“SANDY BREEZE”
Sandy’s lips sucked gently on my neck. It was a good way to end the night.
Sandy Breeze was a stripper at Gurly’s. She was small and stout in stature, had short, dark brown hair, and was pushing forty. She wasn’t the most attractive stripper, but something about her just pressed all my buttons. She reminded me of better days.
And she seemed to like me well enough. To say what we had was a relationship was a bit of a stretch, but it was something. I don’t think either of us was looking for any kind of relationship anyway. Relationships just lead to misery. But even a lonely old broken fucker like me needs some companionship every once in a while. She had other occasional boyfriends, but never anything serious. At least, not serious enough to disrupt what we had between us. I don’t know what she saw in me that kept her from ditching me altogether, but I wasn’t going to fuck it up by asking.
It was stacking up to be a pretty good night. I was more than a little drunk so Pete gave us a ride to Sandy’s once his shift was over. It just felt so good to get everything off my mind. I didn’t have to think about murders and costumes and drugs. All I had to think about was Sandy’s plump lips making their way up my neck.
But then, inexplicably, I pulled away. I don’t what was wrong with me, but I just couldn’t get one thing out of my mind.
“Where’s Anne?” I asked.
“Who? Anne? Jesus, Frank, her name’s Jennifer,” Sandy moaned, “and I already told you, she in the other room watching television or something.”
I looked around a bit and sat up. I was inside Sandy’s bedroom and had been propping myself up on my elbows rather awkwardly. The room was small and cluttered with clothes and trinkets. I was lying on Sandy’s bed. It was small and crammed in the corner of the room. Sandy was hovering over me on her hands and knees. All in all, it was an excellent view from where I was sitting, but I still couldn’t get the girl out of my mind.
I nearly pushed Sandy off of me. She landed on her feet and stumbled to keep from falling over.
“Frank, what the fuck!?”
“Oh fuck,” I muttered, “Sorry doll. I just….where’s Anne?”
I could see tears welling up her eyes, “Frank…I…” she hesitated and sat down on the bed next to me, “Frank, Anne is gone. She left a long time ago. That girl you came over here with is named Jennifer.”
“I know that!” I snapped, “Fuck, you knew what I meant.
“I’m sorry, I know.” She sighed, “Frank, what’s wrong. I mean, I wasn’t going to ask, Jesse told me you needed a place to figure things out, but…this girl, you keep calling her ‘Anne’ but she is not your daughter. You don’t owe her anything.”
“She needs help. Isn’t that enough? She’s…not well. I just…She needs help, okay?”
“Oh Frank,” she said as she started to massage my chest, “I know you mean well, but helping this girl is not going to bring your daughter back.”
I stood up and wobbled trying to maintain my balance, “I too fucking drunk to help anybody, anyway. Where’s Jen?”
“I already told you, she’s in the other room.” Sandy crossed her arms. She was pretty upset. She hated repeating herself.
I walked out of the bedroom and saw Jennifer sitting on the couch watching Sandy’s TV. She was still wearing my old clothes. I nearly fell over just from walking across the room and quickly found an empty chair to collapse in. Jennifer gave me a timid look, but didn’t say anything. It was good, I didn’t really feel like talking anyway. I just sat there and let the ambient sound of the television lull me into a state of meditation.
Sandy walked out shortly thereafter and sat down on the couch. The TV droned on for a few minutes before Sandy started talking.
“So, I saw you and Pete were getting pretty friendly, are you his new girl?”
“Who me? No, of course not! We were just talking. He’s the first person that’s really been nice to me since I got here.”
“Oh, where are you from?”
“New York.”
“Well now, that’s quite a travel, what are you doing all the way out here?”
“I…” she paused, “it’s a long story.”
“S’alright, I understand.”
“No, it’s not like that, it’s just…” she trailed off.
“It’s okay, girl. You can trust Sandy. Prolly more’n you c’n trust me.” I said, or, at least I think that’s what I said. Whatever I said, it got her talking.
“Well, you are probably going to think this sound crazy, but…I’m a Real Life Superhero.” Jennifer braced herself for the inevitable barrage of questions, but got a little surprise instead.
“Oh yeah, I saw something on the news a few months ago about that. I thought it was some kind of joke. I didn’t know people actually did it! Neat, what’s your superhero name?”
Jennifer was clearly caught off guard, but she seemed to relish in the fact that somebody was interested in her.
“Night Cat," she said gleefully taking of my old clothes revealing her costume underneath, “I have a cat mask with ears and everything, but no tail. Everything I tried with tails looked stupid and just got in the way.”
Sandy seemed to be warming up to Jennifer, which was good because it gave me time to relax. I really needed to get my head straightened out, figure out what was going on. Shit, but all I could think about was Sandy.
“What on Earth made you wan to do this?” Sandy asked skeptically.
“Well, I didn’t grow up in New York. I was born in Ohio. Spent most of my life there, actually. But then I moved out to New York with my boyfriend at the time…”
“Oh, I see,” Sandy interrupted, “one of those stories.”
“Yeah. We got a place together for a few months before it ended. He ended it. Fell in love with someone else. I was only 20. So there I was, all alone, little girl in the big city. I got a cheap place and a waitress job and was barely getting by. My parents wanted me to come home, but I just couldn’t. One night a coworker convinced me to go to some clubs with her to pick up some men. We spent the night dancing and drinking and I ended up going home with some guy. I didn’t really like him, but he was very insistent, for some reasons I couldn’t say ‘no’ to him. It was the alcohol. We walked home from the club, it was only a few blocks. Before we even got to his place he starts getting…intimate…with me. By the time we got to his apartment he was already trying to get my clothes off. I panicked and ran off, but I was still pretty drunk and had no idea where I was. I spent the night in an ally behind the club.”
“That’s…that’s horrible!” cried Sandy.
“I know, I felt like such a weak fool. The next weekend I signed up for Taekwondo classes, put together my costume, and patrolled the streets around the night clubs, in order to help girls from being taken advantage of.”
“Well good for you. Lord knows I couldn’t have used a superhero in life a couple of times.” Sandy said wistfully. Shit, I hoped that wasn’t supposed to be directed at me, I’m so bad with women.
She continued, “Have you ever gotten into a real fight. I mean, isn’t that dangerous. What if someone pulled a gun on you?”
The room got as silent as a graveyard. Jennifer sat down and covered her face. She just got brought back to reality. And it hurt.
“Oh shit,” stammered Sandy,” I…I didn’t mean…”
“That’s why we’re here, darling. One of her friends got murdered last night,” I coughed out, “now somebody is after us. And I just…I just don’t know what the fuck to do. I think maybe it’s the cops trying to cover something up, that Polack sonuvabitch knows something, that’s why Jesse set me up here tonight. I’m gunna owe him big for this, but at least he’s helping me out of a jam.”
I looked up at Sandy for the first time and saw tears streaming down her face, “Oh Frank,” was all she could stutter out before I heard the footsteps outside her apartment door.
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