Chapter 3 #2
“Fucking hell!” The man sneers. “Watch where you’re going, bitch!” He looks up and instead of apologizing, runs his gaze blatantly up and down my body, lingering a beat too long on my chest.
It’s the same man from before. The creep at the bar. “My eyes are up here, asshole.”
He tears his gaze away from my body and meets my eyes with a smirk. “You should try watching where you step, doll.”
Doll? I don’t know whether to throw up or stab his face with a fork. “And you should try apologizing for spilling your drink on me.”
He doesn’t. Instead, he shamelessly runs his eyes over me again. “You’ll get over it,” he says, finally sauntering away as I gape at him, speechless. What the fuck?
“Holly?” A familiar voice cuts through the air.
I look to my right.
Camille stands there with a face etched in concern. Her eyes dart between me and the retreating figure of the man, before lingering on my hair for a beat too long. She frowns. “What are you doing?”
“What do you mean?”
“I thought you were tired.”
“I was.”
“And you’re not anymore?”
I shrug and before I can say anything else, I'm enveloped in a tight embrace, two arms pulling me close and silencing my words with a hug. My shoulders grow rigid with discomfort.
“I’m sorry,” Cami says.
I shift in place. “For what?”
She hugs me tighter. “For lashing out at you. I hate fighting with you. I shouldn’t have yelled at you. I feel terrible.”
She pulls away and it takes a conscious effort to soften my expression. “It’s okay, Cam. I yelled at you too.”
“Let me make it up to you?”
“Does it involve a free drink?”
She smiles. “Maybe.”
“You wanna get out of here and grab some food?” I offer, genuinely hoping to clear the air.
Cami shakes her head, running a hand through her dirty blonde waves. “Can’t. Lily bailed on her shift. I have to cover for her.”
“I'll wait for you.”
“You don’t have to do that.”
“I want to.”
“Don’t lie to me. I know you’re tired.”
“Well, I’m not anymore.” Which is true. I’m not tired anymore. Just a bit on edge. And grossly pissed off.
“What are you gonna do while I work?” she asks.
I glance around the bar, my gaze falling on the rude man who spilled his drink on me.
He’s currently sipping on a cocktail at the same far end of the bar and hitting on a woman.
A different one this time. She looks like she’s half his age.
Definitely over ten years younger than him, and judging by the look on her face, she clearly wants him to fuck off.
But of course, he doesn’t. He's leaning in far too close to her, his hand running up and down her bare thigh. She looks away for a few seconds, answering a phone call and I see him reach into his pocket to pull out a tiny glass vial. In a blink, the vial is open, and its contents are being added to the woman’s drink.
The sight reignites a dormant spark of anger within me, only this time, it's wrapped in something else, something darker.
My lips curve upwards in a gentle, involuntary smile. “I'm sure I'll find something to pass my time.”
My sister once said to me that getting one tattoo is never enough.
That once you get a taste for it, you can never just stop at one.
I never really understood her logic — maybe because unlike her, I don’t have any tattoos — but I did understand the raw sentiment behind her statement. Once is never, ever enough.
“Again, I am so sorry for barging into you like that. It was totally my fault.”
The man chuckles, his eyes lingering a little too long on my chest where the damp white shirt clings uncomfortably. Josh? James? John? He told me his name, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I’m sure it’s something with a “J.”
“No worries, sweetheart,” says Jake. “You should be careful, though. Could've ruined that pretty little top.” His eyes flick back down to my chest.
“Oh, it's fine. These things happen.” My voice drips with fake sweetness. “So, tell me…” I lean forward, squeezing my arms together to give him a better view of my cleavage. “What do you do for a living?”
John the Moron puffs up his chest. “I'm a doctor. Surgeon, actually. Big bucks, you know.”
Wow. What an embarrassing coincidence. “Wow, that's amazing!”
“What do you do?” he asks.
“Oh, me? Nothing as important. I just go to bars, flirt with men, take them home, and slit their throats.”
Jasper stares at me for a second, then lets out a nervous laugh.
I try to mirror it, forcing a giggle of my own. Well, he can’t say I didn’t warn him. “Um, no, I'm, uh, just an actress. Still struggling a bit to make it big, though.”
“Ah.” His eyebrows shoot up and in a single syllable he’s managed to cast more judgment on my supposed profession than all of my high school teachers combined. “What kind of roles do you play? Anything I might have seen?”
His tone is suggestive and when he places his hand on my knee to give it a squeeze, I have to force myself to breathe through my nose.
This is the part I don’t like. Dealing with these feelings festering inside me.
Fear, shame, pain. Guilt and confusion. Momentary dread and then complete dissociation.
Perpetual emotional numbness. I feel like I’m covered in thick, disgusting, foreign ooze.
There’s a hole in my stomach. Every touch makes me feel violated.
Hopeless. Angry. So fucking angry all the fucking time.
And I don’t know whether to scream or use my martini sword to stab him in the eye.
“Oh, all sorts!” I smile at him, reminding myself that for it to look real the smile must reach my eyes. “Drama, comedy, even some action stuff.”
“Is it enough to make a living?” he asks.
“Well, I live in a cheap apartment with four roommates, and I don’t have health insurance. So, no, it’s not.”
“That's terrible, honey. You shouldn't have to live like that.” His hand starts to creep up my knee, moving over my thigh, and the mere sight is enough to make me feel like there are insects crawling all over my body.
But I pretend to enjoy it. Men want to feel like they are being worshiped.
I need to make him think that I want him.
I need to make him feel as though I want his filthy, dirty hands all over me, even though what I really want is to cut his throat open and watch his blood spill all over the sticky bar floor.
“Tell you what,” says Jonah. “How about I buy you a drink to make up for it?”
“Aww, really?” I flutter my eyelashes like a cartoon cat, watching as he orders me another gin martini, along with a whiskey sour for himself.
Whoever said that men are simple creatures forgot to mention that they’re equally fucking stupid with no innate sense of identifying danger.
Stupid, insipid creatures that think with their cocks, not their brains.
Camille returns with our drinks on a tray and Justin snatches his whiskey sour right away, completely ignoring my gin martini.
Chivalrous.
We talk. We drink. And the entire time, Julian keeps his hand on my thigh. He asks me what my favorite food is. I lie and say sushi. He tells me he has a complicated relationship with “food that swims” because he almost drowned as a child. I try my best not to cringe.
His hand stays on me, warm and entitled, occasionally trying to slide higher.
I tell him to stop. He doesn’t listen. They never do.
It tells me what kind of man he is. Arrogant.
Pompous. A menace to society. Someone who thinks they can have any girl they want.
And frankly, with a magazine-perfect face like that — full lips, long eyelashes, chiseled jawline — this one probably can.
But where’s the fun in that, right? The ego might be big, but the allure of the chase is bigger.
Guys like him are only attracted to another woman if she seems unattainable.
The word “no” is a challenge. It makes their blood run hot.
We finish our drinks and this time I’m the one who orders us another round.
“Are you trying to get me drunk, Ashley?” Jack asks mockingly, taking a big, sloppy sip of his whiskey sour.
“Something like that.”
He grins. “You’re really fucking hot. Anyone ever tell you that?” His eyes are glazed, his face is flushed, and he’s sitting way too close to me for my liking.
I force a smile back.
That seems to make him happy. He looks at me with wide eyes, pupils slightly dilated and leans forward to kiss me with his dumb mouth.
I push him back with two fingers to his forehead. “Not so fast. Finish your drink first.”
“Oh, come on, don’t be like that.” His hand inches up my thigh.
I slap it away. “I said, finish. Your drink.”
Reluctantly, he pulls himself back into an upright position, pouting like an angry toddler, and I excuse myself to go to the bathroom, trying to figure out what to do next.
Josh is getting quite tipsy and talkative now.
It’d be easy enough to take him out back and push a sharpened piano wire inside through the corner of his eye, straight into the brain.
There would be no external sign of damage.
It would look like he just had a brain hemorrhage.
It wouldn’t even look like a murder. I read it in some mystery novel once.
Always wanted to try it. Sure, I’d have to get him unconscious for that, but that won’t be hard considering how much he’s had to drink.
I rearrange my hair in the mirror and pluck a stray eyelash from my cheek.
I could also just tie him to a chair, slice his Achilles tendons, then watch him step forward and tear his ankles apart.
Hmm. I don’t know, though. That seems like a lot of work.
Tonight, I’m in the mood for something simple. Something efficient, yet gory. Something that will ensure I’m asleep in my own bed within the next two hours. What to do, what to do. “Good god, why the fuck is this so hard to decide?” I think out loud.