to him. There was something intriguing about him that I couldn’t deny and May’s talk about me just needing to sleep with someone to clear my mind suddenly entered my thoughts. But Vaughn was still a mystery to me.
I helped the rest of the girls clean up the rest of the bar. As I did, Vaughn finally got up to leave. He was the last customer. After he left, Zoe turned to me with a curious look in her eyes.
“So? What do you think of him?” she asked me.
I thought about it for a few seconds before realizing I now had more questions than answers.
“I don’t know, Zoe. I don’t know.”
Chapter 4
I couldn’t get home soon enough. I was exhausted from working so hard. I didn’t get any answers from the mysterious Vaughn. And now that the gritty city streets were staring back at me, I remembered everything about the encounter with the thugs May dealt with last night.
I stood outside of the bar and waited for her so that she could walk me back home again. She eventually stumbled out of the bar with her boyfriend, Chris. The two of them sloppily made-out like they were drunk even though I knew at least one of them wasn’t.
“Can we go now?” I asked her. “It’s late and I’m already getting cold.”
The two of them continued going at one another like they hadn’t heard me. I tried interrupting them again to no avail. After what seemed like an eternity, Chris pulled his face away from her. The look in his eyes told me that I was watching the prelude to one of the erotic fantasies May had told me about.
“I don’t want to wait, baby,” he muttered to her. “Let’s just go back to my place and do it.”
“Alright,” May agreed with him.
“Wait a second,” I interrupted her. “Chris lives down the other block. I thought you were going home with me.”
May stared at me with a look of resignation in her eyes. When she did, Chris dipped back into her and started kissing her neck. The resignation disappeared as her eyes fluttered closed. She wasn’t putting up much of a fight and her desire was quickly overriding the need for my own peace of mind.
“You’ll be fine,” she said to me. “You don’t really need me to walk me home now, do you?”
“May, don’t you remember what happened last night? What if I run into those thugs again?”
Chris didn’t relent as he wrapped his arms around his girlfriend. May, still enjoying the pleasure from her boyfriend’s lips on her body, reached into her bag. She tossed the small switchblade to me and I whipped my hands up to catch it.
“I already taught them a lesson,” May said, half-groaning. “If they get out of line, remind them. Don’t worry. They won’t try anything.”
Before I could protest to May’s suggestion that I take matters into my own hands, the passion had already consumed both her and her boyfriend. Their lips were too entangled to give me a response even if I asked them. I watched them walk down the side of the street. All of the other employees had gone home for the night and I suddenly found myself standing in front of the bar by myself, completely alone.
I took a deep breath and sighed as May disappeared into the distance. Reluctantly, I made my way home through the dark city slums. I tried not to think about anything that could possibly go wrong but it was no use. My paranoia was getting the best of me. The rampant news of murders was still fresh in my head. The city was dark with who knows what lurking behind every corner. Even just a few more working streetlights would have put me at ease. But somebody decided that my boring walk home needed to be more exciting than it needed to be.
I gripped the switchblade tight in my hand so tight that the warmth started to make my palm sweat. I could feel my heart racing even though there was nothing out of the ordinary. The streets were empty and every building was closed but that didn’t matter. It felt like something sinister was waiting for me. I was beginning to fear the city