The bar is empty, the venue falling silent a little over half an hour ago.
Humidity hangs in the air to the point that it can almost be tasted glancing over to the main entrance the windows are misted with condensation from the heat within the building compared to the cold dark January night that lays outside.
I look up to Stevie as I hear her heeled footsteps approach. As we catch one another's eyes we don't speak and just offer a simple nod of recognition.
"Agreed," I quietly state.
"No arguments from me," Steve quietly offers by way of response as he stands the other side of the expanse of now disinfected bar from me.
The heeled footsteps grow closer as we both turn to face her as she steps across hard wooden floorboards of the bars floor, heading towards us but with no genuine idea what it is that she heads towards.
The petite blonde had been one of three females in a group of eight, who spent most of the night crowded into a booth in the far corner of the main room since much earlier in the evening. An untypical Friday night drift from the workplace into the City for a night to wind down at the end of a busy week.
In truth she'd not been the girl to catch my eye from the group, her colleague had been far more attractive, dressed better and looking far more alluring in many ways. In truth she was incomparable to the skinny little blonde in the blue loose-fitting dress that now stood before us.
"I... I guess I should get going" she offered on a quiet little voice pushing slightly wavy shoulder length blonde hair behind her ear. "I don't want to outstay my welcome."
"My guess is that someone else stole that taxi of yours," Steve offers without looking up while wiping a smear, that I fail to spot, from the surface of the bar.
"I was trying to call them... the taxi company..." The petite little blonde holds up a blank screen phone, "...Now my batteries dead."
"You're not having much luck, are you?" I keep the smirk from my face as her further predicament only plays into the plans Steve and I had discussed on hushed tones while she'd headed to the ladies restroom.
"You're telling me." She offers clearly exasperated. "I can't even get in touch with my friends now."
My mind flashes to her far more attractive friend once again as I take a step towards the bar stool over which her little navy denim jacket is draped. I consider enquiring further about her but realise to leverage such a conversation would not be easy. The more I consider the petite blonde and think of her colleague and the tight dark red dress she'd been sporting the more, however, I'm convinced that I've seen them both in the bar on previous Friday nights. The two of them with same group of friends come colleagues that she'd let disappear on their separate ways home, dispersing only to leave her to catch a pre booked taxi to a rural location nearly 25 miles from the City. A Taxi that had never arrived.
Picking up the denim jacket I hand it to her, casting my eyes over her tiny frame in the wrap around navy dress that contains a subtle darker shade of navy detail, that in the dim light I can't discern but concur might be a floral print.
"You've very few options," I offer looking to my watch as if to press the point, while I hand her the jacket, noting it's a little after two thirty in the morning. "Taxis will be few and far between... chances are they'll be unlicensed and unsafe .... Don't think you'll be able to find a hotel this late on short notice... and well any local friends aren't an option now."
"I know... I know." she offers a little flustered slipping the jacket over her upper body.
"We're not heartless bastards though are we Steve?" I offer looking to my brother.
"I dunno," is Steve's ignorant and ill-judged response for which I could throttle him, but for which I don't even offer him a sneer in response.
"We're not..." I continue "...it's entirely up to you... if you're comfortable I mean".
Deliberately I struggle to offer up the words, so as to try and appear sincere to her.
"We've ...well we've a spare bed at ours we can offer as opposed to turfing you out on the streets... We only live the other side of the City."
Noting Steve look up towards her as I make my offer. Watching her hazel eyes framed by heavy dusky pink and purple eyeshadow glance from me to Steve and then back to me.
"I... I wouldn't want to impose." she timidly offers.
"It would be no inconvenience to us" I state back, trying not to glance up her thin black nylon clad legs as I speak.
**********
Sat on the three seater sofa a little after three thirty in the morning I watch her.
Gemma, Gemma who's surname I can't even recall now. With her hair now pulled back into a pony tails she kneels before the glass topped coffee table as her head smoothly rolls from left to right as she inhales a thick line of cocaine from the surface of the table.
The class A drugs part of a batch that Steve and I had recently confiscated from a Weasley faced baseball cap wearing little shit under false pretences, having spotted him pushing the little packets of drugs in the bar a few weeks previous. I can't stand the stuff, or any drugs for that matter given how they either dull or over heighten the senses and only ultimately rot the brain. I've inhaled a line of the cocaine tonight to serve a purpose, to lure Gemma in. It's not really my style.
Glancing to Steve who sits opposite her in the single seat sofa as he lights up his second heavily loaded cannabis spliff he offers me a knowing smirk.
"Shit," Gemma offers dropping the rolled note on the table as she no doubt feels the burn of the drugs in her nasal passage. "Oh fucking... of fuck that stuffs strong."
"Here..." I offer passing her a glass of nearly neat vodka, "... this'll help with the taste in the back of your mouth."
Gemma grasps the glass and sinks back the potent clear liquid. Coughing and spluttering as she does.
"It's this that's supposed to make you choke" Steve states while leaning forward and offering the orange glowing tipped hand rolled cigarette to her,
Gemma takes the joint from him and takes a long inhale, a long inhale she copes better with than she has the Vodka and Cocaine. The plan to get her wasted is working perfectly I consider as she rests back on her haunches and blows a thick cloud of smoke towards the ceiling.
Taking a second deep lungful as she clumsily rises on to her feet. Stumbling a little in the heel of her square heeled ankle boots. Gemma makes to pass me the joint as she unsteadily steps towards me.
"You alright there?" Stevie enquires.
"Yeah I just..." Gemma offers, the colour a little drained from her face, while exhaling the latest plume of pungent smelling smoke into my face while holding out the spliff towards me "... I think... I just need the little girl's room."
Taking the hand rolled cigarette from her extended hand I look into her dilated eyes, "Door at the end of the corridor... you'll probably need to put the seat down."
Gemma misses my sarcastic comment as her eye-line focussed towards the direction I nod my head. She stumbles away crossing the living room with very little grace, I keep watching as she lurches forward and clutches the breakfast bar counter top for support, muttering to herself inaudibly.
"Think she's about ripe," Steve offers from behind me.
"Think you're right Bruv," I reply without looking back to him. "Stay put for a bit though... let me be the judge."
Clambering up off the creaking sofa I follow in the direction Gemma had headed, hearing her manage to lock the bathroom door before I hear her heavily moving about in the bathroom even before I slip into the corridor that's only illuminated by the dim light that spills out of the combined living room and kitchen area.
I lean my right shoulder to the wall of the corridor as I face the closed bathroom door. I wait, I take a deep breath to compose myself running through scenarios in my mind.
Within a minute I hear the flush of the toilets cistern and Gemma fumble once again with the lock to the door. Framed by the stark light behind her that bathes the hallway as she looks up a little startled to see me.
"Oh um hey," she offers a little surprised by my presence as she steps, still uneasy on her heels, into the corridor lined with three closed doors that lead to Steve's room, my own room and the smaller spare bedroom.
"You alright?" I offer with my best attempt at a sincere smile.
"Yeah... uh yes... I..." the combination of vodka, cocaine and cannabis clearly effects the very petite blonde as she sways, extending her left hand to support herself against the corridor wall, "I..I think I need to ...I'm sorry I need to get my head down."
"It's alright..." I offer, "...let me show you to your room."
Stepping closer I take her upper right arm in a gentle grip. Helping her forward one foot hesitantly in front of the other as I guide her towards the door to her left.
Lowering the door handle I let the door swing open to reveal the stripped back bed. In her inebriated state she fails to recognise or even focus on the four leather cuffs attached to thick black nylon ropes that lay across the floor tied at each end to the metal frame of the bed.
As we both step into the room, I keep her in my grip as I push the door closed behind us. I strike quick pulling her back towards me, her frail body crashes against mine wrapping my arms around Gemma's painfully thin frame I turn her and press her back to the now closed door hearing it latch as our combined body weights press against it.
