Scarlet Nights

Short story about a girl who's more than she seems at a hotel that does more than it should. *the image used is not mine.

On the ground steady was the thud of stiletto heels that held up a jet black dress like a mamba ready to move through the unsuspecting tall grass.  She looked lovely when she walked the red carpet into the party.  Born to have fun she reveled in the crowd.  The party had a distinctly modern atmosphere.  Nothing too wild ever happened.  Even though it was a retreat for the white and the rich people were responsible enough not to let loose.  In fact some were just teetering on the edge of their human wild side.  Perfect for her she thought.

Not everyone there was enjoying themselves as much as she did.  Along a brightly red and violet section of the bar sat a lonely man, very young, considerably wealthy, enjoyably handsome, it didn’t make much sense for such a specimen to be alone on such a fun night. 

It was uncommon to see a woman so confident.  With every movement came glimmers of attractively.  This unnatural light made her look so alive, so ready for whatever she wanted. At her pace she approached the bar and casually sat on the end of the bar, seven stools away from the handsome boy.  She raised a hand as she had done so many times before calling over the barkeep, a bald man wearing a black and white suit vest.  His baldness looked sadly bored in the violet light.  This barkeep was quite famous around the city.  He was in fact the son of the unruly infamous prisoner Michael Gordon Peterson who now went by the name Charles Arthur Salvador who once embraced the title Charles Bronson. The barkeep’s name was Burnie. 

Seeing the memorably gorgeous face he smiled looking like a Doctor Suess character in a suit fully embracing an unpopular black caterpillar mustache.   

“What a good night it is to see you.” he said politely, mood clearly elevated.

“Burns don’t flatter me, don’t you enjoy the wallets and their gossip?” The red woman joyfully asked.

Burnie made a quick snicker at the thought.

“Not as much as your beauty lighting up the hotel.”

“Oh well I’m sorry I’ll make sure to drink more next time.”  She started tapping her phone on what looked to be a cheap mobile game. 

Burnie chuckled for a moment and had a flash of realization, something was out of time.  The Scarlet beauty had only visited two times this month as opposed to her usual four.  By now it should have been four.  She also had not ordered her drink.

Burnie leaned in toward her, pulling down his circular lenses glasses with one vein covered heavy hand.

 “Work wearing you down lately Scarlet?

Scarlets thoughts rushed unpleasantly.  Her face flushed red. “No, just been busy sorry I’ve been around less often, I’ll make it up, you know me.”

She shifted her body toward but not facing the handsome boy.  In those moments talking to the barkeep oddly looked intimidating for her.  Her legs were crossed, the stiletto heels clacked on the metal rim of the bar stool.

Burnie did not look happy.  He grabbed her wrist as she was tapping her spidery fingers on the counter.  Large muscular sandpaper -like fingers began cutting off her circulation rapidly. 

“You wouldn’t like it if you were too tired for your job Scarlet”

She attempted to hide her terror.  She recognized his grip.  Marks laced her body remembering his punishing strength.  She shuddered to keep her head up for a moment looking down in fear at a cut near her breast.  Gathering up her left-over courage, her hand quickly going numb, she raised her eyes to his chin, not capable of bearing the black lenses of covering his eyes.

“What do I have to do this time” Scarlet said in a dying whisper.

Burnie’s cheeks curled up looking like a mirror image of his father.  He didn’t release his grasp, instead pointed her arm in the direction of the handsome boy and lifted a chalk white finger to his head. 

“You know what you have to do, have fun.”

The brutal barkeep let go and walked behind the counter to make a phone call, not giving the beauty in red a second glance.

Scarlet stared at a ceiling fan for a moment.  It was still hard for her to have courage.  She listened to the lyrics of whatever off tone song Burnie had playing in the back ground.

“Oh Some people get freak outa me

Some people can’t see that I can see!

Some people wanna see what I see

Some people put an evil eye on me”

            The feeling was starting to finally come back to Scarlet’s hand.  She still needed the lively hood to do her job.  She called Burnie over and ordered her drink, a whiskey fireball.  Burnie smirked and poured a shot of whiskey with a swoosh of tobasco and cinnamon syrup.  Drinking the fire Scarlet felt a punch of bitter adrenaline and was back to her confident crimson flare.  She began to walk to the handsome boy.

He still appeared handsome up close unlike many of the men she had experienced there.  An odd whitish tone was his skin hiding insecure acne and spoiled paleness.  Yummy, the Scarlet woman thought.  She loved a natural boy full of hidden realistic beauty and innocence.  Scarlet sat next to him making him feel quite awkward.  She of course knew what she was doing.  She moved her not numbed arm toward his wrist and laid her hand on his watch letting her fingers rest on his soft skin.  The blush on his cute face was enough.  It humored her.  It embarrassed him. 

“What’s a cutie like you doing all alone?” She said with friendly voluptuous glee.

The boy stuttered once the lovely voice hit his brain.  “I’m just, just waiting for my boss, we drink every other week after our umm work.”

“Aww well he must be late, lets play a game and say I’m your coworker.”

“no, no your not” He replied bewildered.

“You would rather wait for whatever fat bumbling boss and have a drink with him than me?

She replied still smiling and entertained.  Quickly positioning her arm from wrist to shoulder unnoticeably turning his body letting him notice slightly exposed breasts.

“umm no no, no well he’ll be here in an hour, I can’t be seen with you, not when I’m supposed to be waiting for him.” He said taken aback. 

“Don’t worry cutie, I wont be here too long”

“Oh well I guess I can spend some time with you, you look gorgeous by the way.  He said mustering up the courage to compliment her.  He had always wanted to do that.

“Thank you, So many guys say that lately, so few sound like they mean it, you on the other hand… I don’t know, I got a feeling you do. 

“My father never treated women right, I try hard to not be like him.  He said feeling satisfied.

Shame he has to try, thought Scarlet. 

“I’m sure you share something with him, he did raise you after all”

“No his butler did most of that, Dad was always on a yacht with whatever models he could ever want.  Spending the all the money he earned from his company.”  Scarlet had made him feel confident to talk to her, a dangerous thing. 

“What company?” She asked, trying to vaguely interested.

“Turing Pharmaceuticals, it makes drugs for the extremely ill, but my dad’s been raising the prices ever since he got a hold of the company.”

“Really?  You must have a good amount of money too”

“Well yeah but I don’t misuse it”

“I’m sure you don’t.” She said secretly thinking about the car he must have.

“Hey you know it’s getting so cold in here, can we go in your car, I’m sure you have some warm heated seats.”

The cute boy looked unsure.  He barely knew this woman, yet she seemed so sweet and listened to him.  More than his inexperienced mind could ever ask for.  She also had slowly almost unnoticeably laid his hand on her thigh making him feel quite good. 

“Sure, why not.” He said happily.

Scarlet smiled.  Although her job was annoying, she had plenty of fun with it.  As the two walked out the door of the hotel, one could see Burnie smiling behind the counter, washing a used fireball shot glass.

The boy had grown so confident he laid his arm on her shoulders as they walked to his Corvette.  Sitting in the car she was also happy.  But unfortunately she hated hot temperatures. The seats were warming up. The boy had become anxious, not knowing what to do with a girl so close to him in his car.  Scarlet of course knew what to do.  

“Oh not it’s too hot hmm, Hey cutie close your eyes I’ll surprise ya.”

The boy’s skin flushed.  “oh okay.”  He said nervously.

Soon after the vicious the moans and unfitting screams took place in the boy’s car only a women in stiletto heels walked out, purse in hand, blood on her lip not to leave out mentioning the blade resting in the palm of her hand cradled in between her finger tips.

 

Author's Note

This may be part of a longer story i'm thinking of doing about Scarlet her life or other people like her.

Reviews

[Srchaud]

I enjoyed the story, this was be solid if you dropped all the adverbs. I can see you have good ideas and can express then quite well in your writing. Try to rewrite this piece again with out the adverb and I bet it would pop more off the page.

[LastMonth]

Nice story.
Well written,

The twist is definetly there, though perhaps it'd have more of a punch of the story was shorter.
Good job.

[ThePhoenixWriter]

Thank you sir. any criticism always helps.