INSTRUMENTAL SANCTUARY 2.2

Two am was turning out time, and by then, the crowd had thinned some. The lights came on, and the music stopped. Herded, along with the masses, towards the cloakroom and exit, my night out was coming to an end.

The cool nighttime air was refreshing when it hit my face but chilled my back enough for me to pull on my jacket. I contemplated calling a taxi, but checking how much money I had left on me; it turned out that my options were either to take the late bus with all the crazies or walk back to my flat.

Having decided on the latter, I started my jaunt home only to be startled to a stop when bright white lights captured me in their beams. Idiotically, I'd stepped out to cross a side street without looking for traffic first. I was saved, and silently, I thanked my lucky stars when I heard the vehicle's brakes screech. The vehicle ground to a halt, and I froze too.

Though I couldn't see the driver past the glare of the headlights, I put up my hand in surrender as a gesture of gratitude for not mowing me down. Mortifyingly embarrassed, I hurried off the road and back onto the pavement, hoping that that would be the end of it. By that point, I'd had enough drama for one night. If being abandoned by my girlfriends to narrowly escaping having my drink spiked or becoming roadkill had not bruised my resolve, then realising that I was probably going home to another sleepless night did. I hadn't been alone in my head for ten minutes, and I could already feel my niggling anxiety creeping up from the murky depths of my brain to haunt me.

Lost in thoughts of self-pity, I was stunned back into reality by a honking car horn.

Fuckin' hell, what now?

My grey eyes shot wide open at the black saloon which had pulled up to the curb next to me. The window was already down, so I ducked to peer through the void the glass left and found the driver leaning over the passenger seat to look at me too.

“Do you want a lift somewhere?”

As if the night could’ve gotten any weirder - the hot, blond-haired bartender was inviting me into his car.

“Before you take me for a total creep, look behind you. You’re being followed.” He explained.

Cautious of words, I glanced back towards the Omen, and sure enough, I spotted Mr Drink spiker and his seedy wingman loitering a few yards behind me.

So that my anxiety didn’t rear its ugly head, before I could fully compute it, I'd opted to get into a total stranger’s car and reached for the door handle.

The moment the door clunked closed behind me, and I found myself immersed in the passenger seat, I made the conscious decision that I wasn't going to look at him. Instead, I stared ahead at the dashboard and wrapped my jacket around my bare stomach tighter. Despite my height, I huddled down and dug my hands deeper into the front pockets, trying to look as unassuming as possible.

My decision not to look at him quickly went out of the window when I felt his eyes on me. Glancing his way as he pulled away from the curb into a slow stream of traffic. He had smirked at me, and the look was still on his face. Perhaps he thought my posture was amusing?

“So, where am I taking you?”

“I’m not telling you where I live.” I blurted.

“Alright. Is there somewhere I can drop you off near yours then?” He reasoned as he pulled up to a red light. “Unless… You want to come to mine?” Trying his chances, he shot me another look; a raised eyebrow and a charming lopsided half-smile. It was disarming, but I could tell he was trying to weigh me up.

“What?” I couldn’t help the expression of shock that widened my eyes and left my lips agape. “A-are you making a pass at me?” I asked but instantly regretted it, assuming that, of course, the answer would be no.

Why would he be making a pass at me?

“Yeah.” He said calmly and pulled off from the traffic lights as soon as the signal changed. He was still waiting for the green light from me.

For a few minutes, we drove in silence, save for the car radio, which played on low volume. I deliberated my options. I considered telling him ‘thanks but no thanks’ and request he drop me off at the corner shop near my block of flats, but then as I watched him grasp the joystick to shift gears, I realised I had already decided he had safe-looking hands. The slight flinching of his long, nimble fingers made the tendons in the back of his hand dance through his skin amidst his slightly raised veins. It left me with the notion that he was a strong, capable man as well as handsome.

Hmm, wonder if he's good with his hands? Gnawing the inside of my lip.

Regardless of how it pained me to admit that I had been starved of any male touch since my ex left me, if I was frank, the last few months of our relationship had lacked passion and physicality. It was no wonder he had decided to call it a day.

Those few long and lonely months had propagated a certain amount of desperation in me. With that in mind, I shouldn't have been surprised that when I watched the stranger retract his hand from the gearstick to rest it on his thigh, my imagination ran wild - picturing all the places he could touch me, in all the places I craved to be.

In the darkness of the car, I blushed and reached out from my jacket pocket to rub over the back of my neck, which suddenly felt hot.

“Okay.” I heard myself mutter before I could stop the word from tumbling out of my mouth. It was as if my body had answered for me and left my mind to stumble its way through, making excuses to my conscience.

One-night stands were not usually my thing. There always seemed to be something shameful about casual hookups, so I never sought them out. Perhaps it was because my parents were happily married and had always preached that one was safest in the confines of a loving and committed relationship. One-night stands were dangerous and for the daredevils of the world. It seemed they weren't meant for the likes of me, who tended to look away from life’s uglier truths like a coward. I was someone indifferent to being situated in the neatly labelled box society had put me in, but nevertheless, I was what people called; a good girl. Although that by no means defined me entirely, because I wasn't faint of heart, I certainly wasn't one to push my boundaries either.

With my answer in his ear, the stranger shot me another lop-sided smirk that lured my inner goddess, the yearning sensation that caused my inner thighs to twitch was unmistakable.

My heart started pounding as the weight of what I had agreed to dawned on me. There was no way he was inviting me to his place to play Scrabble and drink green tea, that was for sure. He had admitted he was hitting on me. He was brazen-faced yet simultaneously gentlemanly. That kind of confidence made him more attractive, somehow.

The moment I had accepted his advance, he turned down a side street to do a U-turn before pulling back onto the main road. We started to head back towards the club though we didn’t make it all the way back to the Omen before he took a left turn.

When we arrived at a small multi-story carpark, I took a good look around. I was glad that he hadn’t driven me to some abandoned building on an industrial estate - the kind of desolate location you hear about in the news after a dead body’s discovered. It wasn’t too far from the Omen, so I was slightly relieved to realise I knew the neighbourhood.

It was a nicer area than where I lived. Looking up at the signage by the entrance, I admired the edifice of the upmarket block of flats. They'd been renovated from the skeleton of a nineteenth-century building that had once been a printing house.

He put down his window and tapped in the passcode for the security barrier before we drove under the cover of the basement floor. Spinning the steering wheel with just the butt of his palm, he reversed at speed into a free parking space and cut the engine.

The tension and my nerves were mounting.

Silently, we each got out of the car. That was when I became aware of his height. He had to be at least six feet tall. I recall thinking it was refreshing to feel feminised by a man’s stature for once instead of feeling freakishly tall. I can't say that my body language was remotely confident as I followed the stranger towards the stairwell and up to two flights of winding steps. Perhaps I looked as if I were being led to my death...

Eventually, he let us in through a code-locked door, and by then, I had already made sure to take in my surroundings and commit an escape route to memory just in case things went awry. The corridor we stepped onto spoke to the modern design of the apartments the building provided, and when we arrived at his place, the decor of his home's entryway confirmed my thoughts.

It was dark but not pitch black. I could see a large wall of glass across the lounge that made one vast window - an eye to the city urbanscape beyond. The maze of yellow and orange street lights stretched towards the horizon for miles. I’d never seen the city from this high up or at night. The landscape of urban beauty distracted me from my situation.

Breathtaking.