as they shook. She had a firm grip, firmer than most women he knew, not that he knew a lot of them.
“Well, that’s an odd way to introduce yourself,” she said with the faintest of hints of a southern accent. He could tell she wasn’t just going to take her drink and walk away.
“Michael Bradley,” he finally responded. Satisfied now, she released his hand.
“Well, nice to meet you Michael Bradley, but I must say, my daddy told me never to trust a man with two first names.”
Michael actually chuckled. “That’s only if they have names like ‘Billy-Ray’ or “Bobby-Jo’ or something.”
Melody let out a cackle that pierced his ears and he wondered to himself what men saw in such vapid twits as the woman that sat next to him. As he glanced at her though, taking her physical appearance in for the first time, his understanding grew clearer. Michael smirked.
“What?” she asked.
“Nothing,” he said as Joe placed her martini in front of her. “Joe, you can put that on my tab.” The words came out of his mouth before he even knew what he was saying. He was still staring down at the tanned, slender legs that crossed beneath the hem of her royal blue sundress. Her perfectly manicured toes peeked out from the tips of the strappy heels she wore, and he couldn’t help but notice the hint of cleavage she displayed. Her shoulder length hair was the color of light chocolate with golden highlights. It was her eyes that struck him. One was a deep sapphire, the other emerald.
“Well, here’s to new friends,” she toasted and held up her glass. Michael tapped it with his, turned back towards the bar and took a few, long gulps. He had hoped that his inattentiveness would make her go away. It didn’t. If anything, it made her more persistent. Suddenly he could feel her breath washing over his neck.
“You and I have business, Michael Bradley,” she whispered seductively in his hear. Suddenly he felt a sharp pain in his thigh. If he didn’t know any better, he would have sworn it was a needle.
“Ow! What the hell was that?” He said as he leapt to his feet and rubbed the spot on his leg. A warm, tingling sensation began to spread from his thigh, up his leg, and eventually through the rest of his body. He looked at the mysterious woman till seated beside him, and knew immediately he had been drugged. His vision was clear, and his thoughts concise, but he knew he was drugged just the same. It was the only explanation for what he saw. Though her eyes were different colors, it was the left eye that was blue and the right, green. Now they appeared just the opposite.
“What have you done to me?” he asked, frightened.
“Don’t worry, Michael, I’ll explain everything.” Melody rose and began walking out of the bar towards the hotel lobby. Michael began to follow her, and it was as if his legs refused to obey the commands his brain was sending them. He screamed inside as his actions were no longer his own as he walked behind her, unconsciously and involuntarily. Before he could speak again they were in the elevator, out the door, and walking down the corridor of sixteenth floor. The rich mahogany chair rail than lined the walls gleamed in the light of the antique sconces that adorned them. When they reached room 1645, she lured him in with nothing more than the curl of her finger.
Melody instructed him to sit on the edge of the king-sized bed, and he did so. Once the door was shut and bolted, she returned to the center of the room and casually pulled her dress up and over her head before tossing it casually to the chair in the corner. She wore a matching blue thong and lacy bra, and now stood before Michael like a goddess.
“What is going on? I, I don’t understand,” he said softly, unable to turn his gaze from the diamond of her pierced navel.
“Let’s just say this was a long time coming,” she informed him as she stepped forward, pushed Michael back on the bed, and climbed on top of him. Every memory, every inhibition, and every anxiety he harbored seemed to melt away the moment her lips touched his. There was nothing else. That was the last thing he remembered before his world went dark.
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