The Predator
by Matthew Richardson
Genre: Drama
Swearwords: A couple of mild ones.
Description: A sexual predator brought low.
Swearwords: A couple of mild ones.
Description: A sexual predator brought low.
I know this place.
Its pine dancefloor rubbed smooth by feet. Its shady booths, ideal for taking a date for some quieter conversation.
I know this place.
It means something to me, this space…it’s where I come of an evening.
I lean back, cross my ankles, and sip my pint. Always the same table; the same shady corner. I’m content to wait; a predator settling down into the long grass.
This place has been good to me. It’s comfortable, like a nice worn-in pair of brogues. Sometimes I worry that I’m too at ease, though. I look around the place and, to be honest, it has probably seen better days. The curtains are faded and the carpets frayed. It’s the same damn elevator music played every night and there’s a sour smell of disinfectant and piss coming from the gents…
Still, I get the pick of the birds here. Speaking of which, here’s a bit of skirt now. It’s only Tracey the barmaid, though. She gives me a nod and a smile as she starts to clean the glasses, ready for the coming rush. Tracey is the one girl in the bar who’s strictly off limits. We’ve got history; both had our fingers burned, not that there’s any bad blood. We’re both too long in the game for any recriminations and she often looks on with amusement as one lassie or another is caught in my tractor beam.
“Got a good feeling about tonight, Trace,” I shout across the empty room.
She smiles and shakes her head, amazed at my appetite. A menace, she calls me. Lock your daughters away, she says, but we both know I’m not that bad. Poised to shoot back some bawdy remark at me, she is interrupted by the door opening.
I know the woman standing there. Her name is on the tip of my tongue. Sheila? Sandra? Samantha? No, it’s gone. God, she’s not a previous conquest is she? A quick fling? I try to meld in with the washed-out upholstery.
Damn.
She’s seen me.
A flicker of recognition and Sheil-dra-sam steps, haltingly, towards me. I sit up and plaster a smile onto my face. She is probably shy – ashamed that she let herself go last time we hooked up. Let herself be swept up in a flurry of white wine and charm and it’s-only-one-night-and-no-one-will-find-out. Walking slowly towards me, skirt playing in the air conditioning, she still looks a little unsure. I nod at the seat next to me – don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, after all.
Tracey is there suddenly, talking to her, muscling in. Bloody woman. Can’t she see what’s going on? Doesn’t she know that she’s blocking my come-hither look? Cramping my style?
There is an arm around the girl’s shoulder, words too quiet for me to hear, and, most incriminating, a glance in my direction from Tracey. Sheil-dra-sam is nodding now, chewing down whatever nonsense the barmaid is feeding her. Drinking down whatever poison she is spouting. She lets Tracey steer her back through the front door, both of them still whispering conspiratorially to each other.
That’s enough. It’s one thing keeping your distance from a former lover; it’s quite another warning others off. I rise from my seat, intending to go and remonstrate with Tracey, but in my anger I realise that I’ve spilt my pint. My bloody trousers are soaking…
By the time I’ve got myself presentable again, Tracey has gone, presumably to go and change a barrel or to hide from me in the ladies. I’ve half a mind to storm in and confront her. How dare she? Calling me a cad! I practically keep this bar open! If I break a few hearts in the process then so be it! I’ve never signed contracts with these girls; never promised marriage. What’s it to her if I have a quick fumble under a table?
I can’t say what attracts my attention back to the pub door. Some sort of movement. A kind of commotion; a disturbance. There is a shape projecting through the warped glass. It’s a person. Waiting.
Things start to come together. The nervous ex entering the bar. The whispered conversation with the barmaid. The ushering out.
Is it Sheil-dra-sam’s father? Her brother? Husband? Had she been sent in to mark me? To make sure that I was definitely the bastard that had gotten her tipsy and then felt her up in some dark corner of a pub?
Hiding has never been my style. I shuffle myself out of the booth, stumbling slightly – the bitter starting to do its work. Composing myself, I face the door. If I’m going to get a kicking…
Whoever it is has pressed right up against the frosted glass. A face, warbled, warped, leers through – an ogre grinning wickedly. The door is eased open and I brace myself. Whoever it is won’t leave the fight unmarked, that’s for sure.
It is a strange woman…
A beautiful woman.
Without the shroud of glass, she is small, slender. Silvery-blonde hair curls around her ears. Oval eyes peek out from the doorway mischievously. She leans seductively, one arm draped above her on the doorframe. A small smile beckons me over.
How am I to resist such a delight?!
I approach, with not a little swagger.
“And what is your name, my lovely?”
“Grace,” she answers coyly, looking past me into the inviting gloom. “Do you mind awfully if I join you?”
I smile and beckon her, turning to show her my kingdom, my lair.
Something is wrong.
It’s as though someone has turned on the lights after a night at the dancing.
The room is bright – painfully so. There are no booths, but rather armchairs clustered around a large, flat television. Fake flowers adorn the mantelpiece. There is an air of staleness. In place of the bar there is a trolley of fresh laundry. Empty wheelchairs litter the room. There is no cigarette machine. No fruity. No pool table.
Tracey re-enters the room from a cupboard I hadn’t even realised was there. She is folding laundry and looking harassed.
“Mr. Whittaker!” she barks, marching over to me. “You know you’re not supposed to be alone with the female residents!”
I start to reply, but remember that Tracey is not to be crossed. Not again. There’s no flirting. Not now. She even looks intimidating. A navy-blue uniform. Very official.
“A few more days and we’ll get you somewhere more suitable. In the meantime, hands to yourself please,” she says, taking hold of me. “Now let’s get you back to your armchair.”
Before I can turn to explain to my new lady friend that I’m not that bad, I am cut off.
“And I see you’ve wet yourself as well. We’ve been over this – if you need to go you’ve got to tell me, okay?”
I laugh at her.
“Trace, it was my pint. I spilled it over there…”
Pointing at the corner, all three of us can see that there’s no pint glass, no beermat, no ashtray. I can feel the blood rushing to my face. I’ve got to explain; tell the cute blonde that this isn’t normal. That it’s just an accident.
“I really don’t know how this happened…” I turn, but the girl I was chatting up in the doorway is gone.
Oval eyes still peek out at me, but it’s from a prune-wrinkled face. Her hair still curls, but it’s iron-grey. She still leans, but only for support against an IV pole. Behind her in the corridor I can see people shuffling about like those Chinese girls with the bound feet. Some of them are hauling around poles with them as well, plugged into the mains because they can’t be trusted to run on their own batteries any more.
“Come on,” says Tracey, gently pulling me away from the old woman. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
She’s right of course.
I go with her, drained and suddenly tired. Something cold touches my arm. I look down and see it is a hand, blue-veined and twisted. It belongs to the old woman at the door, who is still smiling at me.
“When you’re done,” she says in a gravelly, smoker’s voice, “Do you fancy a cuppa?”
Its pine dancefloor rubbed smooth by feet. Its shady booths, ideal for taking a date for some quieter conversation.
I know this place.
It means something to me, this space…it’s where I come of an evening.
I lean back, cross my ankles, and sip my pint. Always the same table; the same shady corner. I’m content to wait; a predator settling down into the long grass.
This place has been good to me. It’s comfortable, like a nice worn-in pair of brogues. Sometimes I worry that I’m too at ease, though. I look around the place and, to be honest, it has probably seen better days. The curtains are faded and the carpets frayed. It’s the same damn elevator music played every night and there’s a sour smell of disinfectant and piss coming from the gents…
Still, I get the pick of the birds here. Speaking of which, here’s a bit of skirt now. It’s only Tracey the barmaid, though. She gives me a nod and a smile as she starts to clean the glasses, ready for the coming rush. Tracey is the one girl in the bar who’s strictly off limits. We’ve got history; both had our fingers burned, not that there’s any bad blood. We’re both too long in the game for any recriminations and she often looks on with amusement as one lassie or another is caught in my tractor beam.
“Got a good feeling about tonight, Trace,” I shout across the empty room.
She smiles and shakes her head, amazed at my appetite. A menace, she calls me. Lock your daughters away, she says, but we both know I’m not that bad. Poised to shoot back some bawdy remark at me, she is interrupted by the door opening.
I know the woman standing there. Her name is on the tip of my tongue. Sheila? Sandra? Samantha? No, it’s gone. God, she’s not a previous conquest is she? A quick fling? I try to meld in with the washed-out upholstery.
Damn.
She’s seen me.
A flicker of recognition and Sheil-dra-sam steps, haltingly, towards me. I sit up and plaster a smile onto my face. She is probably shy – ashamed that she let herself go last time we hooked up. Let herself be swept up in a flurry of white wine and charm and it’s-only-one-night-and-no-one-will-find-out. Walking slowly towards me, skirt playing in the air conditioning, she still looks a little unsure. I nod at the seat next to me – don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, after all.
Tracey is there suddenly, talking to her, muscling in. Bloody woman. Can’t she see what’s going on? Doesn’t she know that she’s blocking my come-hither look? Cramping my style?
There is an arm around the girl’s shoulder, words too quiet for me to hear, and, most incriminating, a glance in my direction from Tracey. Sheil-dra-sam is nodding now, chewing down whatever nonsense the barmaid is feeding her. Drinking down whatever poison she is spouting. She lets Tracey steer her back through the front door, both of them still whispering conspiratorially to each other.
That’s enough. It’s one thing keeping your distance from a former lover; it’s quite another warning others off. I rise from my seat, intending to go and remonstrate with Tracey, but in my anger I realise that I’ve spilt my pint. My bloody trousers are soaking…
By the time I’ve got myself presentable again, Tracey has gone, presumably to go and change a barrel or to hide from me in the ladies. I’ve half a mind to storm in and confront her. How dare she? Calling me a cad! I practically keep this bar open! If I break a few hearts in the process then so be it! I’ve never signed contracts with these girls; never promised marriage. What’s it to her if I have a quick fumble under a table?
I can’t say what attracts my attention back to the pub door. Some sort of movement. A kind of commotion; a disturbance. There is a shape projecting through the warped glass. It’s a person. Waiting.
Things start to come together. The nervous ex entering the bar. The whispered conversation with the barmaid. The ushering out.
Is it Sheil-dra-sam’s father? Her brother? Husband? Had she been sent in to mark me? To make sure that I was definitely the bastard that had gotten her tipsy and then felt her up in some dark corner of a pub?
Hiding has never been my style. I shuffle myself out of the booth, stumbling slightly – the bitter starting to do its work. Composing myself, I face the door. If I’m going to get a kicking…
Whoever it is has pressed right up against the frosted glass. A face, warbled, warped, leers through – an ogre grinning wickedly. The door is eased open and I brace myself. Whoever it is won’t leave the fight unmarked, that’s for sure.
It is a strange woman…
A beautiful woman.
Without the shroud of glass, she is small, slender. Silvery-blonde hair curls around her ears. Oval eyes peek out from the doorway mischievously. She leans seductively, one arm draped above her on the doorframe. A small smile beckons me over.
How am I to resist such a delight?!
I approach, with not a little swagger.
“And what is your name, my lovely?”
“Grace,” she answers coyly, looking past me into the inviting gloom. “Do you mind awfully if I join you?”
I smile and beckon her, turning to show her my kingdom, my lair.
Something is wrong.
It’s as though someone has turned on the lights after a night at the dancing.
The room is bright – painfully so. There are no booths, but rather armchairs clustered around a large, flat television. Fake flowers adorn the mantelpiece. There is an air of staleness. In place of the bar there is a trolley of fresh laundry. Empty wheelchairs litter the room. There is no cigarette machine. No fruity. No pool table.
Tracey re-enters the room from a cupboard I hadn’t even realised was there. She is folding laundry and looking harassed.
“Mr. Whittaker!” she barks, marching over to me. “You know you’re not supposed to be alone with the female residents!”
I start to reply, but remember that Tracey is not to be crossed. Not again. There’s no flirting. Not now. She even looks intimidating. A navy-blue uniform. Very official.
“A few more days and we’ll get you somewhere more suitable. In the meantime, hands to yourself please,” she says, taking hold of me. “Now let’s get you back to your armchair.”
Before I can turn to explain to my new lady friend that I’m not that bad, I am cut off.
“And I see you’ve wet yourself as well. We’ve been over this – if you need to go you’ve got to tell me, okay?”
I laugh at her.
“Trace, it was my pint. I spilled it over there…”
Pointing at the corner, all three of us can see that there’s no pint glass, no beermat, no ashtray. I can feel the blood rushing to my face. I’ve got to explain; tell the cute blonde that this isn’t normal. That it’s just an accident.
“I really don’t know how this happened…” I turn, but the girl I was chatting up in the doorway is gone.
Oval eyes still peek out at me, but it’s from a prune-wrinkled face. Her hair still curls, but it’s iron-grey. She still leans, but only for support against an IV pole. Behind her in the corridor I can see people shuffling about like those Chinese girls with the bound feet. Some of them are hauling around poles with them as well, plugged into the mains because they can’t be trusted to run on their own batteries any more.
“Come on,” says Tracey, gently pulling me away from the old woman. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”
She’s right of course.
I go with her, drained and suddenly tired. Something cold touches my arm. I look down and see it is a hand, blue-veined and twisted. It belongs to the old woman at the door, who is still smiling at me.
“When you’re done,” she says in a gravelly, smoker’s voice, “Do you fancy a cuppa?”
About the Author
Leamington Spa-born Matthew Richardson has been a resident of Scotland since 2001. He currently lives in Stewarton. His stories have been published in Gold Dust magazine, Literally Stories and Near to the Knuckle.