Episode 3: Stalker (part 3)
Sunday night, I found myself at the Summit Lounge. As far as sketchy college bars went, it was not the worst one I had ever seen. Aleksander let me in the back; Logan had given his permission to let me hang out even though I was under twenty one. I settled myself at the stool immediately next to the one the creepy woman sat at. Aleksander stood behind the bar, his mind focused on his work.
It was strange because I had never thought of a bar being the type of place where Aleksander would fit in so completely. His ability to phase in and out of presence was a positive thing here; someone would order a drink and he would vanish to make it, returning just in time to get the next patron. No one ever distracted him or snapped their fingers to get his attention while his back was turned the way they did with the other bar tenders. He was tall enough that he could lean well over the bar to have the orders whispered or shouted in his ear over the sound of the music. Not to mention that the skinny hipster look seemed to fit the atmosphere.
Watching him, I realized the bar was just another tuxedo. It was a suit he slipped into for his work and out of when he got home. Even though he fit here, he did just that. Fit, didn’t belong. I could understand the feeling. That was practically my life.
There was no sign of our stalker. Aleksander came to hover at my end of the bar when it got slow.
“Seen her yet?” I asked him.
He shook his head, grazing his eyes over the dwindling crowd. The place seemed to move with ebb and flow; moments of absolute insanity and moments of relative calmness.
“Do you think she’ll come?” I asked. “I mean maybe Logan’s warning worked.”
“I don’t think it did,” he said suddenly, perking up.
Across the room I saw a young woman enter the bar alone. Aleksander had been kind in his description of her. She had short, dirty blonde hair and a lumpy kind of face. Not quite round but not quite anything else. Her eyes were narrowed to dark slits and surrounded by so much eyeliner she looked vaguely like a panda. At some point she had tried to dye her hair either green or blue, but it had faded and grown out, giving the distinct impression that her head was molding. Her clothes didn’t fit the townie college atmosphere; baggy pants and a too tight black shirt that made her lack of figure rather distinctive. I realized that she might have been pretty if she tried, but she was one of those types who clearly thought conformity of any kind was the ultimate evil.
Her eyes went straight to Aleksander at the bar. Beside me, my roommate actually gulped.
Scary.
Once she’d confirmed that he was still here, her eyes slid languidly over to me. A faint look of surprise crossed her face but was immediately replaced with a look of anger. There was something possessive about the way she looked at Aleksander and I had never desired to punch someone in the face so much in my life.
Going straight to her stool, the young woman took a seat beside me. She ignored me completely and smiled at Aleksander. It was not a nice smile.
“Hey,” she said casually.
“Hello,” Aleksander said, keeping his face straight. “What’s your order tonight?” Ever the professional.
She licked her lips. Bitch. Licked. Her. Lips. At Aleksander. I felt something hot rising in my chest. I had seen men look at women that way and always thought it was disgusting. It had never before occurred to me that men could be on the receiving end of such a lecherous stare. It made me sick to my stomach. There was nothing innocent about the way she raised herself onto her elbows against the bar and leaned over to practically purr her order in Aleksander’s ear. She put a hand his shoulder and glanced my way. Her eyes said this-one-is-mine.
When she sat back down I had to take a deep breath to keep from tackling her.
“You must be his girlfriend,” she said in a voice that challenged me.
“Yeah,” I said numbly. I remembered Aleksander’s plan and forced myself to sit up a little straighter. “Yeah, I am,” I said, trying to sound confident. “I’m his girlfriend.”
“No you aren’t,” she said with a small laugh. “There’s no way he’d go for you.”
I bit my lip and glared at her. “Just try me.”
“What’s his favorite color?”
Crap.
“Green,” I guessed. It was a complete stab in the dark.
“Blue,” she said snidely, like she had just proved something worthy of a damn Nobel Prize.
“Fine,” I snapped. “Think whatever you want, but you’re making him uncomfortable and you should stop.”
“I’m not making him uncomfortable,” she said quickly. She was trying to convince herself. “He likes my attention.”
I laughed. “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that. You’re pathetic.”
“You don’t know anything about me, bitch.”
I smiled at her. I knew which smile to use; it was the one that got Jefferson off my back when he thought I was doing something stupid. “I know girls like you,” I said slowly, using the word girl to make her squirm, which she did. “You obsess over something solely for the obsession of it. You like thinking you make him happy or horny or whatever goes on in that messed up head of yours. You think you’re being hot and mysterious; you’re just a freak. And even if he did like you, once you got what you wanted you would throw it away. Because you’re not in love with him. You’re in love with the idea that you can’t have him.”
She stood up, sliding off the stool and pressing herself uncomfortably close to me. “You have no idea…”
“What?” I snapped. “Are you going to put a spell on me? Going to send a ghost or a demon after me? Did that work against the bullies in high school? Read my aura, bitch. Back off.”
We were both standing now. Aleksander had returned and was holding the woman’s drink, watching us with wide eyes. Her face was glowing with humiliation from my words. I know they stung; I’d had things like that said to me often enough when I was younger. True, I wasn’t into the supernatural or Ouija or whatever this girl was into; but I got the idea. I knew how much it hurt to be called a freak. I almost felt bad using it against her. Almost.
I moved to sit back in my stool and her hand snapped out, grabbing my wrist. She squeezed until my eyes watered. “I am not someone you want to mess with.”
“Hands off.” Aleksander gently but firmly pulled her fingers off my wrist. She hesitated, obviously enjoying her contact with him. Once he’d pulled her tentacles off me, he gently rubbed my wrist with his fingers.
“You okay?” he asked me.
I nodded mutely. Looking back at her, I saw that smug, self-satisfied smirk return. She wasn’t getting the idea. Maybe I needed to clear it up for her.
“Want to know what happened to the last person who dared me not to mess with them,” I said quietly.
A look of genuine curiosity flashed across her face. She clearly didn’t think that was where I was going to take this. I gestured for her to come closer. I waited until she was right in front of me before I cupped my hands around her ear and whispered to her.
I would have loved to see her face while I told her. I would have loved to see what Aleksander saw. He later told me that she went from looking smug to frightened to positively ill. When I sat back down, I regarded her coolly, waiting for her to react.
She turned abruptly and walked away, out the door of the bar and into the night.
