by Serena Vale
She looked and saw the shapely figure of a woman standing next to her, and she cringed inwardly at the sight. The woman standing beside her was full breasted and slender of waist. She was the kind of woman that she usually saw modeling high-end underwear or on the arm of a famous movie star. Her hair was fire-engine red, and the look she wore was easy to interpret: she wanted the bartender. And not just to have him mix her a drink.
Fuck! Carlie thought, taking a second and deeper swig from her beer, feeling her heart dwindle at the sight of the woman and knowing her intent.
“I saw you working here the last time I was here,” said the skinny woman familiarly and with the kind of charm that a whore would use to pick up a guy on a street corner. “I was hoping you’d be here.”
The barkeep kept his smile in place, but there was something… less… about it, Carlie thought. Like he wasn’t all that thrilled to see this woman… like he’d seen her before and didn’t care for what he saw. Somehow, she found that very endearing. “Can I make you a drink, miss?” he asked, his voice only fractionally as hypnotic as it had been a moment before. That was endearing as well.
“Sure…” the skinny bitch asked, her smile as seductive as the rest of her. “And, can I get your phone number while I’m here?” she added, sounding braver than she had a moment before.
Carlie felt like that was her cue to get up and find some corner to disappear into and puke. She’d had bad luck with meeting men before but this instance was a rare occasion all by itself. But before she could so much as stir, the god behind the bar spoke up.
“It’s usually not a good idea to speak like that to a man in front of his wife, miss.”
Carlie froze. Her eyes locked on the god, who kept his gaze fixed on the other woman as if savoring her reaction. She couldn’t blame her.
The skinny girl looked perplexed.
The god looked to her – Carlie – and smiled, indicating whom he had spoken of.
Carlie’s blood felt like it had suddenly caught fire. Oh god… he means me?! It was an outright lie, but Carlie suddenly found that she didn’t mind being caught up in it. If the god said that it was so, then it was. She found a vindictive smile touch her lips.
The skinny girl turned her attention to Carlie, and it was the skinnier woman’s turn to wear a look of confusion. Her mouth dropped open with shock at the sight of her, like she couldn’t believe what she had just heard. Carlie struggled to keep from laughing but managed to put a smile on her face. If she could have spoken she might have said, ‘Ha, that’s right bitch… he’s mine.’
“Oh,” the skinny girl said, taking a small step back, the look of embarrassment as pronounced as her breasts.
“Can I make you a drink?” the god asked, his voice full of faux sympathy.
“N-no,” the girl said, taking another step back. “I just… oh, god…” She turned and walked away, not even bothering to look back and melted into the crowd.
Once she and the godly bartender were alone, she looked back to him, feeling her cheeks flush. “Wife?” she asked, her voice almost a squeak.
He smiled, and the full power of the expression returned and when he spoke, so had the mesmerizing tones of his voice. He gave a small shrug. “I’m optimistic.”
Carlie felt her eyes grow wider. This was a dream. It had to be. Men like this didn’t talk to women like her. It just… it didn’t happen. It was like saying that the sun rose in the north every day, it just didn’t fucking happen. And that it should happen to her was even more amazing. Things like this didn’t happen to her… gods never took notice of her. Not ever.
But as she watched him she felt a smile creasing her face. He returned the expression, and it felt like a long time had passed between them until his eyes darted up over her shoulder and into the crowd. A small look of regret grew on his features. “Your friend is coming back, looks like she struck out.”
Carlie looked back over her shoulder and saw Jackie pushing her way through the crowd, looking back over her shoulder as if checking to make sure that no one was following her. There was a look of some panic on her face, and she could sense instantly that the time had come for them to make a speedy exit.
Shit! She has to fuck up now? Now, of all damn times! Dammit!
She turned back to the god behind the bar. “Uh… I… I…”
He held up a hand to silence her. “It’s okay.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a cell phone. He put it on the bar and slid it towards her. “I’ll call you.”
Carlie felt her heart quicken at the gesture, and she looked back up to him, wonder filling her expression. Part of her felt like this was some kind of a joke, but she knew the cell phone on the counter top. It was pricey… too expensive for a bartender to afford. She tried to make sense of it and turn that sense into words, but all that came out was a small string of incoherent words. “Uh… but… what…?”
“Don’t worry about it. You’ll see me before you know it,” he added with a wink.
“Carlie!” said Jackie’s voice from behind her.
Reluctantly, she turned to her friend and saw her stepping towards the bar in a rush, a look of anxiety was on her face. “Carlie! We need to go. Now!” she said tersely.
She knew that tone of voice. Jackie had fucked up whatever pick up tricks she had tried to use. It seemed pretty obvious that she had tried to use her wiles on the wrong biker gang member. Even so, she couldn’t believe how horrible Jackie’s timing was this time. She spared a look at her watch and found that Jackie had managed to completely cluster fuck the whole deal in less than ten minutes.
It was a new record.
“But…” Carlie began.
“No questions, dammit, there’s no time. C’mon!” Jackie said, picking her up off of her stool practically thrusting her towards the door.
Carlie turned back to the bar.
The god that had stood there was gone. All the remained was the cell phone, right where he had left it. She didn’t know what it was that drove her to it, but she impulsively scooped up the phone and slipped it into the small purse that she carried. Her eyes sought out the handsome figure that had spoken to her… called her his wife… but she didn’t seem him anywhere. Just like a god to up and vanish when she wanted nothing more than to see him again. And as Jackie towed her anxiously towards the door she found it ironic that for the first time in her life, she thought that Jackie had finally picked a good place for them to visit.
Chapter 3
When she woke up in bed the next morning there was a pleasant feeling swirling through her body, and the feeling was palpable, like hot cocoa on a cold day. She was partially tangled in her own sheets, and her apartment was quiet like the world had gone away to leave her alone with her thoughts until she had drifted off to sleep. And it had been a pleasant sleep with thoughts of seductive voices… quiet corners… and the handsome bartender in less than what he had been wearing.
The thought made her blush.
This was unnatural for her. Carlie was no stranger to wild and impure thoughts about men she had just met, but this was the first time that it had felt like such thoughts were easily within her reach.
They are, aren’t they?
It was a difficult question to ask.
She wondered, briefly, if the whole thing had been a dream. Some of it seemed so perfect… so surreal… that it could only have been a dream. A god among men, who had the look of a man who could have had any woman that he wanted, and he’d chosen her. But had he really chosen her? Or was this some kind of a game that men were apt to play? Had the whole thing been in her imagination?
The logical part of her mind told her that it was more than likely. But then she found the cell phone that had been given to her by the handsome god sitting on her bedside table and felt a surge of excitement course through her that warmed her better than hot cocoa ever could. The simple device was proof enough that what she had experienced had been real. Like a god had left her some divine piece of jewelry as p
roof of the visit to earth.
I got a direct line to a god, she thought with a smirk.
After that, she felt like she was walking on air.
For the rest of her morning everywhere she went, the phone went with her. She showered with the phone on her bathroom counter. She cooked and ate breakfast with the phone sitting on her kitchen table. She dressed with the phone sitting idly on her bed. And when she went to work she put it on silent and slipped it into her back pocket, though it was against hospital regulations.
She waited anxiously for the phone to ring, feeling her heart quicken to unnatural speeds every time she heard an unfamiliar cell phone ring. But every time she checked, she found that the phone had remained silent. And every time she had a break at the hospital in which she worked she would look through the phone, hoping to find some clue as to the identity of the mysterious barkeep that had spoken to her.
God, I don’t even know his name, she thought every time she looked through the phone. Amusingly, she felt happy enough to simply think of him as ‘God.'
Unlike most phones, she found this one to be strangely empty of any of the usual features. There were only a few pictures in it, and regrettably, none of them were of her mystery man. There weren’t even any of people, but of inanimate things. Most of the pictures were of motorcycle parts, there was one of an empty field that stood somewhere on a bluff overlooking the ocean though she could not determine where. There was really nothing revealing in any of it.
She found that the call history was full of blocked numbers, and of all of those that weren’t she recognized them as being from local numbers. She looked those up and found that there was no registry for any of them. In short, there was really nothing that she could use to try and identify the handsome bartender contained in the small device. Nor was there any contact list inside of it… no apps… no voicemails… no texts… there was nothing. He hadn’t even enabled any security features on it, she was free to open and scan it at will without any trouble. The phone remained just as mysterious as its owner.
As the day wore on, she felt some of her excitement beginning to fade. The handsome man had not reached out to her as he’d promised. There was something demoralizing in that. She felt like a child, promised some prized toy or piece of candy for good behavior by an adult that had failed to deliver.
By the end of the day, she felt her heart had whittled some, checking the phone a final time before leaving work and finding that it still had not rung. The feeling took her back to her days in high school when one boy or another had asked her for her phone number, and she spent all of her time staring at the phone and trying to will it to ring, but to no avail.
By the time she returned home, she had set the phone aside and almost forgot about it. Once or twice she gave it a furtive glance and rushed to check it to see if it had rung but found nothing since the last time she had checked it. She felt like a character in all of the old myths that had been visited by a god and left with some token as proof of the visitation only to find that the glittering item seemed to have become dull and faded. Like everything that she had experienced had not been real.
She went to sleep with a heavy heart for it. She tried to imagine the handsome god in her mind once again. And while the image of him lingered perfectly in her mind, she could not hold onto it. It was like watching clouds move in the sky until the shape became unrecognizable and thin until it was gone altogether.
When she woke the next day, she again checked the phone. The only thing that had changed about it was that its battery had gone down to half of its life. She put it on battery-saving mode and went about her usual routine, showering, eating, dressing, and finally making her way to work. She managed to restrain herself from checking the phone constantly and only looked at it the once on the cab ride to her job.
The morning passed as it always did for her. She met with patients, conversed with coworkers, did her paperwork, cleaned instruments and washed her hands, and did as her training bid her to do. She did much of it almost mechanically and always that lingering feeling of depression rested on her shoulders like a yoke that she didn’t care to carry.
Her hopes of seeing the handsome god again began to fade. A disappointed feeling entered into her gut, and she was prepared to resume her life just as if the strange night had never happened. She still had her life and maybe Jackie would want to visit some other place in the near future where she might meet another captivating man such as the godly bartender.
Not likely, she thought with some regret.
The phone rang.
Chapter 4
At first, it didn’t even register until she remembered that she had set the device on silent, and the vibrations of it tickled her through her back pocket. When the realization washed over her, she felt her heart go into immediate overdrive as she fumbled for the device. She was thankful that she was alone in a hallway when it did ring and ducked into a secluded corner to answer it.
“Oh, please god,” she thought, praying both for help from the true God and from the one that had given her the phone.
She looked at the screen and found that there was no recognized number on it, but her excitement overcame her caution as she answered.
“Hello?” she asked tentatively.
“I need you to do something for me,” said a hypnotic voice on the other end. She recognized it as her god. “Don’t react to what’s about to happen.”
The line went dead.
She looked at the phone. The call had indeed been disconnected. She stood dumbfounded, staring at the device. She was uncertain about what had just occurred. She knew only that she felt strange. Like she had been in a crowded room and heard someone whisper her name. And when she had turned to see who had spoken, there was no one there.
She felt… cheated.
“What the…?” she wondered aloud.
The PA spoke overhead, and she nearly jumped at its sudden sound.
“Dr. Carlie Kyle, report to J-Ward at once, please. Dr. Carlie Kyle, please report to J-Ward at once,” said the PA system before that too went dead.
She stood, dumbfounded for the second time in half as many minutes.
As she rode the elevator up, she pondered what had just occurred.
That she should be summoned to the tenth floor of the hospital – the J-Ward – was an unusual request. That she should get a strange phone call from the handsome god just before was even stranger. Had he known she would be called up to the tenth floor? He couldn’t have, she thought. Although gods were omnipotent, weren’t they? It should have come as no surprise.
Still, being called up-levels was surprise enough. The tenth floor was well above her usual place on the sixth floor, and she knew enough about the hospital’s politics to know that the tenth floor usually catered to those who valued their privacy and paid handsomely for it. Sometimes it was a movie star undergoing plastic surgery. Sometimes it was a politician being treated for a skin condition. Once or twice she had heard it was a professional athlete being treated for steroid side effects or some such.
Such a thing wasn’t common practice for a hospital, but this was L.A. and people with money and power were able to sweep their influence into the world in one manner or another. It shouldn’t have come as any shock. But that she should be asked to report to such a place was certainly unexpected.
When the elevator doors opened, there was an elderly man with gray hair, a red tie, and a doctor’s lab coat waiting for her. She didn’t know this man, but she could tell from his expensive watch and spit-shined shoes that he was a long time resident of this floor. In his hands, he held a manila folder, and he passed it to her in lieu of a “hello” or “welcome” as soon as the doors clanked open and before she had taken her first step.
“Dr. Kyle,” the elder man said as if he’d known her for her entire professional career. “Dr. Soren, patient relations. Please follow me.”
A short introduction, she thought as she followed the older man. Before she cou
ld speak, Dr. Soren began to answer all of her questions.
“The patient asked for you, specifically.”
“Who is it?” she asked the elder doctor as they walked on.
“No idea, I’ve never seen him before. But that doesn’t matter. Confidentiality is a must up here, doctor,” replied the other, almost impatiently. “Speed is second to that. This isn’t the walk-in waiting room up here. If a patient comes in on this floor and asks for someone specific, we oblige as quickly as we can. You can check the file for references to the patient’s disposition if you need,” the older man said.
She took a quick look down at the file in her hands and looked perplexed as they walked. She didn’t even bother to open it but found only a name written on the folder’s label: Damian Crowe. In order for there to be a file on him, he would have had to have come in here before now. She found another question rising into her throat. “You’ve already examined the patient?” she asked curiously.
“His pertinent medical information was sent in ahead of him from a private physician’s office,” the elder man explained. “That means that he has connections, and our board of directors responds very well when we take care of people with friends in the right places. This isn’t the F-Ward, doctor. The people that we treat here don’t come in with scraped knees or sore throats. If they ask for special treatments, we give them. If they ask for sweets on their way out, we ask what flavor. If they ask for a doctor by name, we provide them that doctor. That means you,” he said, bringing her to the door of a private ward. “Now, I don’t know how you know this person, and I don’t care. All that matters is that he asked for you and it’s up to you to put a good face on our service here. So, off you go!” he said with a bright and cheery voice that she knew he did not feel.
And with that, the elder doctor pointed out a single door to her that was marked “Privacy Ward 2” and walked off as if he were an unconcerned parent leaving a child to a day at school.
Carlie stood there with the folder in her hand that was labeled with a man’s name that she had never heard before in her life. She felt as if this was some kind of a joke meant to get a rise out of her, like something she had once experienced in medical school. But the expensive carpets, the fragrance of rose oil, and the fact that there was a pair of waiting chairs in the hall made of oak told her practical jokes were unheard of on this floor. Not when money literally paved the walkways here.
