An Affair With My Boss (4 page)

             
John laughed and banged the table with his open palm, chips clattering in the middle.  There were two other women in the room, naked and young, completely ignorant to my presence.  One girl sat on an obese man’s lap, though he was still wearing a silver suit I was sure had been altered more than a few times.  This man had shoulder length hair that curled into greasy knots, and a simple bowtie to hold his collar tight.  His eyes were on me, lips dancing with a smile.

             
Another strange man sat with the second girl straddling his waist.  He was naked as far as I could see, the woman working her hips atop him.  My stomach squirmed when he looked over at me, his twisted cigar clamped between his teeth.  Even as he was inside the girl, he kept his hands on his cards.

             
The last man was balding with wisps of wild hair, fully dressed in a silk robe.  He gave me a horsey smile full of teeth, slapping his cards down on the table.

             
The room smelled of sweat, smoke, and sex.  There was a table in the corner stacked with cash, like bricks to a strong standing wall.

             
Grace closed the doors behind us and took her seat on John’s lap, her hands running through his hair.  John buried his face in her chest and I felt a searing heat in my stomach, about ready to catch fire.  All I wanted to do was turn on my heels and sprint out into the night.

I stood there stupidly, wondering what I was going to say or do next.  I thought about telling John about our imminent danger, but realized that Tom was the only one that could save me now.  As the bald man held out his hand expectantly toward me, I prayed that Tom would burst in through the door at any minute.

Still,
I didn’t move, and the man had to reach over and grab my wrist, a tight clammy hold that made me want to scream.  Then I was being reeled across the room, and into the arms of the stinking man.  His hands were all over me, teasing my breasts and probing me between the legs, causing me to yelp in pain.  My cries went unheard over the voices of the men, calling their next hand, and clicking their chips, even with their full hands and laps.

I
looked at everything through a jagged crystal.  I could see all their faces, duplicated and distorted, stretched and exaggerated in a complicated kaleidoscope pattern.  It was as if they spoke to one another through water, drinking it in and forcing it out with every short breath.  They were sitting in a circle around me, blowing smoke and spreading their lips in unreal grimaces full of elongated teeth.  They were laughing, all of them rocking forward and backward, their chests blowing up and deflating.

             
“I’ll call, boys! Show me what you got!” John yelled.

             
“Three of a kind.”

             
“I’ve got jack shit.”

             
“Deuces.”

             
“Straight flush.”

             
The men were all yelling at once, laughing and groaning, and banging methodically on the tabletop.  I felt a moist mouth open and close on my neck, sucking and biting.

             
Then there was an explosion and a great wind blew into the room, clearing it of its smoke and ruffling a few loose bills on the table.  I was thrown off the man’s lap, joining the other ladies on the floor as the men bolted to their feet.  The women screamed and scrambled under the table.  A discharge from a shotgun reduced the ceiling to a gaping hole.

             
I looked up through the dust to see two men standing in the doorway of the parlor, wearing all black with ski masks over their faces.  They each held their shotguns at eye level.  They screamed for the men to sit down, and one by one they did.

             
“Do you know who you’re stealing from?” John growled, but the men continued to point their guns in his face.

             
“Don’t fucking move!” Tom screamed, nodding his head at the money at the back of the room.  His partner got the message and slid across the wall to plop an empty duffel bag on top of the money.  “We get what’s ours and then we leave! Don’t try anything stupid!”

             
Tom looked around the room for the first time, once at the naked man, at the women under the table, and then at me, sitting on my butt with my back against the wall, breathing hard.  His gun dropped slightly and his eyes went wide behind the holes in his mask.

             
“Alice?” he asked.

             
From behind him, John stood up long and tall, his teeth bared.  He wrenched a pistol out of his open shirt, and before I could scream, Tom’s head exploded and everything slipped into fast-forward.  There were more gun reports and flashes of light.  The table was upended in a horrible clatter that sent the overweight man falling on top of the women.  Tom’s partner pointed his shotgun in every direction and pumped out his shots, smashing the window and blowing the naked man away.  John was able to tackle him into the table of money and it collapsed under them, the bills blowing every which way.
              In all the commotion, the women managed to bolt out of the parlor, leaving only the men to lie unconscious and bleeding on the floor.  I kept my place by the wall in a tight ball, hands over my head.  I was faintly aware that I was screaming at the top of my voice.

             
The masked man managed to slip away and trip out the window, landing in a heap outside.  John followed him, cursing and spitting, firing blindly into the night.  He sidestepped over the jagged pieces of glass and followed pursuit.  The gunshots grew further and further away, until there was only the dull whine of my eardrums.

             
I managed to crawl across the floor on my hands and knees, bits of glass digging into my skin, almost unnoticed.  I was too concerned about navigating around Tom’s dead body without looking too closely at the crater in his head, or accidentally placing my hand in the expanding pool of his blood.  Of course I did both.

             
Outside of the parlor, I regained my feet, steadying myself against the wall, and then stepped out the front door, gulping at the fresh air.  I erupted into a coughing fit that left tears coursing down my face.

             
Fully nude and covered in the blood of other men, I strode across the street toward my new car.  I opened the door and sat down on the cold leather.  When I realized that my car keys were still inside, I cried over the steering wheel.  An idea struck me between the eyes and I almost laughed at its realization.  I supposed that John and Tom did get what they deserved, and so had I.  Though it wasn't what I wanted, I was still alive.  I didn’t yet deserve death.

             
My cries were quickly drowned out by the fast approaching sirens, and the dark exploded with red and blue lights.