by Mike Leon
acknowledging the strange figure. That’s when he notices the most unusual feature of all. The man is wearing sunglasses.
The woman feels good. This is not a huge surprise to Sid. He knows, perhaps better than any man living, that people of all colors are the same inside. Though his firsthand understanding of the old maxim is probably much more literal—and visceral—than most.
He requested a girl with dark hair and tattoos for reasons of nostalgia, never thinking to specify her skin color. She is shades apart from the pale vamp he expected. Still, the idea of trying something new was not without appeal in this scenario. The differences of race turned out to be nearly non-existent, but the difference in her disposition is noticeable.
She kneels on all fours atop the bed and Sid fucks her from behind. The masses of shiny colored beads rock with her dangling breasts over the sheets each time he thrusts into her. After some less-than-impassioned missionary intercourse, he learned that this girl will do something none of the others would so far—and even may prefer it. She’s louder than he is used to and more animated. It’s hard to tell if she’s having a good time or giving him a show, but that matters little to him. She screams and clutches the sheets several times throughout their coupling.
Sid finishes inside the girl and pushes her aside. He flops down next to her, where her heavy panting continues in his ear.
“Damn, sugah,” she says. “Ah’m gonna feel bad about taking your money. Ah’m still gonna take it, but ah’m gonna feel bad about it.”
It was good, but not the best. Memories of another threaten to invade his mind: alabaster skin adorned with images of death, the smell of her jet black hair and the sparkle in her deep blue eyes as they—he forces that away. He doesn’t want to remember that anymore.
The girl steps out of bed and goes to the bathroom to tend to herself. Sid remains on his back, looking up at the chipped plaster ceiling. He keeps quiet so he can listen to the girl’s actions in the bathroom. If she is preparing a double-cross of some nature, he may be alerted by unusual noises; perhaps the slide of an automatic pistol, or the dis-assembly of a bathroom fixture. It seems impossible that she could have any weapons on—or in—her body after being so deeply examined, but there could be something hidden in the toilet tank or behind a false tile in the shower or any number of locations.
He hears nothing of the sort, and the girl soon returns to the room equipped only with the colored beads she had around her neck when she left. She steps around to the side of the bed next to him and crouches down to pick up her bikini bottom from the floor. She begins tying the strings at her hips, but he reaches out and snatches her wrist to pull her back into the bed.
“Stay,” he says. He curls his left arm around her to ensure she goes nowhere. “I may not be done with you yet.”
“We just went for ah don’t know how long,” she squawks.
“Two hours, seventeen minutes.”
“What? You timed that?”
He most certainly did. His brain is like a supercomputer, clicking away, tracking details normal humans would never consider worthy of attention: the number and placement of windows on the building, the distance in feet between doors in the hotel hallway (fifteen), all of the exits, the faces of everyone who saw him enter the building and the time—he always knows the time.
“You gonna pay me to sleep here?” the girl asks after a fruitless moment waiting for him to respond to her last question.
“Yes,” he says.
“You crazy, but ah ain’t gonna bitch about it.” She rests her head on his chest.
Dominique awakens in the roaring darkness of the storm. It hasn’t let up, even in the hours she’s been asleep. Rain drops continue to barrage the roof above. The stranger’s steely arms remain coiled around her, holding her like a child’s teddy bear, she thinks.
She searches the room for the cool blue glow of the alarm clock and finds it only inches from her face, on the night stand right next to the bed. 2AM. Next, she moves her eyes back to the TV. The blinking flicker of the screen, still on even though what was on it was unwatchable, burns her eyes as they adjust to look upon the open case of money sitting next to it. The money in that briefcase is enough to feed her family for decades, maybe forever. It could change everything.
The stranger’s faint breathing in her ear is like a taunt to her mind, daring her to pick up the briefcase and make a break for it. The whole situation is a cruel joke. He lies soundly asleep with a fortune right there in front of her, only feet from the door and packaged neatly for her to pick up and go. The circumstances don’t just tempt her; they force her hand.
She’s never stolen anything in her life. Not even a piece of candy. Of course, she never did any prostitution before tonight either.
He can’t possibly mean to pay her the exorbitant sum he promised. More than likely, she’ll awaken in the morning to find the stranger and his money gone along with the storm—if he even cares to be that discreet. He might beat her or kill her before he walks away. No matter how he goes about it, he’s not leaving without that money. She can be sure of that. It means the only thing left for her to do is take the cash.
Dominique quietly and carefully slides herself out from under his arm, planning her excuse if she wakes. She’ll tell him she has to pee, then stay in the bathroom long enough for him to fall back to sleep.
The more elaborate plan is unnecessary. The stranger stays asleep as she slips out of the bed and onto the cheap motel carpet. She tiptoes away to the edge of the dresser, and turns back to make sure she hasn’t awakened him one last time before she reaches for the briefcase. He remains asleep in the same position, only without her company.
The briefcase closes easily and Dominique waits to snap the locks shut in case the noise wakes the stranger. She folds the case underneath her arm to keep it shut tightly and then picks up her long brown coat from the floor where it still lies. She leaves her bikini and heels where they lay, as well as the radio. She won’t need them anymore—no matter how this turns out. She reaches for the door, slowly turning it and hoping, praying that it does not creak. Her pulse pounds as she slides her foot outside and into the hallway. Sheer amazement fills her as she pulls the door behind her, leaving it cracked just in case the clicking of the bolt might wake him. At first she tiptoes down the hall, then walks hurriedly as a few more doors slide by. At last she clasps the locks on the briefcase closed and runs full tilt, making for the elevator at the end of the hall. She jabs the call button furiously as she looks over her shoulder at the empty corridor. She expects the door to room two-seventeen to burst from its hinges and the stranger to come charging down the hall like a rhinoceros. It does not happen. Even as she steps onto the elevator and the doors slide shut on her view of the hallway, there is nothing but quiet.
She drops the briefcase on the elevator floor with a loud thud and wraps her jacket around her naked body. She slips her arms through the sleeves and buttons the front all the way down. She picks up the briefcase just as the elevator doors open on the first floor lobby.
A single attendant sits sleepily at the front desk, a frizzy haired girl with pasty freckled skin and her nose buried in a hardback library copy of Lolita. She has on a thin blue smock opened to a low cut white tank top. She raises her drowsy head to look at Dominique and then returns it to the novel without a word or even a second glance.
Dominique patters through the lobby barefoot and to the front doors, where she looks out into the swamp that used to be a parking lot through the big glass panes in the wooden double doors.
“Fuck,” she whispers to herself, wishing she had brought her shoes, until she reminds herself that the heels she wore here would be useless in this mess.
She pushes through the doors and runs for her car, the only one parked in the lot. Cold water slaps against the bottoms of her feet and splashes the hem of her coat. She increases the pace, wanting nothing more but to jump into the passenger seat next to Brad and punc
h him in the shoulder while screaming at him to drive faster than he has ever driven before. When she does see the car, her heart sinks.
The little white Toyota supra, her car, not Brad’s or her employer’s car, occupies the same parking space, but the driver’s side window is a gaping hole with shards of shattered glass clinging to the rims all around. As she moves closer, she can see no sign of Brad inside. She reaches the window and peers into the interior. The front seats are empty. She leans in and checks the back; empty as well. Rain trickles in through the broken window to soak the upholstery of the driver’s seat. Dominique reaches through the shattered window to finger the automatic locks. She yanks the door open and sits down inside, tossing the briefcase on the floor next to her. She reaches under the wheel without bending to look, almost afraid of what she will find, but her fingers grasp the dangling metal bits of the key ring she handed Brad when they parted ways. The keys are in the ignition.
Dominique turns the keys and listens to the grinding of the engine. It does not start. She tries it again. Still, it refuses to come alive like it should. It makes no sense to her. She takes damn good care of this car. Oil changes on schedule like clockwork; tire rotations, batteries, alignments and new brakes—anything the mechanic tells her to do, she does.