10/31/2010

   

From across the bar she could barely see him, the man dressed in a steel gray suit. He almost mixed in the smoke, his black hair and dark brown eyes being her only indications that he was actually there.

But, oh, what an impact they made.

She caught his glance once. Just the once. That's all he gave her. That was all he needed.

Something deep inside of her drew her to him. He hadn't said a word or even given her a sign that he was even interested in something only she had to offer. She just knew he was what she wanted.

Spectre noticed the attraction, for it was he who created it in the first place.

Mind-walking wasn't necessarily an easy thing to do, even though it was a talent that didn't need any special kind of cultivation. It just needed practice, as most things do.

His first mistake was to think he could change someone's mind outright, find the idea and radically change it. It wasn't until he'd accidentally killed someone by way of driving them insane that he realized that he should probably be a bit more subtle in his approach.

So then he only changed small things in small increments. In the case of the sleazy bar crawler with a slightly above average body, it was her attraction to dark eyes. Nothing major. Certainly nothing that someone might take into consideration while weighing someone's validity as a spouse. But it was enough, in his case.

The thin crop of attractive people, both male and female, in the establishment, with the sole exception of a blond man who could have passed as a bronze Ancient Greek statue if he was told to stand still for a few moments, worked in Spectre's favor. All he had to do was give his target a general disdain for hair lighter than her own, an all-encompassing stroke given how dark hers was, and give the Golden Boy with devilishly good looks an insatiable lust for women with strange accents.

The fact that probably the only female stand-up comedian in all of Grazenburg with what could actually have been classified as more of a speech impediment than an accent happened to be the evening's entertainment also worked extremely well in his favor. The fact that she happened to be a good stand-up comedian did not, however. His target seemed to enjoy the show more than the members of the opposite gender in the establishment or the remarkably strong beverage in her hand.

To alleviate this slight inconvenience, Spectre listened in on the comedian's act for a few seconds.

"So dis cow be walkin' roun' like in the field, righ'," she started, giggling to herself about the upcoming punchline throughout. "An' he sees dis otha' cow sittin' thera'. An' he siz, "Owrite mate. You heard 'bout dat Mad Cow disease an tha'? Righ' scary innit?". An' the otha cow he siz... he siz... "Righ', yeah mate. Is righ' scary n' tha'. Make you glad we is squirrels dunnit?""

Despite the almost indecipherable delivery of a joke Spectre had always liked to tell as sort of an icebreaker, the joke hit just about every one of the patrons' funny bones, including Spectre's brunette target. After a bit of pondering, Spectre did a little bit of rummaging around in the comic's mind and convinced her that she had an irrational hatred of minorities.

It didn't take long for her new found racism to work its way into her previously successful act. She followed up her crowd pleaser with a less-than-appreciated remark about the economic stability of black people, much to the chagrin of the large family of at least twenty black people in front of the stage.

Spectre's brunette was having no part of this ignorance and turned her back away from the stage in protest. That was when she caught Spectre's glance. After the ten or so seconds she spent staring deep into his eyes, she found herself moving across the bar towards him. She stood speechless in front of him for a few more seconds before she regained her ability to converse.

"I...I'm..." she started.

"Katelyn," Spectre interrupted, the corner of his mouth coyly rising upwards. "I know, dear. I know."

"How did you..."

"I don't think you'd believe me if I told you, darling."

"I don't know, I've heard some crazy shit," Katelyn protested, clearly not trying to impress Spectre with the breadth of her vocabulary. "The other day some guy told me he had to wrap his dick around his thigh when he wasn't using it. You know the crazy part?" Spectre, thoroughly charmed, shook his head to indicate he had no idea what said 'crazy part' could possibly be. "He actually did."

"Bartender," Spectre called to the clearly overworked man behind the bar after realizing that he was still going to need what amounted to a mild sedation to enjoy the rest of his night. "Strongest thing you've got." The bartender nodded hurriedly. Spectre turned his attention back to the boringly-named Katelyn. "How fascinating."

"So how did you know my name?"

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you I guessed, would you?" Spectre asked, hoping she was stupid enough to say yes. Instead she revealed that she also had an almost unbearably annoying laugh, crushing Spectre's dream of an easy conquest with every high pitched hiccup she let out.

"No, silly."

Spectre's drink arrived just in time. He didn't question as to what was in it. Instead he just gave the bartender the idea that he'd already paid for the potentially lethal concoction and took a sip of it.

"Well," Spectre started, shaking his head in an effort to fight off the remarkably potent kick and almost repulsive taste of the cocktail, "I read your mind and changed your idea of what an attractive man is so you wouldn't take that perfectly adequate body of yours over there to that blond boy toy."

He motioned his hand at the blond he'd dealt with earlier. His once-formidable adversary was now in a heated argument with the group the comic had offended earlier on. The words "girl of my dreams" and "most beautiful thing in the universe" came out of the blond's mouth a few times, confirming that Spectre's efforts had worked their magic.

Katelyn looked at him and laughed again. Spectre took another sip of his drink nonchalantly. Katelyn then realized he wasn't joking.

"You... can control my mind?"

"Oh no, no, no," Spectre scoffed. "Nothing as serious as that. Just individual thoughts. Small things. If I got too ambitious I might damn well kill you."

"You're lying," Katelyn giggled.

"Am I?"

"That's not even possible."

"You want proof?"

"Yeah." Spectre sighed and took another sip of his drink, which was already starting to taste a lot better.

"When you looked over here, across a smoke filled room and saw a man in a gray suit with dark features, you didn't think "That's just some guy" or "No way in hell". You thought "Yes. Yes indeed". Didn't you?" Spectre said in the smoothest of voices. He pulled Katelyn in close and stared into her eyes. "I saw you across that bar and I told you something. Do you know what that was?" Katelyn, her eyes wide in awe, shook her head slowly.

"You want to be bad," Spectre whispered. "You don't know why. You just see this man across the bar and he makes you want to rebel, to strip down to your most primitive form and just go insane. Isn't that right?" Katelyn nodded slowly. "What do you want, Katelyn? What do you want to be?"

"I... I want to be bad," she stuttered. Spectre flashed a smile. A deliciously evil smile. 

"Outside. One minute," he said.

"Why?"

"You're going to be bad," Spectre replied, brushing Katelyn's chin with his thumb. She almost darted away from the bar and through the door to the outside shortly afterward, leaving Spectre alone with his quite possibly radioactive beverage. He downed what was left of it with a swift flick of his wrist. The alcohol didn't take long to slap him across the face just as quickly.

He stood up quickly, buttoning up his suit jacket, and made for the door.

*****

This is a little vignette for a character in what I hope is going to be a well-planned story. If you recognize the name, it's the same character from the story about the Cobbler. I want to say it's called Fiction Friday. Check it for a bit of light reading.

Live well, my homies.