Having made the 320-mile trip from Tallahassee to Sebring in 4 hours two minutes (almost two-and-a-half hours faster than the listed time on Yahoo maps), Blake had time to kill before the big soiree he'd driven down to attend. There were only five other cars in the lot of the tiki bar on the shores of Lake Jackson when he parked his 325i convertible in the shade of a beautiful royal palm. It was late May.
Blake knew the woman was drunk even before he sat down. She wasn't sloppy drunk; she wasn't obnoxious or loud drunk. She wasn't even happy drunk. Most likely, even the bartender didn't know she was intoxicated, but from across the floor Blake could tell because she was careless drunk.
He saw her before he'd reached the top of the stairs leading up to the expansive platform deck containing two large bars and three-dozen round tables, all of which were covered with thatched roofs. She was seated at the closest bar, her long tanned legs exposed by a short white tennis skirt. She turned to watch Blake as he walked across the deck. He'd planned to sit across the bar until, walking past her, she held out a cigarette and asked him for a light.
"You're not from the South, are you?" she asked with a slow Alabama drawl while exhaling over Blake's left shoulder leaving him to wonder both how she knew and why her question hadn't begun with "y'all."
Blake turned to look at the woman more closely as the bartender, having lit her cigarette, retreated to get Blake's order. Movie star pretty, he guessed her to be about 5'8" although seated it was difficult to be precise. If he had the height correct, she'd be about 135 pounds. Her eyes were the color of the cloudless mid-afternoon sky; her blonde hair was unbleached.
"How could you tell?" Having shaken his head when asked for the light and given his order by pointing to an empty brown bottle with a Budweiser label, Blake knew that the four words, the first he'd spoken now marked him, unmistakably, as a Connecticut Yankee.
"Most young men down here carry a lighter, you know, for the ladies." Pausing, then extending her hand, "I'm Dee."
She had the softest, smoothest hand he'd ever felt. A tingle jolted the front center of his scrotum as if she's just run her fingernail gently up his sac between his balls. "Blake," he replied.
Blake Burke loved his name. From the time he was a precocious seven-year-old at Madison Country Day, through prepping at the Hopkins School, and then Yale, he was determined to be someone others knew by only one name, like Madonna, or Ringo maybe. That Blake could be either a first or last name made it perfect.
From the first moment of that first psychology class at Hopkins, Blake knew it was his calling. At Yale he'd decided on criminal psychopathy and was determined to make a significant breakthrough in what motivated the criminal mind.
His passion had led him to Florida State University and Professor Emeritus Leonard Workman, aged 81. Three years earlier, Workman heard Blake defend a brilliant paper at the FBI headquarters in Virginia, and agreed to stay on at FSU solely to shepherd Blake through to his Ph.D.
Arriving on the Tallahassee campus with a 'summa' from Yale and a nearly perfect GRE, he was immediately known to all and sundry as simply Blake.
As the twenty-two year-old student studied Dee, everything moved as it always did for him, in slow motion. He saw things others would miss. He already knew something intimate about this older beauty, something he'd seen when he mounted the stairs to the deck. Deciding to amuse himself by playing mental games with the pretty blonde, he wondered how he might use it.
"Y'all go to college," Dee stated rather than asked, lapsing into a patois only pretentious Yankees were duped by.
"A graduate student. Psychology."
"Tell me something about me," ordered the pretty blonde.
Dee was an intellectual (and at times a physical) exhibitionist and liked being the topic of discussion. She'd been hit on by every manner of man, by the best and the worst, by the hot and the horrible. She decided to excite herself by teasing this egotistical young man.
"You're insecure," Blake told her.
Dee arched a perfect eyebrow. She'd been interested in the 6'3" blond male quasi-model since he strolled across the deck of the tiki bar dressed in khaki shorts, white polo shirt and tennis shoes (no socks). Now she was fascinated. Nobody she knew would dare say that about her. She waited for him to continue.
"You wear makeup in sunlight, your legs are muscled from running because you're afraid you'll gain weight, you swiveled in your chair because you worried I wouldn't notice if you acted demurely. When you did, I could see the tan surrounding your midriff indicating you wear bikinis and there is a year old tattoo in the middle of you back just peeking out above the waistband of your skirt. You are insecure about losing your youth."
"A good South Florida fortune teller could have told me that and a good deal more, and -- from the sound of your affected Connecticut accent, I'll guess Yale or Columbia -- be $200K ahead on education costs alone." Dee shivered at the accuracy of Blake's assessment. Had she underestimated her opponent? His obvious interest both emboldened her and dampened her labia.
"Tell me more, Blake the fortune teller."
"You look 35, you're friends all lie and tell you they think you're 30." Before Dee could initiate her rebuttal, he continued, "You're 41."
The accuracy of the statement stung Dee. She felt a need to sting back.
"Ah'm talking to a fucking carnival barker! Do you guess weights, too?"
"You're also drunk."
"Bullshit!"
"You think you can hide it but the alcohol relaxes you more than you realize. You got careless."
