Kasey swung her lithe legs out from the open car door and into the night. For the mall movie theater, the sunflower print sundress was a little overdressed but she didn't care. It was date night and it'd been a long time since her and Sam had been able to find a sitter for the kids and enjoy a night for themselves. Now more than ever in her mundane suburban life was it time to throw caution to the wind. What work hadn't stolen from her in the way of time as a full-time accounts manager had taken from her as a part-time mother in style and spontaneity. She missed the rush of being caressed during long car rides and even Sam sneakily groping her derriere when they were out shopping. The thoughtful or sometimes even unplanned meeting of their two bodies in the most unexpected of places could make her forget for a moment there was anyone else in the world but the two of them.
As if sensing her thought the image of her bare legs beneath her dress conjured the wind mischievously peeled the linen up past her knees to reveal the barely sunkissed flesh of her thighs. Without thinking she padded her dress back down and less than gingerly standing straight to look around her. It was night and in the black parking lot the overhead illumination was a spotlight on her for anyone nearby to take in her figure in the frilly dress. She had a few moments to take in the distance between her and fortress-sized wall of the movie theater before Sam made his way around the car and back to her.
Men loitered beneath the wall's looming shadow, many their faces cloaked in the ghostly halo of whatever they were smoking. Their bodies huddled beside the exit doors, it gave the impression most if not all were escorted out for not obeying the No Smoking policy in the theaters. Three congregating on the side of the closest to the entrance were passing back and forth what appeared to be cellphone and chuckling about whatever was on its screen. The tallest one who's close-cropped hair and complexion were a deeper gloom than the shadow he stood beneath thumbed something on the liquid crystal screen and smiled. She thought he mouthed the words "...and this one" before smiling to himself.
Sam's arm slipping around her back broke Kasey's attention on the three men if only for a moment.
"Alright honey?" Sam's hand hugged her to him and kissed her cheek.
"Fine. Just.." more than the others, she found herself staring at the man and his two friends. In the halo of light and dark the parking lot formed it was as though someone had swiped over the man with a highlighter pen to emboss his figure standing in the distance, "let's just get inside. We're missing the movie."
Smiling, Sam shook off any strange vibe she'd left him with and they walked together across the lot and over the sidewalk passing the corner of the wall. For a brief moment, Sam on the left and the three men loitering to her right, Kasey found her head turning to look back at them again. Why the impulse came upon her she didn't know. She felt foreboding looking at them and yet, had to see them again a little closer.
Not going unnoticed, the darker of the three men turned to look back at her, his gaze taking a slight detour to take in how her body filled out her sundress before finally meeting her eyes. Though a fleeting moment she gathered two vivid impressions from the man. One, the way the breeze toying with the hem of her skirt turned up the end of his full lips in a smirk, and two, the way his bright green eyes accented his dark face when their eyes met.
Turning away to face the marquette and ticket booth they still hung iridescent in the gloom hauntingly in her thoughts. There was an intensity to the man's glare that made her think of the chemicals used in fireworks to make the flames burn in strange alien hues they never were meant to.
"Two for Nightwatcher" Sam said. After much deliberation they'd decided on the suspense film who's trailer Kasey thought looked spooky from the last time they went out to the movies. Something to do with a happy couple moving into a new home, not realizing there was already someone living inside it.
Grabbing the tickets, Sam smiled to himself, his thoughts taking him an hour into the future, feeling Kasey grip his shirt sleeve, jump in her seat and pull him ever closer with fright. In the same way she'd fallen for the sensitive man but was drawn to his more dominant side he fell for the strong confident woman but found Kasey her sexiest when that strength and certitude was brushed aside for the defenseless girl in need of rescue. Seeing the strong woman frightened into a frail girl was the closest he'd found to a kink and one on occasion she was all too happy to indulge him in to see the nice guy metamorphose into the protective daddy.
Entering the lobby Sam paused and tucking the tickets into his pocket escorted her to the snack bar. A fresh and acne pocked faced kid in red hair smiled dopily back at them from behind the glass concession stand.
"A popcorn and two cokes, anything else honey?" Sam smiled, fingering his wallet in his back pocket.
"Oh, no.. no.. " Kasey smiled. She didn't quite know where her mind was at the moment. She was following the trip from the car past the ticket booth into the lobby like she dropped her keys on the way. As they took their drinks and box of popcorn and stepped away from the concessions stand and toward their theater she heard the doors into the lobby behind her swing open and the for a moment her heart picked up the pace. She thought of the man watching her from the parking lot. There was in her memories now a sneering look as she walked past him. A look that told her how much he liked what he saw.
Kasey descended into the black of the theater. She felt like she was resubmerging herself back into the black night of the outside. Was he waiting for her in there? Or was that him approaching them from behind?
She didn't know whether to grab her husband's hand and race away before that man saw her and stop herself before she walked inside and saw him staring back at her from the darkness. As the doors swung shut behind them and the gloom scaled the walls, floor and ceiling of the corridor she had the briefest moment to look back over her shoulder as the doors were still flung wide enough for a look. Three men stood at the far end of the lobby, one in particularly eerily familiar. She had barely a moment to take a snapshot of the distant figure but he was instantly recognizable and the sudden shift in his posture telegraphed she was just as familiar to him.