#blind faith

The skirt was her better judgement, fighting her for every step she took into the bar. A manifestation of her own will, albeit a skimpy, criminally short and tight manifestation. She hated the way it felt, each stride stretching the material before it sprung back into form, as if nothing had happened. But she was one step further into this building, one step further from the door. Everything had happened. And everything was closer to happening.

She felt the bag under her shoulder, pressed against her side, vibrate. Each buzz caused her to tremble. Taking out her phone, she glanced at the screen.

Issy. Pick one of them.

Issy. He only called her that when He was feeling especially cruel and creative. It was a warning flare that He deliberately fired off into the sky, heralding the coming of his inner sadist. Just so she could prepare. But forewarned was definitely not forearmed. She was never ready.

The name frustrated her. Infuriated, even. It was hers, yes, but it was a contraction, a patronising shorthand for her full name. It just reinforced her position all the more, and any reminder wasn’t exactly going to put her at ease, in this moment, in this place.

She adjusted the strap of her top, the skirt forcing her legs to stay close to one another, the heels forcing her rear to stay tense. She could feel eyes.

Pick one of them.

It had to be a test. She knew Him too well to believe that He would make her do something like that. He was too possessive, and far too aggressive. There was no way He’d let another man touch her. And yet… He was asking her to choose.

She looked around. Standing in the middle of the bar, she was on an impromptu stage, the subject of hushed tones and leering glances. She should get a drink, sit at the bar, and try to avoid attention, but she didn’t have time. He wasn’t patient. Not tonight. She had to pick one.

There were the regulars. She’d never been in the bar before, but you could always tell the regulars. They settle into the background, slotting into the imprints they’d made in the booths like arse to favourite cushion. They wouldn’t work. They all looked older than the building.

There were a couple of post-work suit types. Mid twenties, by the looks of it, but still with the mentality of teenagers. They were drinking shitty lager and splitting their attention between inane conversations and their phones. Their laughs, occasional as they were, shared the kind of primal sinister that hyenas thrived on.

There was some sort of musician, redundant scarf settled atop a cynical, commercial t-shirt showing Jim Morrison and assorted others. The band’s name emblazoned above their heads, a statement of intent, the meaningless kind that was littered with vapid expression. He was trying to chat up the girl behind the bar. Cute, and charming, he was both, but they were the kind of gormless vapid traits that she could resent in the time it took to get a free drink. Next.

Whiskey in his hand. That was a good sign. It was the kind of hand that had a rather nice watch on the wrist. Another good sign. Her eyes travelled upwards, past the shirt cuff poking out of jacket sleeve. There were lines on his face, but they were disguised behind a light coating of stubble. He had glasses. His hair was just short enough to not need a cut, but grown out. If only had had a book in his other hand, he might have been just about perfect.

Instead, it was settled on the keyboard of a laptop. That’d do. She started to wander over to the empty spot of bar next to him when her purse buzzed again, the vibrations almost making her stumble. She grumbled, paused, and pulled her phone out again.

Not him.

Her eyes flashed, and she whirled, trying to find Him, to see where He was seeing from. But her eyes didn’t settle on that face, that smile, those eyes. Just leering old men, and the oblivious rest. Confusion a mask on her face, she took a deep breath and adjusted her course, headed to the bar a little further on than before.

“Wine. Red.” She breathed out, settling onto one of the stools, and trying to stop that ridiculous skirt from riding up. “Large.” She added quickly. The girl looked up from her conversation with the musician, gave her a dirty look, and went to make her drink.

The musician was looking at her, but it didn’t seem like he minded that she’d interrupted his conversation.

“Francis.” She frowned, looking up from her phone.

“I’m sorry?“

“That’s my name. So you don’t have to ask when I get your drink.”  If He could see her, He would be laughing. She just rolled her eyes.

“It’s ok, I can get it myself.” Her phone buzzed. She glared at it.

Accept the drink.

He couldn’t be fucking serious.

The bartender returned, settling the glass in front of her. For a moment she just sighed, before turning and shooting Francis a smile. He smiled back, and pulled his wallet out.

Once money had changed hands, he turned back to her.

“So what’s your name?” As if it even mattered.

“Isabella.” She kept her voice quiet, hoping that he might not hear, that she might retain just this one secret.

“Pretty name.” He’d have said the same if she’d said ‘Gertrude’. Neither of them really cared, after all. He pulled his stool a little closer to her.

“So what do you do, Isabella?”  Her phone buzzed again. She held up a finger, and checked it.

Him.

She felt a wave of nausea, but managed to force a smile anyway.

“Let off steam in bars with strangers. You?” In a way, it made her feel a little better to have the uncertainty pulled away from her. In another way, it made her feel a whole lot worse. Either way, she was layering on the honey, and this guy was more than happy to lap it up. His grin was unpleasant.

“Pretty much the same, but I’ve been known to DJ when there are too many strangers to flirt with every single one.” His hand rested on her knee, and she had to struggle not to slap it away. “I like to think music is the most pure form of sexual communication, anyway. Language is just music, so it makes sense if you think about it.”

She’d tuned out halfway through his spiel, trying instead to focus on his strong jawline, the slightly too-white-but-attractive-anyway teeth, and the obvious muscles the t-shirt was stretched over. If she could only leave his brain at the door…

“Totally.” She brought the wine to her lips, and sipped, burying her face in the wide curve of the glass. He squeezed her leg. Somehow he’d managed to get his hand an inch up her thigh without her noticing.

“Something makes me think that your definition of ‘letting off some steam’ isn’t necessarily the accepted norm, though. A girl like you doesn’t come into a bar like this just to shoot the shit with the first guy she sits next to.” His coke-and-anonymous-spirit sat next to him, untouched. The lime was slowly drowning. A citrus suicide.

She set down her wine glass. “No, I suppose I don’t. But then language has always been elastic. Or… how did you put it? ‘Language is just music’. We’ve all got our own rhythm.” She smiled, but he was too distracted thinking about her lips than what they were doing, too distracted to notice the sarcasm curved in them.

He laughed, a little too hard. She winced. Her phone buzzed.

Issy, try harder. Convince him you want to fuck him.

Her stomach lurched again. It wasn’t the only part of her to, though. Despite the tool grinning and laughing beside her, his clumsy hand against her leg, the situation was turning her on. Physical betraying mental.

Not that this was the first time that had happened. Although being outside of their bedroom, without Him next to her, over her, under her, it was a little more unique.
She looked around again, trying to see Him. He evaded her eyes.

“What’s on the phone?” She could hear the jealousy in his voice, an affronted child. He felt threatened. For a moment, she savoured it, before she just shrugged.

“Ex. Keeps begging. It’s kind of amusing, so I read them.” He relaxed, and that smile slide across that face again, lizard confidence.

“I like you Isabella. Most girls that come in here are dumb as shit.” Again with that smile. “If you’ll excuse my French.”

She tipped her glass in his direction, as if he had done something worthy of acknowledgement. Then she remembered her orders. That stomach did its lurch, made her almost topple off her stool, or at least made her feel like she could. Should.

She leaned close to him, so that he could feel her breath against his face. It would be sweet, alcoholic.

“That’s because most girls are dumb as shit, Francis. And full of it, too.” The corner of her mouth curled in the most delicious smile. “That’s what makes me special.” She teetered back to a sitting position, bringing her wine to her lips. She was doing a good impression of a girl who couldn’t handle her fermented fruits.

“You don’t say.” He was essentially grinning, savouring his luck for the moment, while it still held out. He pushed it, too, his hand travelling up her thigh until it met the tight hem of her skirt. She glanced down. A finely groomed eyebrow arched upwards, and her gaze slipped from that hand up to his face.

“You’re awfully presumptive, Francis.” It wasn’t an admonishment, as much as she wished it could be. Instead it just sounded like liquid encouragement, dripping from her lips like silk. His grin grew, threatening to decapitate him. It was nice to dream.

This time he did the leaning, his lips hovering above her neck, where it met her jaw just below her ear. When he spoke his breath was a hot rush, feeling sleazy and arrogant, the kind that made her skin crawl.

“That’s because you’re not exactly being subtle, Isabella.” His voice was low, and if it was Him that had said those words, it would’ve made her squirm and maybe even moan. But it wasn’t. It was Francis, the stupid musician. She shivered all the same, and then her phone buzzed.

Get him in the bathroom. Fuck him.

She shivered again, her face a mask of disbelief and distress. She had thought He would back out, push her as far as she would go, and then stop her before it got out of hand. But the words were there, plain as day. Francis was still at her neck, and his lips had moved from hovering to kissing. His stubble was rough against the soft skin. Her vision swam, for a moment, and she shook her head.

Her phone buzzed again, skittering on the bartop.

Do it.

No.

She couldn’t. It was because of Him she couldn’t, but it was Him asking her to. She wanted nothing more than to have Him smile and call her a good girl, but this was the opposite of that. He wasn’t the type to make her do something like this, and she wasn’t the type to do it. And yet there those words were. A command.

She couldn’t disobey. It wasn’t in her.

She turned her head, so that her lips were against his ear, mirroring him for a moment. Through the infant tears she smiled. A shaky smile.

“Meet me in the bathroom in two minutes.” She hoped the hoarse tone would be mistaken for lust, breathy and hot. He seemed gullible enough. Suddenly his hand moved, pushing underneath the hemline of her skirt, and right against the thin material covering her cunt. He squeezed.

“Make it one.”

She pulled away from him, walking a little too fast into the women’s toilets, one hand flying to her face to brush away the moisture from her eyes before it ruined her makeup. To an onlooker she might have seemed to be fleeing from a fight. They were probably closer to the truth than the things running through that lech’s mind.

The door banged loudly behind her, and she slumped against the sink, staring at herself through the grime on the mirror. She was on the verge of being the mess, an event horizon for a terrible night. But she could hold it together, with a few adjustments here or there. It was mostly her eyes, the soft rogue staining the whites that took a rub of a finger to clear up. Twenty seconds in, her phone buzzed again.

Lose the underwear, Issy.

Her work was undone, tears rushing to her eyes again. But she did what she was told, fingers questing underneath her skirt, grabbing hold of lace and thong, and pulling down. It made her sob to feel how sodden the material was, and how damp the ball that it made when she scrunched it up. She deposited it in her purse.

The door swung open, and there he was. He leaned against the frame for a moment, despite the looks that the rest of the bar no doubt threw in his direction. And then he stepped in, letting it swing on its frame for a few moments. That shit-eating grin was smeared all over his face, a permanent feature.

“Where are we going to start, beautiful?” With the way he was staring at her face, it was more than obvious what he had in mind. His hand was already at his fly, tugging at the buttons of his jeans.

She slipped back into role, all smiles and simpers, and she moved up to him, pressing herself against his chest, lips against his neck. He held her, and for a moment she felt almost safe, for a moment she could buy into the illusion. But then his hands moved from her back to her shoulders, pushing her down. And she let them, sinking to her knees before him. It felt wrong. It felt so fucking wrong.

The buttons were gone, torn apart to let him free. He flopped in front of her, and it was almost comical, that almost fuelling her smile so that she looked properly eager. Her hand moved up, to hold him so that her mouth could go to work.

The door opened again. There was no lounging in the frame, no allowance for leering or a free peepshow. Instead hands went to his shoulders, the musician, the tool, the lech, and wrenched him away. He was pushed into the wall, the impact flushing his lungs of air. Good, he didn’t deserve breath right then. There were words, but they were too loud and too startled and angry for her to properly make out. And then she heard His voice.

His.

“Go away, little boy. You’re not needed any more.” Francis was protesting, but she didn’t care. The word ‘bullshit’ hung in the room like an exclamation point, a petulant expletive before the little boy tried to get around Him, get back to her.

“Fuck you dude, she wanted it!” There was a slap, a loud cracking sound that bore the humiliation of a week in a moment. She could almost hear eyes flaring, fists clenching. She could also hear His smile. She knew it would be there.

“Leave now. I’m sure the girl behind the bar will suck it like a mosquito on your neck, little boy. Enjoy yourself.” The smile would disarm the situation. It was one of those smiles.

The door slammed, swung back and forth, the wind brushing her face.
And then His arms were around her. And she was with him, in his arms, scooped up onto her feet, and against him. She was crying, but she wasn’t distraught. She was safe, and relieved, and overwhelmed.

“You beautiful thing.” He was murmuring against her, and He was smiling. She could hear it in His voice. It made her smile too.

“You beautiful, obedient thing. I’m proud.” Kisses were raining down on her, a light shower. Her forehead, her eyes, her nose, her lips. She bathed in it.

“I did what you asked.” Her voice was cracked and quiet, just a little broken. He nodded, still smiling.

“I know, Issy, you did exactly what I asked. You did everything I asked.” He squeezed her.

“Please don’t make me do it again.” He laughed, and it felt good. 

“I won’t.” He stroked her hair, still smiles and kisses.

“I won’t.”

Blind Faith, Ramon Maiden