Tantalizing

Tantalizing.  He liked that word.  It was a word that spoke of shivers down your spine, of the hairs rising on your arm, of setting your nerves to tingling in anticipation, and satisfaction, and deep seated pleasure.  It was not a word he used often, or cavalierly.  He had to truly feel it.  But lately, he found himself using that word with regularity.  

It started about a week ago, on a rainy August day, with the heat and humidity so high he wasn’t sure if the water running down his spine was Mother Nature’s precipitation, or his own.  He was sticky, and his mind was thick with the heat.  He wanted to be home, taking a nap in the hammock he had strung up between two posts of the screened-in back porch.  There was nothing like lazing away the dog days of summer, listening to distant thunder while the rain pattered its staccato rhythm on the pine planked roof.  Soft sprinkles, a pause, a heavy downpour, a torrent, a blustering tantrum of nature that lasted only minutes before exhaustion set in and sprinkles returned to softly tippity-tap away and set the evening creatures to croaking, clicking, and making that sizzling sound of electricity in the air.  

Alas, that was not his fate that day.  He had to attend a tech seminar at the satellite branch of the state university.  They had several lecture halls and a library situated downtown, in the center of the hustle and bustle, the sports bars, the theater, and the twelve thousand seat, multi-purpose arena that hosted everything from ice ballet to monster truck rallies.  It was the perfect setting for country bumpkin college kids, fresh off the farm, first time away from home.  The local establishments were experts at dazzling and bilking the kids of all their parents’ hard-earned money, while distracting them from studies and hard work.  

One could argue that it was classic Darwinian winnowing.  Those with the drive, intelligence, and focus, succeeded.  All others failed and went back to the farm, or waiting tables, or washing cars.  In the clockwork of the world, every cog has its place, and every cog is useful.  Some gears are bigger, more important, are connected to more cogs than others.  But for every large gear, there are multiple smaller, carrying the energy outward to power the machine.   When one cog breaks, the gears slip and efficiency is lost, but the machine chugs on.   The usual state.  But, If more cogs break, the machine spins wildly out of control.  Chaos ensues, anarchy, bedlam, lawlessness.  So, in a superficial way, one could rally behind the capitalistic, dog-eat-dog system as the perfect way to sort out the workers from the leaders.  After all, without leaders to lead, there is no organization.  Without workers to work, there is nothing to lead. 

But to think of the possibilities, of the wonder that could be if each and every person could be coaxed, coached, encouraged and nurtured, extruded into the purest essence of their ultimate potential.  Each city could produce an Einstein, a Michelangelo, a Da Vinci, a Margaret Thatcher, a Marie Curie, an Ada Lovelace, a Bill Gates, a Steve Jobs, or any number of influential figures, every year.  Society, technology, humanity could move at the speed of innovation, instead of the crawl of individualism.  

But that takes effort, and assiduousness.  The sloth of humanity, its greed and desire of more for less, could never give birth to such a society.  It did not matter what socio-economic or political flavor reigned supreme.  Be it Socialist, Communist, or Capitalist, in a Republic, Oligarchy, or Dictatorship, there was always the one fatal flaw:  humans were human.  

And this human was shuffling his way through another workday, just going through the motions, no longer dreaming or reaching for progress, no longer hoping for enlightenment.  He struggled, just enough to sustain a negligible hold on life.

Until that day.  In the rain.  

He was leaning against the roof of his nondescript, but impeccably maintained, mud-brown Buick, his head bowed in dejected resignation, watching the water droplets bubble up on the hood until they gained volume enough for gravity to overtake surface tension, transforming them into tiny rivers, cascading over the edge.  That was him; a bubble, waiting to gain volume, until some other force pushed him over the edge.

“Are you ok?”

He hadn’t even heard her walk up.  She was leaning on the front of his car like she had been there for hours, unperturbed by the rain.  She was wearing an apparently waterproof Marmot jacket of the softest yellow, complete with seamless hoodie snugged around her face, keeping all but the tail end of her plaited copper hair tucked away, nice and dry.  Droplets danced over her freckles and the exposed pale skin of her face.  They adhered to her lashes and sparkled like diamonds adorning her green eyes.

“Damn, that’s some beautiful Irish DNA right there,” he thought to himself.  But what he said out loud was, “Yes, thank you.  I’m fine.  I’m just...  enjoying the rain on this warm day.”

“I can relate,” she said, flashing a smile of brilliant white and a twinkle of mischief.  “I love the rain.”

Her mischief was infectious.  He could not help but reflect her smile.  “Another ringing endorsement for the Emerald Isle,” he thought.  He felt himself gain volume.  He straightened up, stood tall, but really could not think of anything to say.

“Well, I’ll leave you to the peace of the rain,” she said, then turned and walked away. 

He watched her lithe figure, admired her graceful hops -- not over the puddles, mind, but into them.  She wore wonderfully colorful, waterproof boots; rubber around the foot, but wet-suit neoprene from ankle to high shin.  He guessed she was a dancer, or had been at some point.  Those hops seemed choreographed, with a twirl here or a small flourish there.  Never a barbaric stomp. 

Never looking back, she zig-zagged between the parked cars to disappear around the distressed, smokey-garnet brick of the corner cafe-once-warehouse.  The spell was broken, and he deflated, just a bit.  But, the vestigial volume she had inspired was enough to set him in motion, to scavenge his backpack from the rear seat and hoist it to his back.  

As he cinched the straps, his eyes caught a blotch of the softest yellow, sitting in the window of that corner coffee shop.  Only the yellow was visible.  The person’s head was obscured by the “Drip ‘N Sip” painted in thick blue brush strokes along the upper glass.  But he knew it was her.  Further confirmation came when her slender, alabaster hand set a steaming mug next to a silver laptop.  He watched those delicate fingers patter away at the keyboard for a minute and then the tell-tale copper braid dipped into view, just brushing the keys as she apparently leaned closer to the screen.  

“Tantalizing,” he thought.  He could have stood there all day, just watching her work, wondering what she was typing, or who she was writing to.  He could have.  He would have, if not for the blindingly close flash of lightning, followed instantly by an ear splitting, chest rattling crack and rumble that caused him to duck for cover.  

His heart beating triple time, his adrenaline now flowing and adding more volume, more velocity to his burst bubble, he hustled on to his designated building, and the tedium that is life. 

------------------------------

He emerged later that day to skies not quite clear of the morning’s shower, but no longer dumping buckets.  He could see patches of gauzy blue to the west, heralding the passing of the storm system, and hinting at a sunnier tomorrow.  He wasn’t sure how he felt about that.  The temperature was still in the nineties; the humidity matched.  If that didn’t break, the day would be miserable.  

No matter.  He could work from wherever, so he could stick to his air conditioned home office, or swim in the humidity on his back porch.  

At his car, he paused to gaze at the coffee shop window, no longer displaying the buttercream yellow attraction.  He knew she would be gone, but he couldn’t help looking.  A gingham button down now occupied that space.   Thick fingers worked a ball point in a rare display of analog journaling.  The lithe form replaced by an uninteresting block with furry arms.

And then it hit him.  He could work from anywhere.  Why not that coffee shop?  Why not pack up, drive downtown.  Just for the change of scenery, of course.  And fresh coffee.  There was no guarantee she would be back tomorrow.  She was probably a college student.  For all he knew, her schedule could bring her downtown only one day a week.  But still, the anticipation was half the fun.  More than half, actually.  In his experience, the more you really got to know a person, the more disappointed you became.  It was the time leading up to that knowing that brought the most joy, imagining the person as you wanted them to be:  witty, intelligent, an excellent listener when you wanted to talk, an entertaining talker when you wanted to listen, and someone passionate about your passions.  That person always existed in the time leading up to that very first date, and then they slowly eroded with exposure.

His drive home was an exercise in logical discourse for not wasting time travelling back the next day, but subconsciously, illogically, he already knew he would work from the coffee shop tomorrow.  His very soul craved change.  This was no monumental reform, but a new environment could bring new inspiration.  He prayed for inspiration.

------------------------------

“I’ll have a twenty ounce jittery cow with two extra shots of espresso, please,” he told the Drip N’ Sip cashier.  The girl punched his order into the modified iPad-slash-register, wrote his order in shorthand on a paper cup, and passed it off to her cohort operating the squelching, steaming, spurting contraption down the counter.  

“That’s six twenty-four,” she smiled back mechanically.  He swiped his credit card, punched the button for an emailed receipt, and shuffled along the glass half-partition to wait in the “pickup corral” with two other early risers waiting for their socially acceptable addiction. 

The barista churned out the drinks with a professionalism and optimism unexpected before the sun arose.  He was neat and tidy, shirt pressed and tucked, mid-length hair artfully styled to look like it wasn’t.  “Half-Caff soy.”  He slid a taupe mug along the granite.  It was snatched by a disheveled thirty-something woman with a nod and mumbled thanks.  “Double black eye and toasted everything bagel to go.”  Cup and bag, both plastered in eco-friendly logos, were scooped up by a suit with no acknowledgement, his eyes never leaving the self-important facade of his smartphone screen.  “And a large jittery cow with two black eyes.”  

“Thanks, Marcus,” he had noticed the worker’s name tag and put in the effort to personalize encouragement, or correction, whenever he could.  “Keep up the good work.”  He grabbed the drink and retreated to a high-top two-seater nestled against the street-facing window.  

The tool of his trade slid easily from the weathered, brown leather, Indiana Jones messenger bag he draped over the chair’s ladder back.  The high-end laptop, stickered and marked with various swag from numerous seminars and coding conferences, clam-shelled open and immediately awoke from sleep mode.  With the swipe of a finger, his identity was verified, access granted, and last night’s project populated the screen exactly how he had left it.  Normally, he would plug in his earbuds and drown out ambient noise with some Dave Brubeck jazz or classical cello, but the Drip N’ Sip was trickling a medley of Frank, and Dean, and Rosemary Clooney.  Good enough to induce the necessary eighty-twenty balance between Beta waves and Alpha he enjoyed when unwinding a labyrinth of code.

He worked for an hour, glancing up at intervals dictated by the opening cafe door.  Grains of disappointment chipped at his focus.  Mostly because that disappointment was quickly followed by relief, and not a few minutes of distraction as he wondered for the hundredth time what he was going to say to her.  

He could try the honest approach, “Hello, after I saw you yesterday I really wanted to meet you and get to know you, so I decided to come to this cafe and stalk you.”  Points for honesty probably wouldn’t outweigh the negatives of being a stalker.

But was he really a stalker?  That was the second troubling, distracting question.  He reasoned it was the same as noticing her at his usual bar, then deciding to go more often, in the hopes of running into her.  That still nagged at him as stalking.  He Googled it.

Stalk:  to pursue or  approach stealthily

Well, technically, he was not pursuing her.  He was just waiting, hoping for a less-than-chance encounter at a place he knew she had visited once.  Much like a hunter waited at a feed pile for the deer to come in and eat.  Yeah.  Not stalking stealthily at all.  All he was missing was camouflage fatigues and a rifle.  Then again, what better camouflage in a downtown coffee shop than his current casual attire, a laptop, and large jittery cow?  

Damn.  He was a stalker.  

That revelation did not bolster his confidence.  It also did not make him leave.  Leaving was quitting and cowardly and definitely would not garner an encounter.  So he sat.  And worked.  And drank coffee.  Until lunch.  He had resolved to stick around just long enough to eat lunch.  After that, he figured he would have spent enough money, and time, to outweigh the odds of running into her.  

The time displayed in the corner of his laptop had already cracked the noon hour, but it was his growling stomach that finally convinced him to break and eat.  He placed his order and returned to his perch to wait for the kitchen.

The cafe’s piped in ambience had flipped to classic rock an hour back.  The Marshal Tucker Band was singing about a journey taken to forget a woman.  Apropos.

Gonna take a freight train

Down at the station, Lord

I don't care where it goes

Gonna climb a mountain

The highest mountain

Jump off, nobody gonna know

Can't you see, whoa, can't you see

What that woman, Lord, she been doin' to me

As he contemplated the freedom gained by following the trail of that jilted man, and just jumping on a train to anywhere, his grilled panini came out; a ciabatta encased turkey, swiss, apple, arugula piece of artwork.   It was a luxury he definitely would not get hopping a freight train.  His stomach growled through the caffeinated fasting, the pangs of hunger emphasizing his unsuitability to roughing it on the road.

Quick work was made of the sandwich masterpiece.  His empty plate and empty cup symbolized his lack of excuses to remain.  Fighting procrastination, he sheathed his laptop, slung the bag lazily over his shoulder, and meandered to the exit.  He reached for the door, and took one second more to look around the cafe, willing himself to call it a day and not surrender to false hope and empty anticipation.  He needed to go home now, get back to work, have a productive afternoon to reset his mind.  He knew, if he stayed here, and she did not show, even if he accomplished the same amount of work, wrote the same amount of code as he would at home, if he spent an entire day waiting and hoping and being let down, he would count the whole experience a failure and it would drag him down for days. 

He pushed through the door.  The heat and humidity of noon in a concrete jungle assaulted his body.  It muffled his lungs like breathing in a bowl of cotton.  It sucked his energy as it opened every pore not quite ready to ooze cooling sweat.  Not that perspiring would do any cooling in this humidity.  The air was saturated.  If anything, it would deposit its payload, rather than take on any more freight.  He could not get to his car fast enough.

Head bent low to shield his face from the sun above, as well as its reflected brilliance radiating from myriad windows, he lumbered towards the parking lot around the corner.  Gravity seemed to increase with each step as his body absorbed the ambient temperature.  He rounded the Drip N’ Sip corner, and walked directly into her.

“Oops, excuse me,” she laughed.  Then “Hey!  Storm guy!”  No buttercream rain jacket today.  She was decked out for summer:  embroidered cotton camisole in ivory, paired with khaki shorts and leather sandals that unveiled a champagne pink pedicure.

“Hello, Irish,” he said before thinking.  

She must have seen the panic spread across his face, because she rescued him with, “Well, now that we have our nicknames picked out, we can say we’re friends.”  Head tilt and a shrug.  “I was just headed for an afternoon tea.  Care to join me?”  She was a full head shorter than him, but the way she carried herself made her six feet tall.   Without waiting for a response, she stepped around him, summoned him with a head wave to follow, and drew him back to the cafe portal. 

“Tantalizing,” he thought.  The hairs stood up on the back of his neck.  It had a cooling, energizing effect.  Of course, he followed her in.

Back in the air conditioning, he realized he had managed to break a sweat.  There was a sheen chilling at the base of his spine, his elbows, and his forehead.  The latter of which, he quickly wiped away with a paper napkin grabbed from a dispenser, before stepping up behind Irish at the counter.

Marcus was working the register now; his shift not over, apparently, but his affable demeanor still in place.  The girl ordered chamomile tea with a lemon wedge and a honey packet, then stepped sideways to watch him order.  Obligingly, he stepped forward, hoping Marcus would not reveal his morning spent camped out at the window.

“Welcome back,” said Marcus.  “Your usual?  Jittery cow with two black eyes?”

“Not this time, Marcus,” he said.  “I need something a little calming.  How about peppermint tea?”

“You got it.”  Marcus tapped away at the iPad.  A paper receipt spit out to be tucked securely under a mismatched China cup and saucer, which then slid along the assembly line behind Irish’s. 

She followed the train to the pickup zone to find their orders already ready.  They each had two tea bags of their designated flavor nestled next to cup, spoon, and small carafe of hot water.  His was missing the lemon wedge and honey, but he supplemented with a few sugar packets.  

She found a table in the back corner.  Her backpack went under the table.  His bag found its usual spot hanging on the back of his chair.  They sat down and he felt an awkward silence as she prepared her tea.  

“So, we should probably formally introduce ourselves,” he started.

“Oh, let’s not,” she cut him off.  “This is a critical juncture in any relationship.  The initial meeting.  People tend to start forming opinions as soon as they get a name.  ‘Hi, my name is Bob Jones.’  Right there I can assume you’re from a traditional Midwest family with long standing roots in America.  Assuming that, I know your basic upbringing, what types of schools you went to, what sports you played, cheerleaders you dated, tv shows you watched, etcetera.”  She dunked her tea bag while she talked.  

He watched her face as she explained his imagined background.  Her face was incredibly expressive.  It ran through a range of crinkling brow, to arched eyebrow, to shuttered eyes with pursed lips, to a coquettish smile that tugged at the corners of her eyes.

“Even worse is the inevitable question of what you do for a living.  You say ‘accountant’ and now I peg you as a boring numbers guy with social awkwardness and no sense of adventure.”  She stopped to look him up and down.  “I don’t think you’re an accountant, but don’t confirm or deny, please.  Let’s leave that a mystery, too.”

“Ok,” he replied cautiously.  “So no names, no occupations.  But you have already revealed that a socially awkward, boring accountant is not worth knowing, so that leads me to believe you are at least adventurous, enjoy social situations, quite a bit of mystery, and perhaps a little danger.”

“Danger?” she scoffed.  “Why danger?”

“Really?” he shot back.  “You approach a strange guy leaning over his car in a parking lot, in the rain, and strike up a conversation, then ask him to tea when you run into him the next day.  That isn’t just a little dangerous?”

“Not really.  It’s a public place, plenty of people around to chaperone.  And, you assume I can’t take care of myself.”

He chuckled.  “That’s exactly what everyone says, right up until the time when they can’t take care of themselves.  If there’s one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s that no matter how big you are, how strong you are, how smart you are, there is always someone bigger, stronger, smarter.”

“Aha, now I know you are a man with lessons learned.  Interesting.”  She grinned like she had just won the first round in a negotiation.

They sat there for an hour before she had to leave for an “appointment” she dared not explain lest it reveal too much personal information.  He was somewhat relieved as he now had more than an hour’s worth of work to make up, but his schedule allowed for flexibility, so no harm done.  They agreed to meet for lunch the next day, and parted ways, returning to the heat.  She forged north into the heart of downtown, while he retreated to his car, then the highway home.  He could already feel the anticipation building for tomorrow.  He had to admit, her rules of engagement did seem to be extending the mystery and excitement.  She continued to be… tantalizing.

------------------------------

Lunch the next day proved to be round two in their negotiations.  He struggled to not talk about work or personal details, while she was very adept at steering discussions to topics ranging from philosophic to economic.  And much like a good comedian will end his routine with a joke tying back to his opening lines, she always found a way to make seemingly tangential topics come full circle.  

She was well-read in Plato and Aristotle,  Schopenhauer and Nietzsche, Lao Tzu and The Buddha.  For her young years, she had an old sole, searching not for the meaning of life, but peace, understanding, and the enjoyment of experiencing.  

They met at various times, every day, for the following week, becoming regulars at the Drip N’ Sip.  The baristas even took note.  Enough so, that her chamomile tea with lemon and honey became “The Irish,” and his Jittery Cow with two extra shots of espresso became “The Dark Storm.”  

Surprisingly, as he started to enjoy being a recognized regular, she became disenchanted.  He guessed it was her wandering spirit, eager for the next “new.”  She had experienced this place, these people, these views, and now desired to see what was over the horizon.  And that had him worried.  The more they found out about each other, the more smitten he became, but he worried that she was becoming weary.  If she constantly had to seek out the new, and the strange, it would not be long before she considered him familiar and normal.  In a word, boring.

Saturday.  Neither of them had pressing engagements, nor time-locked responsibilities.  Irish enjoyed an early start, so they had agreed to meet for breakfast.  Their usual haunt had just opened.  Jasmine was working the register -- the first young lady who had waited on him over a week ago.  Her apathetic attitude still firmly in place, she remained spot-on with their order details.  She was one of the few who refused to call their drinks by their unofficial names, sticking to established Drip N’ Sip protocols.  He could appreciate that.  It provided clear direction and made sure customers got what they ordered.

As they waited for their drinks, he pondered this girl next to him.  Irish.  Was she really?  He had not even found out that much personal information.  In over a week of daily encounters -- dates he considered them -- he had not learned one iota about her family, where she was from, or where she was going in life.  Nor had she learned, or asked anything personal about him.  For all intents and purposes, they were still strangers.

That’s when he realized there was an alternate explanation for her eccentricities.  By not knowing each other’s real names, detachment was easier.  They had never exchanged phone numbers, so communication could be cut off as easily as no longer frequenting this cafe.  They never met each other’s friends, so no awkward divorce and divvying up of acquaintances.  This was a clean… no, a sterile relationship.

As his mind turned over this new idea, he went through the inevitable stages of understanding.  Panic, first.  He had not risen to the challenge.  He had not been interesting enough, or funny enough, or clever enough to keep her engaged.  

Hope came second.  He was smart, he held his own in their deeply philosophical discussions.  He could study up and engage more, drive more of the conversations.  

Back to panic.  It might already be too late for study.  She was already bored. 

Then anger.  Who the Hell did she think she was, anyway?  He was smart.  He didn’t have all day to sit around reading philosophy, debating and pontificating ad nauseam.  He had a full time job he had to concentrate on.  And he was damn good at it, too! 

Then sadness.  He really liked this girl.  She was smart.  He enjoyed their deep, philosophical debates and her pontificating.  

Finally, acceptance.  It was a smarter way to date, really.  Before getting personal, get to know how a person thinks; his or her values and morals.  Dig out who they really are at their core before assigning your own labels, and values, and judgements.  In fact, he realized he was going about this all wrong.  He should be taking her approach.  Pure business, or pure education.  This was an interview; a chance to decide how their minds fit, how their souls balanced.  Her methods served to protect him just as much as her.  She probably knew that, as well.  That was a kindness he should respect.

“You’re awful quiet today,” she said as they grabbed their drinks.

“Sometimes it’s nice to live in each other’s silence.  Just be with someone.  It can get tiring always being an entertainer, or being entertained.  People don’t let their minds go quiet enough these days.  We’re always on.  Always engaged.  If not with other people, then with our devices.”  She gave him a quizzical expression.  Tinged with surprise, maybe?

“Take that guy who just walked in.  He’s by himself and hasn’t had his face out of his phone probably since he left his car.  I’ll bet anything he’s on that “Book of Faces” app, or watching some inane tv show he downloaded.  Binging on twenty year old “Friends” episodes.”

To his surprise, and shock, Irish grinned her Leprechaun grin and walked over to the young man.  “Excuse me, my friend and I were having a discussion about humanity dissociating from reality, and the wonders of being in the now, experiencing the tactile world around us.  We were curious about what was more interesting on your phone than being present in this cafe?”  

The man turned his screen around so she could see.  “It’s a YouTube video.  A dog jumping from a log to a wall, to a railing.  It’s doing parkour!  Cool, huh?”

“That is a talented dog.  Thanks for showing me.  But, if I could leave you with one thought?  If you think parkour is cool, why not go outside, practice it yourself and do, rather than watch?  Just a question.  Not a judgement.  For me, that’s a broken leg waiting to happen.  Enjoy your day.”  She left him with a puzzled expression.

“Direct.  And honest.  Very nice.” He told her when she returned.

“And it proved your point.  It may not have been a tv show rerun, but it was just as inane.”  

He steered her towards the high tables along the window, not their usual table in the corner.  Neither of them spoke for the next few minutes.  She prepped her tea, ate her scone.  He drank his latte and looked out at the buildings.  From their vantage point, they could see for several blocks down the street.

“I like the older buildings downtown.”  He broke the silence.  “They have more character, more style, with corbels and gargoyles and scrollwork all around.   Even the old warehouses -- like this building -- have misshapen bricks, flaws, non-linear lines, wrinkles of time etched into their stone.  History pounded into their hardwood floors.   Newer buildings are flat and plain.  Boring.  Their floors are usually concrete, or tile.  Experience, character, time itself just mops off and disappears.”

“‘There are no straight lines or sharp corners in nature. Therefore, buildings must have no straight lines or sharp corners.’  Gaudi said that,” she quoted quietly.

“Well, I’m not sure I’m a fan of all of Gaudi’s work, either.  But his buildings are certainly interesting and his influence was nothing short of monumental.  I can appreciate everything he created.”  He moved his eyes from the streets to look at her.  “But what about you?  What’s your opinion?  Not Gaudi’s or Frank Lloyd Wright’s or Zaha Hadad’s opinion. What buildings do you like?  What shapes, what textures?”

“I haven’t thought about buildings too much,” she admitted.  “They’re all somewhat utilitarian to me, I guess.  City buildings, that is.  Homes are different.  Warmer.  Maybe it’s just the interior, the furniture and the layout of a home that I like.  The typical restaurant or office is hardness, easily wiped down and orderly.   Homes have cushions and shag, messes on the tables and counters.  Lived in normalness that absorbs sounds and tells a story.  Maybe it’s the smells.  Coffee and toast from the kitchen, fresh breezes through the living room window, soaps and rain in the bathroom, all with the backdrop of intimate familiarity.”

“A good home definitely has all that,” he agreed with a smile.  “It’s nice to get out and have breakfast once in a while, but I do love morning coffee on my back porch, watching the sun come up, listening to nature awaken.”

He felt a lot more relaxed with his acceptance of the situation.  He would not say he was more confident, just comfortable with the mindset of living in the now, enjoying her company and letting fate take its course.  As a bonus, looking at her, he thought he sensed an increased interest.  Maybe she sensed his change. 

“What do you think about getting out of here?  Go someplace new?  Maybe go for a drive?” she said, unexpectedly.

Wow, she really did sense his change.  “Sounds fun,” he said. 

Irish finished her tea and scone.  He downed his coffee and they headed out to the parking lot.  She led him to a Jeep Rubicon, burnt orange, fully tinted windows, knobby tires, and still splattered with mud from her last adventure.  

“Very fitting,” he nodded.  “As is the color.”

“It’s ‘Punk’n Metallic’, and he just spoke to me.”  She patted the hood like a proud parent.

“‘He?’”  

“Jack.  As in Jack o’ Lantern.  I always name my cars.  Not very original, maybe,  But every car I have owned or driven has spoken to me and told me its name.  This car practically screamed it at me.  The sales guy walked up to the front grill and said, ‘It’s grinning at you like a big Jack o’ Lantern.’  I pulled off the lot for a test drive, top down, breeze blowing through my hair on a beautiful day, and promptly cut off a guy in an SUV.  My fault, and he let me know it by speeding past yelling ‘Jack-a*s!’”

He chuckled.  “So you literally meant the car screamed its name.”

“Well, there were more.  A week after I bought it, a kid in the grocery store parking lot was admiring it and he said, ‘Man, this thing is jacked.’  That’s when I tested the name out.  You have to try it out loud, you know.  I got in, said ‘Jack, let’s do this.’  I immediately envisioned talking to Jack Nicholson -- or maybe his character Jack Torrance, from The Shining, or even the Joker, from the first Batman movie .  The madness, and unpredictability of his nature seemed to fit.  Jack started up with a growl, and we’ve had fun ever since.”

“I’ll bet you have.”

They got in, and “Jack” rumbled awake.  He had to admit, Irish looked right at home behind the wheel.  She was laid back, fully at ease, with one hand on the wheel, the other on the gear shift.  Without further ado, she dropped it into first and rolled to the exit.

“I’m surprised you don’t have the top off.  You seem like the top down kind of girl.”

“Sometimes I am,” she said.  “But when it’s ninety plus degrees with humidity to match, I prefer the AC.”  

“Good call.  Thank you,” he agreed.

“Besides, I also like my privacy.  An orange Jeep attracts enough attention.  I don’t want to be on display, personally.  If I’m singing along at the top of my lungs, or dancing to a tune, or picking my nose, it’s my business and my space.  My serenity.”

“Hmm.  I never pegged you for a nose-picker.  But, we all have our secrets.”

“Yes,” she looked at him with an impish grin.  “Yes, we do.  And some of them are wonderful, and unexpected.”

“Yes they are,” he thought to himself.  “And tantalizing.”

 They drove deeper downtown, past the shiny new mini-skyscrapers that lined the river, past the historical buildings deemed worthy of saving, now overshadowed by their younger siblings.   They cruised past the Saturday morning food trucks just arriving and setting up for breakfast around the small, central park.  They ventured to the area not yet touched by the gentrification craze.  

A ribbon of train tracks was the divider between white collar refined and blue collar crude.  Still heavily used by freight trains hauling everything from car parts, to construction supplies, to chemicals, this area resisted rehabilitation and clung to it’s boarded up windows and peeling paint like a badge of courage brandished at the abstract world of technology.  It was a real world example of the phrase, ‘The other side of the tracks.’

He enjoyed being a passenger for a change, being able to sight-see, catch the details of old versus new, both buildings and people.  As more of the city awoke, its denizens emerged to take in the summer before the heat drove them back to air conditioned shelter.  He made a mental note that he was truly living in the moment, absorbing and enjoying the now.

‘Jack’ passed through a desolate area of uninhabited brick warehouses, skeleton remainders from the turn of the last century.  Graffiti layered decades thick adorned every alley wall.  It was a goldmine of subject material for photographers of the dystopian.

Irish stopped in an underpass, the rumble of weekend traffic echoed from the highway overhead.  This place, too, was flush with spray painted gang tags, declarations of love, obscenities flung at ‘the man,’ indecipherable acronyms.  She dropped the Jeep in park and stared out at the colorful concrete.  No humans wandered this area in the day.  It was desolate, remote.

“I like you.  You’re interesting,” she said, breaking their long silence.   “But I don’t think ‘Storm’ really fits you.  I’ll just call you Jim.”

He looked at her, surprised.  “That’s funny.  That’s actually my name.”

“I know,” she admitted.  “I know everything about you.  I always do my research before committing.”  

She reached over to put her hand on his leg.  He was shockingly surprised by her forwardness after a week of being kept at arm’s length.  But then he felt a sharp jab in his thigh, under her hand.  He jerked back as much as he could, confined in his seatbelt.  He looked down, saw a syringe, the plunger fully plunged, the needle embedded in his tissue.

“What the Hell!” he cried.

“It’s ok.  I’m a doctor.  Well, studying to be one, anyway.  You should start to feel better in a few seconds.”

He already did feel better, in fact.  He felt relaxed, sort of warm, maybe a little giddy.  It was hard to keep his head steady, it wanted to flop around.  And his eyes were getting heavy.

“Wwwhat did you give me?” his tongue felt numb.  His speech was slurring, and his jaw didn’t want to move.  

“Sodium thiopental,” she was smiling at him in such a kind way.  “It will just make you sleep for a while.  When you wake up, we’ll have some fun.”

He could not control his head anymore.  His chin hit his chest.  He vaguely recognized that drool was running from his mouth.  “How embarrassing,” he thought.  His eyelids shuttered, sound faded, the world shut down.

------------------------------

An uncomfortable cramping in his hips pulled him from warm darkness.  He was lying awkward, on his side, but in a fetal position with shoulders twisted to lie flat.  He rolled to full fetal.  His body was sluggish to respond, and his head pounded with a pain that suggested his skull had cracked.  Twice.  At least.  He tried to open his eyes, but the lids were unresponsive.  They felt glued shut.  He reached up only to slap at his face with fingers out of his control.  Was this the worst hangover ever?  His mind was a quagmire; all mud and fog and darkness.  He couldn’t remember much beyond being human and needing to breathe.  

He tried to straighten his legs, but his feet encountered something hard.  Focusing his will, he slithered his feet left, then right.  Still blocked.  He pushed his arm forward.  More blockage.  Bars, they felt like.  He could just slip his hand through if he twisted a bit.  

Bars.  That tickled a warning through the haze.  He concentrated on grasping the extended hand.   Metal was cold on his palm, then his fingertips.   Feeling was returning, along with more control.  He itched to move.  It was an imperative.  Instinct screamed that moving would fight back the fog, so he pushed in all directions, with feet and hands.  He shifted his shoulders and slid his aching head back and forth.  His efforts were rewarded.  The sense of himself was returning.  The void between his head and toes acknowledged existence. 

Memories were returning, too.  His last memories of Irish, the coffee shop, the drive in her pumpkin flavored Jeep.  The needle.  It all came back in a rush, kicked off a panic, and a beneficial jolt of adrenaline.  His body rammed through the fog, but his eyes still would not open.  He tried again to rub at them.  His fingers, still thick and lacking dexterity, contacted smooth strips of tape bonding each eyelid to a cheek.  His nails caught the edges and he peeled them off.  Gingerly, fearfully he touched his lids.  With relief, he felt eyeball under skin.  And eyeball felt the pressure of fingers.  Thoughts of organ theft lessened, somewhat.  He could still work with hands and eyes.  And he had legs, so he could walk and be mobile.  If other organs were missing, something vital, he could figure it out.  But he needed eyes and hands to earn a living.  And functioning legs would allow him to drive.  That was hope for some sort of self-sufficiency.

He took a deep breath and opened his eyes.  They were crusty at the edges, but they did respond.  A dimly lit room condensed onto his vision.  A basement.  More accurately, a cellar, for the walls were old concrete, the rafters were exposed beams of non-standard dimension, aged dark and covered in cobwebs, and the floor looked to be dirt, compacted to the density of stone.  Adrenaline pumped harder.  He was in the basement used by every horror movie ever made.  And in a cage.  

The criss-crossed bars came into view.  It was a dog kennel, most likely.  A kennel built for Cujo.  Rebar welded together in a grid formed the walls.  He rolled over to look up.  More rebar made a topper only a few feet above his head.  He could sit up straight, most likely, but not stand.  He grabbed at the craggly steel and pulled himself upright.  

He seemed to be completely intact.  His clothes were gone, though.  He wasn’t naked, but he was dressed in hospital scrubs.  He quickly checked his stomach and chest for stitches or scars.  Clean.  All organs still present, apparently.  So, except for his pounding head, and a burning, throbbing in his right thigh, his health was ok, for now.  He slipped down his pants and looked at his thigh.  The pain was in the area Irish had stuck him.  HIs skin was red, irritated and swollen.  Whatever she had injected him with did not agree with him.  He could move everything, though, so it had not done any immediate damage. 

A door opened behind him.  He swiveled toward the noise and observed a figure shrouded in shadow, backlit from light flooding in through the doorway.  There was no mistaking the size and shape.  It had to be her.  Petit and graceful, with the hint of a ponytail flopping around.

“What the hell, Irish?” he said in his angry voice.  “Let me out of here.”

“Good, you’re awake.”  She answered like they were having a normal morning conversation.  “I was starting to worry I had overdosed you.  I had to give you three injections before I could get you back here and use something safer.  Sorry about the headache I know you must have.  I’ve brought some aspirin, water, and an ice pack for our leg.  It’s very important you keep that cold.  Otherwise it will take twice as long to heal.  The skin, and some muscle tissue may die off too.  In that case, we’ll have to cut it out.  But let’s not cross that bridge until we have too, ok?”  

She dropped a bottle of aspirin through the bars, then opened a small door at the base of the back panel, and slid in a bottle of water and an ice pack.  He grabbed the bottle and cracked the manufactured seal.  He left the aspirin where it was, but did slap the ice pack on his leg.

“Why are you doing this?” he asked, making contact with her eyes.

“Well, honestly, I was going to pass on you.  Things were getting a little stale.  A little boring.  But yesterday -- you’ve been asleep for almost 28 hours, by the way -- you showed a whole other side of yourself.  You had depth and personality.  You weren’t just another guy saying anything to get in my pants.  I felt we really had a connection.  It was like that first day I saw you in the rain.  I had a feeling then that you might be special.  And when you showed up the next day at the coffee shop, I knew I had set the hook.  I let you sit there all morning.  When you got up to leave after lunch, I thought about letting you go and seeing if you came back the next day.  Just to see how desperate you were.  But something told me to just jump right in and start the vetting right away.  So, I pretended to ‘bump’ into you as you were leaving.  Like I said, I always do my research.”

“But why?  What is this all about?” He was confused.  If she liked him, and wanted him to like her, he already had.  Now, he was just scared out of his mind and wanted nothing more than to get as far away from this crazy as he could.

She got up and started walking back to the door.  “We’ll talk more later.  I do enjoy our conversations, our time together.  And we’ll have plenty of that.  But truth be told, it’s the game I love, the hunt, the capture.”  She rested her hand on the doorknob and looked back at him one last time.  “It’s… tantalizing.”  She shivered, and let out an exhilarated sigh.  The door closed, leaving him alone, with her trailing words reverberating in his mind, building to a crescendo, culminating in a desperate scream.

“Irish!  IRISH!  DAMN YOU!!”

Silence.  

Another word entered his mind.  A word he did not like.  This  word also spoke of shivers down your spine, of the hairs rising on your arm, of setting your nerves to tingling.  It was not a word he used often, or cavalierly.  He had to truly feel it.  But in the near future, he would find himself using that word with regularity. 

Terror.