Emil made it his business to notice whenever a broken heart walked through the doors of Pachamama. Broken hearts were easy marks for deals best made in the dark.
However, as soon as he noticed her, he knew that this was a broken heart that would refuse any mending. Instead of being surrounded by a group of other ladies out to cheer her up, the woman came alone. She deftly made her way through the throngs of people gathered around the edges of the dance floor waiting for the DJ to start his next set until she finally slid into one of the few open seats at the bar. She stood easily at the bar, but Emil noticed she made no effort to talk to anyone around her, instead, drinking in the crowds around her. At one point, he watched as she closed her eyes, as though she was meditating on the drunken laughs and blaring latin music around her.
The longer he observed her in between slinging drinks and charming patrons, he got the distinct feeling that rather than healing a broken heart, she had come tonight because she wanted to fade away into something larger than her pain.
And in that moment, Emil found himself curious about someone for the first time in an excruciatingly long stretch of forever.
“What’s your poison, ma chèrie?” He beamed a brilliant smile at her and his heart skipped a solid beat when she rewarded him with a smile of her own.
“A paloma and an extra shot of tequila,” she responded in accented French.
“Starting out the evening on a strong note, I see,” he chuckled, reaching for a clean glass before mixing her drink quickly.
She pinned him in place for a moment with dark cinnamon eyes. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been here in Paris. This club, when it was a different name, used to be one of my favorite places to drink. Let’s just say I am drinking to good memories.”
He placed the drinks in front of her before pouring himself a shot. He raised his glass towards hers. “Then to good memories and even better ones to come. Salut.”
Their fingers brushed against each other’s as they leaned in to clink glasses. Emil felt a prickle move up his fingertips and through his hand, his curiosity about this woman only growing stronger. He was careful to keep his physical contact with other people to a minimum, to avoid crossing the metaphorical bar between patrons and himself, but the electric rush of her touch was tempting enough for him to break his own rules.
He left her with a wink to tend to other patrons, but throughout the night, he couldn’t resist floating back over to her until they devolved into a game of twenty questions in between more orders for palomas.
Her name was Carmen.
She was visiting her uncle.
She had spent time in Paris, her uncle notwithstanding.
She was perhaps looking to make her visit permanent if the opportunity presented itself.
There was nothing in the way that she answered her questions that made her different from most patrons he dealt with on the regular, but he remembered the peppered electricity of her touch and he wanted nothing more than to feel it again.
Eventually the nightclub emptied out of patrons and other barkeeps until she was waiting for him on one of the settees across from the bar and dance floor. Her hooded eyes beckoned him as he made his final rounds to ensure everything was secure until finally there was nothing left to do but devote his attention solely on her.
Carmen tasted of grapefruit and tequila and he wanted to spend the whole night sipping on her lips slowly, carefully, tenderly.
She pushed him back into the settee until he found her sitting atop him, her soft breasts in his eyeline as she bent forward to build on layers of soft kisses until each progressive kiss became more and more urgent and humid between the both of them. Her navy sequin dress inched scandalous inch by scandalous inch up the thick swaths of her thighs, eventually revealing a pair of black lace panties already wet in anticipation of him.
A satisfied groan spilled from his lips as he buried himself deeper into the flesh of her lips, her neck, her collarbone. He gripped her, pressing her closer to him until she could feel the hot, heavy pressure of his own erection pressing against her aching center. He sighed again, breathing into the shell of her ear as he delighted in the countless computations his body was trying to complete to understand every minute reaction he was having to this woman.
This might be the only night he will ever see her, but he felt marked by her. This night, on this couch, he would lock this memory away for times when he found no pleasure in anything.
He snaked his fingers through her coffee-colored hair, managing to carelessly pull her French twist apart before winding its dark lengths around his palms like boxing tape. He gently pulled, testing her response.
She reached out for the collar of his shirt, pulling him close until their lips were soft and dewy from heated breaths but not quite touching. Her breath bubbled from her lips in tiny gasps, encouraging him to pull tighter.
She rocked her hips once, twice, more forcefully than her tiny ministrations from before, catching him by enough surprise that he pushed her back into the couch to apply the pressure of his body to hers.
A small voice of reason echoed in his mind. Not here, it said, not like this.
He growled again. “Carmen,” he huffed out.
“Yes?” she answered breathlessly.
“We can stop. We should stop,” he responded even as his kisses started to dip beneath her collarbone, over the curve of her breast.
“I don’t agree that we should stop.” She arched her back as he bit through her nipple through the thin fabric of her dress. “Unless this is your way of politely—“
“No, not at all.” His hands drifted over the hem of her dress, hiking it higher over her hips until her belly was exposed to him for more kisses. “I was only suggesting we go somewhere more comfortable, more conducive to the many things I plan to do to you all night long.”
She gasped again. “Promise?”
“Promise,” He purred darkly.
After a few more minutes, the kisses, the touching, the gasping lessened until the pair of them had returned to some of their senses. She smoothed out her hair, straightened her dress, all before pulling out a pen from her purse.
“Give me your hand,” she asked, a glint in her eye.
“Don’t tell me you are a palm reader,” he chuckled.
“Hardly,” she replied with a scathing look as she wrote a series of numbers across this fleshy part of his hand. “My number while I’m here. I’d love to continue this as promised, but I should get home.”
The disappointment stabbed at Emil’s heart, only soothed by this offering to see her again. “Let me at least get you home and, on my honor, I will leave you in peace. For tonight at least.”
Carmen kissed him gently one last time before she bounded off the couch. She waited patiently outside while he locked Pachamama up and again while they waited for a taxi to meet them curbside. All the while, she gently brushed the back of her hand against him, that tingling sensation returning to the places where she touched him.
In the back of the taxi, they exchanged gentler kisses, brushing the hair from each other’s faces as they wound their way through the stilling streets of Montparnasse. However, the kisses came to a stop as the taxi came to an abrupt halt. Red and blue flashes of light flooded the cabin as the street in front of them was blocked by barricades and police vehicles.
“What is this?” Carmen asked, a flash of panic in her eyes.
“I don’t know, I just can’t get any further.”
She fished out the fare from her purse, hurriedly pressing it in the driver’s hand before rushing out the door. For a moment, Emil thought she might vanish, but she bent back into the cabin. “Thank you for tonight but I must go.”
Emil pushed himself out of the car before she could say another word. “Not without me, not until I get you home safely.”
A brief flash of relief passed over her eyes before she turned to make her way down the street towards the barricade. “I’m staying just down the way,” she said, distracted as she tried to make sense of what was happening. More than than, Emil watched as she scanned the crowds, looking for a familiar face. He heard her sigh when she caught sight of a short, older man in a long dark coat.
“Santi!” She called out, abandoning Emil as she rushed for the man. “Santi, what’s going on?”
As he approached quietly behind her, the warm flush of the evening chilled as he realized who she was talking to.
Père Santiago, the local parish priest. Emil knew him, they had met several times over the years to handle matters relating to the world they both lived in. A world of angels and devils, a world where the balance always had to be kept by both sides to avoid a war of the heavens.
Santi looked up from his niece, staring at Emil in the flashing lights.
“Mija, there’s been a murder down the street. I still don’t have many details, but my question for you is why are you out with a pact devil?”