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Mr. Sinister in Table 4 has been watching me all night.
I'd be a liar if I say I didn't notice it, and an even bigger liar if I say his attention doesn't make me feel hot and bothered.
The newcomer bears a strong resemblance to Paul Newman at his scruffily sexiest, and if I weren't so insecure, I'd love to take a closer look just to see if his eyes are also as blue. I hope it is, and I think it would break my heart if it's not.
I've seen the way Mr. Sinister made heads literally turn and stay turned the moment he came in. I've seen how Kelly, who's last year's prom queen, has been desperately trying to catch his eye for the past half hour. But strangely, it's as if he doesn't see anyone or anything else. The only one he has eyes for is me...and that's why I find him so, well...
Sinisterly.
Our small town is just ninety minutes away from NYC. More often than not, the proximity means that city-dwelling serial killers would occasionally find their way to Ivy Creek, and tomorrow's local headlines would include a neighbor's name, now deceased and suspected to be the latest victim of Killer X, Y, or Z.
I'm not saying I'm convinced Mr. Sinister is likely to be the next Ted Bundy or Son of Sam, but neither am I closing the door on the possibility that he's just as murderous. If I were drop-dead gorgeous, I'd have taken his interest in me in stride. But I'm not, and there lies in the problem...among other niggly red flags that I can't make myself ignore.
Tap N Tap is worse than your run-of-the-mill bar, and I have a hard time imagining why Mr. Sinister would even know this place exists. Like everything else in Ivy Creek, my workplace is old and ugly, and when our decades-old A/C throws a tantrum, the entire bar also ends up smelling like poop, thanks to Old Joe's chicken farm next door. It's just how things are in this town, and the only thing that's "Fancy" here is the fairly kind but foul-mouthed lady who runs the local pharmacy a few blocks down.
Our bar mostly has locals as regulars, plus the occasional trucker who's made a pit stop at Ivy Creek's lonesome motel. If we're unlucky, we'd also have New Yorkers coming in to slum it, and it's those nights that I hate the most. In my admittedly not-so-vast experience, the richer they are, the nastier they get, and they tip quite horribly, too.
Even though I've just turned eighteen, I've been working at Tap N Tap for over a year, and the time I've spent here has made me rather good at figuring out who's who.
Mr. Sinister, however...
It's as if the darkness is a part of him, and I don't even get the faintest glimmer of who he is. Words like 'mysterious' and 'enigmatic' become an understatement when applied to him, and the fact that he doesn't even bother to look away when I catch him staring unnerves me to no end.
"Be careful with that man," Junk Shop Jimmy warns as I unload the bucket of beer from my tray and place it on the table.
Bench Bob affirms this with a vehement nod while reaching for a bottle. "He's trouble, that one."
Neither of them is saying anything I don't already know, but I surprise myself by low-key defending Mr. Sinister. "You two have a point. I guess I should be more suspicious and judge a book by its cover and all that. Right?" I shoot both of them a meaningful look, and the pair of old rascals, with their respective less-than-sterling reputations, have the grace to look sheepish upon seeing my point.
As I turn away to head back to the counter, I find myself glancing at Mr. Sinister, and my breath catches when he holds my gaze captive. I can feel him practically commanding me to go to him, and my heart starts to pound.
Mr. Sinister is like a living and breathing danger sign, and the mere sight of him should have made me stop and turn back. But idiot that I am, I do the opposite instead, and alarm bells start clamoring inside of my head as the distance between us begins to shrink.
By the time I finally reach Table 4, I'm a complete mess, and I find myself worrying about the silliest of things.
Do I look okay?
Is it too late to check if my underarms have left any gross sweat stains on my shirt?
What did I last eat - oh shit, onion rings!
What if my breath stinks?
What if—-OH.
I'm finally standing in front of Table 4, and a sudden realization makes me forget everything else—-
Blue.
Mr. Sinister's eyes are Paul-Newman-blue, and the discovery makes me feel a little heady.
"Hello."
I feel even more lightheaded when I hear his voice, which is as intoxicating as his appearance. The sound of it is smooth, pleasant, and posh, and it has me taking a quick, deep breath before I trust myself to speak. "Hello."
Something flickers in his gaze when I speak, but it's gone now, and I'm left wondering if I simply imagined it. I probably did, since I thought I saw a particularly hungry look in his gaze, and I just don't see him as the food-craving sort.
"What can I, um, get for you?"
"Could I have a look at the menu?"
"Oh. Sorry about that." Obviously, I was wrong in assuming he wouldn't need one, and I can feel my cheeks heating up in embarrassment as I hand over the bar's glossy menu board.
"Thank you." The sleeve of his jacket inches back to reveal a black Apple watch as he reaches for the menu. I kinda pictured him as the type to wear something a lot more expensive, but I'm obviously wrong, and Mr. Sinister turns out to be more the function-over-flaunting type—-
Whoa!
Our fingers have accidentally touched, and the nano-second contact is more than enough to have my body betray me. Already, my nipples are puckering behind the lace cups of my bra, and I find myself internally cringing.
Oh my God, Sara!
Please get a grip!
My gaze nervously darts back to Mr. Sinister, and the tension eases from my body when I see him focused on the menu.
Perfect.
I look down at my shirt and glare at my nipples.
Behave yourselves, do you hear me?
It takes a few moments, but my nipples eventually go back to sleep, and I quickly take a peek to see if Mr. Sinister has noticed anything...and nope. He's still studying the menu, and I suddenly realize I now have the most incredible opportunity to study him.
He's even more beautiful up close, and a lot taller. He's also more lean than brawny, and just like his voice, the rest of him feels quite, quite posh...but no less intimidating. His hair is a lustrous shade of brown, his skin a deep bronze—-eek!
My whole face is on fire when I realize Mr. Sinister has been watching me stare at him. "I'm so sorry."
"I don't mind."
"Really? I mean..." What is wrong with me? "I'm so sorry. Can I take your order now or do you need more time—-"
"Just a glass of iced tea."
Really?
I manage not to say it out loud though, but—-
"Yes," Mr. Sinister says solemnly. "Really."
Oops.
"I am so, so, so sorry. I wasn't judging or anything. I was just surprised."
"You have nothing to apologize for."
This time, I don't even let myself think of the R-word and simply mumble an excuse before quickly turning away to leave.
God, that was so embarrassing!
I know I'm probably setting myself up for disappointment, but I just can't help taking a peek at him over my shoulder, and oh!
Just like he's been doing since the moment he came here, Mr. Sinister meets my gaze shamelessly, and I'm the one who ends up looking away while my rapidly-beating-heart feels like it's about to fly out of my chest.
Am I reading too much here or am I allowed to think he fancies me, even just a little?
I know he's way out of my league, and I still feel like he's a walking red flag that I'm better off avoiding.
But...
Just thinking about him makes me feel tipsy, and while I know the sensible thing to do right now is to have someone else serve him his glass of iced tea—-
"Here you are." My voice rattles at the end, and my fingers shake similarly as I place the cold glass of iced tea on the table.
"Thank you."
"Do you, um, need anything else?"
It's a totally innocent question. I swear. But when heat suddenly blazes from his gaze, I realize how the words can mean something else, and my senses flutter.
"As a matter of fact, yes."
I wait and hold my breath. Will he ask my number? Or maybe ask what time my shift ends? Or—-
"Come away with me tonight."
What?
"I promise you'll come to no harm."
WHAT?
"Come with me."
The words are no longer a request. There's no mistaking the authority infused in his voice, and how stupid is it that I'm even more tempted to do as he says?
"You know you want to."
It makes me feel guilty and ashamed, but as soon as I hear Mr. Sinister say the words, I know it's true. I want him to take me away. I want to do whatever he wants me to do.
But while I've long accepted my many eccentricities, even I know that trusting a stranger to take me away is too much.
Father has always taught me to listen to my heart and ignore the noise that the rest of the world makes. But this one time, I think the world has got it right, and so I force myself to step back and whisper, "I'm sorry."
Mr. Sinister stares at me, and my heart aches. Am I imagining things again, or was that truly bleakness I saw flash in his gaze?
Another heartbeat of silence passes, and then he says softly, "I'm sorry, too."
I never look at him after that while Mr. Sinister never stops watching me. I never thought trying to ignore someone would physically exhaust me, but it does. Only an hour has passed, but I'm completely beat, and I'm forced to ask Tyler for a favor. "Can you cover my last two hours?"
"Yeah sure. You do look a little pale," he comments with a frown. "Maybe you should take a cab home—-"
"I think I just have one of those weird headaches that come and go." I untie the apron strings around my wrist and flash him a grateful smile. "I owe you one for this."
He waves me away. "Go."
I change out of my uniform and slip away through the service door at the back. The night air is chilly, but I barely notice it. I was really hoping the walk back home would help clear my mind, but I just find myself thinking of him more, and in a way that's not appropriate.
He had asked me to come away with him, and the words, crazy as they may be, also sound dreamy and dangerous, romantic and risky. It's also a very Mr. Sinister-ish thing to say, and the thought makes my lips twitch in spite of everything.
If only he isn't so out of my league, and he didn't sound so, well, insanely sinisterly, I would have loved to know what exactly he meant by those words. There's just something about him that I can't quite put my finger on, and that something makes me want to—-
What was that?
My heartbeat jumps from sixty to two hundred beats per minute as my fingers tighten involuntarily around the pepper spray I have hidden in my hand. I think I'm being watched, but I force myself to keep my gaze ahead. If I make any sudden or telling movement, that might force whoever it is to also make a move.
The next few minutes seem to stretch like an eternity, and it's only when I safely make it back home that I allow myself to exhale, and I sink down to my knees in relief.
Oh, thank God.
It's one thing to have abduction fantasies. But it's another thing entirely to have someone stalk and kidnap you in real life, and I don't think I'd feel any differently even if my captor turns out to be someone as beautiful as Mr. Sinister.
I've been trying to figure out the entire night what about Mr. Sinister disturbs me, and I think I've finally hit the nail on the head. When girls like me suddenly become the object of interest of men like Mr. Sinister, we usually either end up with broken hearts...or broken necks.
****
FATHER AND I LIVE IN a two-bedroom apartment. It's small and old, but neat and cozy with faded flowery wallpaper and oak flooring that I happily shine every weekend. It's not perfect, but it is home, and it's always been my happy place.
Father's pension ensures that our rent is always paid, and the small amount left over covers the rest of our bills. Father has never asked me for anything, but I've been working since I was thirteen, and I use my wages to help put food on the table.
Even so, money has still been tight, and it was only when I started earning tips from Tap N Tap that we were able to splurge. When we just want to have a nice dinner at home, we indulge ourselves with imported cheese. When we're feeling extravagant, we buy ourselves caviar.
I know it doesn't match our income bracket, but Father has always had a love for the finer things in life, and I grew up listening to him talk about things that only rich and cultured people should typically know about.
It's because of Father that I know more about Beethoven than BTS or Beyonce, and it's also because of him that the other kids in school bully me because I talk funny. On good days, I just get lots of snickering and eye rolls. The bad days, though - they get really bad, but I've never blamed Father for it. I love him as he is, and so he does as well with me, but if there is one thing I wished was different...
Well...
Father, for all his conservative ways, has always encouraged me to be inquisitive, and even something as simple as enabling 'safe search' settings on Google is tantamount to intellectual oppression in his eyes. And I know he meant well, but it's made him forget that there are just some things in this world that a child is never supposed to see.
Things that, once seen, can never be unseen, and a child's life is changed forever.
****
SOME CHILDREN ARE TAUGHT to dream big, but all I learned at an early age was to dream dirty.
I was eight when I stumbled across my first porn site, and the video that automatically played on my screen was a thirty-minute clip that was filmed in the eighties: a woman had hailed a cab one dark and rainy night, but instead of getting home safely she had ended up in the woods, with the cab driver having his way with her in the backseat.
I had known, even back then, that I had somehow ended up watching something I wasn't supposed to watch, but instead of telling my father about it, I had kept quiet.
I never told a single soul actually, but I had never forgotten about it either, and night after night, I would find myself replaying that clip in my mind and obsessing over how rough and how big he was. For years, I had struggled with guilt, shame, and confusion. Year after year after year, I would tell myself I mustn't do anything even as I craved and dreamt. And God, how I craved. I craved to the point of crying, craved to the point of despair—-
I craved and craved and craved until finally, at age fourteen, I could no longer help it.
I finally touched myself, and at first my fingers merely drifted over my cotton-covered flesh, tentatively and guiltily, and then helplessly, because I could no longer stop. Gentle strokes had eventually become furious little rubs, and I just kept rubbing and rubbing until something gushed out of me, and I felt my eyes roll all the way back as the pleasure took over my body.
I still feel guilty and ashamed when I look back on those days. What happened was wrong. I knew it then, I knew it now, but it doesn't change a thing, and it's all I do almost every night since then.
I would read books and watch movies about a man abducting a woman, and the woman falling in love with the very same man who has taken her against her will.
It's a fantasy I'll never speak of, but it's also a fantasy that I know will stay with me forever. Every time I close my eyes in the shower, I'd touch myself while I imagine being forcibly taken by a man so, so strong that there's nothing I can do to stop him.
And for a while, the fantasies conjured by my dirty mind used to be enough.
But now it's not.
For some time now, I've been dying to know a man's touch, and while I know there are so many ways I can hook up with a guy, the idea of giving myself to just anyone makes my skin crawl.
Just because I have a dirty mind doesn't mean I haven't a single romantic bone in my body. When I have sex for the first time, I want that moment to be with the right guy, and I'm not just talking about someone who's capable of turning me on.
I want a man who can give me exactly what I want: a man who can violate and defile me, but at the same time, he'll want to cherish and worship me. I want a man who's the perfect blend of brute force and tender sensuality, and wouldn't it be so lovely if he also happens to look like...Mr. Sinister?
The sudden intrusion of his name in my thoughts makes me bite back a gasp.
Oh my God!
I can't believe I've let myself think about sex and Mr. Sinister in the middle of our living room, but even worse than that is the desire that's already causing my entire body to tingle. I squirm and take deep breaths, but it's no use.
I need to touch myself, but before I can do that—-
I knock on Father's door, and I'm surprised but relieved when I find him already in bed. I never touch myself when Father's awake, and I don't think I ever could. It's just too strange, even for a dirty-minded girl like me.
An icy draft strikes my face as I enter my bedroom. Father must have left the window open, and I quickly lean forward to pull it shut. My panties are soaking wet already, but there is no way I'm going to touch myself until I'm completely sure of my privacy. You can never be sure these days—-
What was that?
I think I just saw something move in the shadows, and I whirl around, heart in my throat.
Please don't be a rat, please don't be a rat—-
A man steps out of the darkness and into the moonlight, and the first thing I see is-—
Blue.
Even when my assailant is dressed entirely in black, and a ski mask covering his face, I know I can't be mistaken. I'd know those eyes anywhere, and the sight of it makes me want to cry.
"You?"
I can't believe it's him, but at the same time, who else can it be but him?
I spin around and lunge for the door, but of course he's too fast. Bad guys like him are always too fast, and terror rips into me when I feel the telltale sting of a needle piercing my flesh.
No, no, no!
But already I can feel my brain shutting down and my body slackening——
No, God, no.
As I start to lose consciousness, I barely catch the words he murmurs under his breath—-
If only you had come to me willingly.
Tears slip down my cheeks.
I had wondered earlier what Mr. Sinister was saying sorry for...and now I know.