New Short Story.

Hello my loves! Just a quick short story I've jotted down for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to comment and critique. (Sorry if the grammar is a mess.)

Gentleman Caller

She’s sitting alone in an old worn out velvet chair that was as crimson as the gloss smeared across her lips. Tucked into the back patio of a sleezy bar, she fails to notice the small lamp on the table beside her flicking on and off. A cigarette, which had long ago burned out, is gripped between her first two fingers so tightly, he wondered if she feared to let it go. With her free hand, she twirls a lock of wheat colored hair lost in thoughts he could only imagine were dark and full of unanswered questions.

He had seen her here before. The last time, she had been pacing the small table yelling at someone on her cell phone. He had been so drawn to her, like a tether had been placed between his chest and anchored itself to the wild, fire lit beauty, who clearly knew every curse word ever written.  She had been so alive, so animated, that he was sure his own heart would burst from witnessing her drama unfold on that smoke choked, gum stained patio. But, he only watched as the vein in her forehead pulsed with each obscenity that she screeched into the phone, her voice crescendoing into uncontrollable sobbing. He didn’t move to where she slumped into the seat, staring wide-eyed at the blank screen of her cell, the other party having hung up at sometime during her tirade.

Still, he remained silent. He could only observe, like he was supposed to do. Never get involved, was his motto.  Besides, his work would come later, there was nothing he could do for her then.

The lamp beside her still form flicked off. Still, she took no notice.

A man walks past where she’s sitting, eyes still glazed and not focused on anything. He ponders for a moment, hovering near the empty seat next to her. The light flicks on again, he hesitates as though he could feel that something just wasn’t quite right, and then decides to move on.

She’s reliving that night. It’s written in the tight lines around her lips that can never take back the words they had spilled in anger.  It’s in the furrow in her brow as she puzzles out how it had ever gotten that far. It’s in her sad eyes that saw a relationship that has been changed forever. It’s in her shaking hands—actions that can’t be undone.

She laughs suddenly; the sickly orange glow of the lamp, flickers. He’s not going to be able to wait much longer. He hated starting too early, sometimes people just need a moment to reflect—to put things into perspective. Always patient, he watched as the laugh died as quickly as it had come on. She had moved her hand slowly up her breast, past her pronounced collarbone, and had come to rest on the ruined flesh that circled around her thin neck.

The lamp went out.

It was time.

He removed his hat, a long ago lesson he had learned was the polite thing to do when greeting a lady, and slowly walked to where she sat clawing at the corded, bruised wound. He cleared his throat, trying to get her attention, but she was beginning to fall into the panicking stage. He cleared his throat again, this time a bit louder.

Her head snaps up to him, and for a moment, he let himself get lost in the beauty of her face.

“I didn’t mean to do it.” Her voice is raw, scratchy, a condition caused by her own bad decision.

He stooped so that they met eye to eye. “They never really do.” He said, in what he hoped was an empathetic tone.

She reached for his coat, her small hands winding themselves in the lapels. “If I would have known.”

“One never does, until it’s too late.”

Desperate, she asks, “Can I do it over again?”

He shakes his head, relaxing the muscles in his face to the practiced expression of what he had learned was called “compassion.”

She let him go, dark eyes wide as she looks at her hands. “I can see through them,” she rasps.

He nods again, waiting for her to understand.

“Does that mean?”

“Yes.”

A small gasp escapes her glossed lips, and he wonders, for a brief moment, what it would have been like to have known her when she was alive and if he had ever been human. He never used to allow himself to fantasize about what the feel of a woman’s lips would feel against his own, and he shouldn’t start now.

Resolved to the fate she had brought upon herself, she whispered, “So what now?”

He stood, placing his hat upon his head and reached for those delicate hands. “You move on, and I am here to guide you.”

She slips on soft, slender hand into his waiting one and stands. The lamp’s yellow light burns bright as she moves away from it.

He suspects it won’t act up again.