Soda Pop Soldier by Nick Cole

Author:Nick Cole
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780062210234
Published: 2014-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 17

I survive the bouncers.

They don’t kill me, beat me, or kick my teeth in. Don’t get me wrong, it’s still a frightening experience. Human beings just shy of full gorilla strength, hypertrained in the latest hand-to-hand combat techniques with more ways to maim, wound, and kill than the programmers of online worlds can imagine, are frightening. Especially when they’re standing right in front of you. But I pass. I’m on the list. I wonder if Sancerré will be here.

I’m sick that way.

There’ve been a lot of coincidences lately, I wouldn’t be surprised.

In the main room I find a low hanging ceiling with polished oak beams, trench tables, and überboobed courtesans in stockings and lace serving the elite. It’s someone’s vision of a seventeenth-century gentlemen’s club, but with models for serving wenches who drew the line at showing too much flesh just so they could step over it. I hear passing bits of dialogue that seem straight out of one of Sancerré’s period piece entertainments: dukes and duchesses, that sort of thing, all of it delivered in Olde English and nonsensical cockney by epically hot women. I can’t even imagine where to get a drink, but I know I need one. Regardless of the pass, I’m out of my element. A drink will do me wonders, or so I delude myself.

A slender, top-heavy brunette in pale lace approaches me, smiling hungrily through full lips and perfect teeth.

“Wouldst thou care for a foot rub, sire?” she lilts in a purr, emphasis on “rub.”

I say something.

I think I ask her what her name is.

“Tatiana,” she tells me. Tatiana. Is that her real name? . . . and do I care? I command my mind to think of something witty to say, but my brain refuses and screams for chemicals like booze and nicotine to hide behind.

“Perhaps sire feels the need for something . . . other?” she suggests, coquettish emphasis on “need.”

“Scotch,” I whisper though clenched teeth.

“Of course, sire.” She snaps her fingers crisply, and with the voice of a bawd, cries, “Hastings, one scotch for the master.”

Her hands rest atop shapely hips beneath a slender waist. Long legs end in perilous heels and dainty feet. These are the things I focus on to prevent myself from looking at her immense chest, long neck, perfect teeth, beautiful face. Et cetera, et cetera.

If I am uncomfortable, it shows.

She, on the other hand, is used to being admired, on display, desired.

Hastings, a liveried butler type, appears with scotch in a cut-crystal decanter and a matching glass atop a silver platter. Hastings pours and I grab for it as the tray wavers from my clumsy assault.

And the scotch is gone.

I’d planned to sip. Deftly, smoothly. Like some spy in a SoftPlay, but I guzzle like a man found recently crawling across the desert.

I feel a little more solid. Something witty will come. I’m almost sure of it.

I look into her eyes with every intention of playing it cool. Her long lashes flutter almost imperceptibly, and I wonder how they flutter in other moments, passionate ones, and before I know it, I’m gone.

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