A second man was following her.
She caught a glimpse of him leaning against the airport’s bar, with his back to the bartender. It was difficult to explain how she identified her gang of stalkers, but it had something to do with their sunken faces— blank and skull-like, their eyes falling back into their sockets. The faces of hired killers.
Once Penelope had noticed the first man—the one who followed her from the baggage weighing station— it was only a matter of time before she realized that she was going to have some difficulty boarding her plane… Not without some frightening stranger’s unwanted interruption.
Penelope gripped her carry-on bag under her armpit and kept walking. She knew exactly where her terminal was found, despite her frequent glances toward her paper ticket’s information. Any confusion or confidence about where her plane might be located was an act. She already knew she wasn’t getting on her flight. Still, she wanted the men following her to believe she intended to board— fooling them for as long as possible, giving herself more time to think up a way to escape.
Do they know that I notice them? She wondered. Or are these professional stalkers so confident in their skillset, they believe me to be completely unaware?
Penelope had to hand it to these goons. They were incredibly discrete. And the airport was so crowded, it would be impossible for the men to approach her without making a scene. She could see her departing plane’s gate, which looked like the barrel of a loaded cannon. If she hoisted out her ticket and walked through the gate, she would surely be obliterated into a meaty and sand-like cloud. If not right away… then eventually. Because during her time visiting this horrible city, she crossed the wrong person. Someone she should have known better not to betray…
Since Penelope knew who hired these stalkers who followed her through the airport, she could be assumed that these trained killers knew her full name: Ms. Penelope Tall. The famed escort. The woman who could give you the whole world, by the hour. Indescribable periods of intense pleasure, divided up into each slight turn of the planet’s surface. And since her stalkers knew this, assuming they were hired by the man that Penelope chose to crossed, the men also knew what city Ms. Tall called home— the city she would be headed toward, if she were foolish enough to board her purchased seat on the plane.
Penelope ducked beneath the endless heads and shoulders of the airport’s moving crowd, squatting to peek between the parade of legs. She opened her bag, ensuring that what she’d stolen was still in her possession. She felt the notebook’s metal spiral with her finger. A 13-subject notebook. Very rare in the office supply world. It looked more like a square cube than a notebook, but she was certain that there was writing inside it. She ran her fingers along the tightly stacked pages, knowing that whatever was written inside them would need to be read in private, to avoid causing a scene with whatever emotional reaction the words might cause in her.
Penelope had slept with the notebook’s author four times in the last eight hours. All four experiences were a pornographic fever dream— transcending her mind into a deep euphoric trance. And during the last of her orgasms, she remembered a sudden feeling of surprise. As though she had been jolted awake. Her own nasally breath sounded alien to her ears, as though they belonged to a stranger. She wondered if she had somehow awoken on her wedding night— a sound like an open palm smacking against the surface of a pool. The poet’s king-sized mattress bouncing rhythmically, as her ankles hung heavily, her calves bouncing above her lover’s thrusting hips.
In the airport Penelope felt the notebook again. She wondered if her erotic euphoria was what drove her to this petty theft, her marathon of orgasming again and again, which might have caused her to act criminally. As though she might have been hypnotized into stealing the one item that she knew no one else had access to. The 13-subject notebook, and all its handwritten verse. Could it be that I’m still dreaming? She thought to herself, peering between the crowd of walking legs, trying to glimpse whether her stalker was still stationed at the bar.
If Penelope Tall had hidden a camera in the living room of the poet she had stolen from, she would have seen him pacing angrily and talking on his phone. Shirtless and enraged, his massive muscles brushed the edges of each doorframe as he walked from room to room. He looked like a human bazooka. His jaws clenched like the president of the sexiest planet an astronaut could ever discover.
“Did you find her?” he said, gripping his cellphone in his knuckles. Hairline cracks stretched across its screen like broken ice. If Nate Hoil’s fist closed any tighter, the device would explode in his hand. The voice on the other end of the line sounded fearful of being crushed alive.
“No, Mr. Hoil,” the timid goon said from the airport. “We lost her in the airport’s crowd.”
Upon hearing this, Nate Hoil let out a guttural scream, hurling his phone into one of his many original Renaissance paintings. The device drilled through the frame easily, embedding itself in the drywall behind it. This rage would not settle until he got his notebook back. If he had known that sly and mischievous Penelope Tall would steal his latest manuscript, he would have left her sitting alone in the downtown bar.
Unfortunately, since Penelope Tall hadn’t placed cameras in her recent lover’s home, she had no visuals of any of this. Therefore, she could only imagine what might be happening in Nate Hoil’s mansion, and whatever events had taken place there after she fled.
Exiting the airport, toward the parking garage, her fear of being followed grew smaller with each step. Across the lot, Penelope found a plain-looking sedan, whose owner had failed to lock the driver’s side door. She climbed in and hotwired the engine, a flicker of boredom creeping over her face as she listened for the engine to rumble. The car started up like magic. A small victory. For all she knew, Nate Hoil could have a connection to every taxi and bus driver in the city. He was, after all, the greatest and most powerful writer to have ever walked this Earth. And a man like that undoubtably has eyes all over the city. Driving cautiously, Penelope slowed and cursed at the exit’s meter, sliding a five-dollar-bill in its slot.
***
Twenty minutes from the airport, Benjamin Moses sat at a hotel bar. The place was mostly empty aside from a group of quiet twenty-year-olds in the corner booth and a depressed looking man sitting on a barstool. Benjamin Moses noticed the group of twenty-year-olds immediately, but he could not see the depressed-looking man… because the depressed-looking man was himself.
Ben stared into his glass of melting ice, looking as though the frozen cubes were the polar ice caps. He tilted his head backward, letting out another painful moan. He was convinced that a few hours ago he had just ruined his career.
“I feel ya, buddy…” the bartender agreed, although Benjamin very much doubted it. No matter what had happened to the bartender in his entire life, there was no way his day could compare to Benjamin’s disaster of a morning.
“You don’t have a goddamn clue,” Benjamin scowled. Or perhaps he only thought the phrase, as the bartender continued to stare blankly over the top of Benjamin’s slouched and tired posture. Three hours ago, Benjamin had lost his companies biggest client—a horrible misunderstanding which involved a flirting secretary whom also happened to be the company CEO’s girlfriend. “Well, what about your wife?” Benjamin had asked, having met the client’s life partner at a baseball game this past Summer. “Why do you get two, while your wife and your girlfriend only get you?” This last part came off a little harsh. Benjamin would reflect on the word choice, wishing that he had said ‘Why do they only get ONE…’ instead of saying ‘why do they only get YOU.’
On his barstool, Benjamin’s ruminations on the scene were cut short with a startling crash, as a pint glass slipped from the bartender’s hand, shattering into three jagged pieces across the wooden surface of the bar.
“Ho— Ly— Jesus!” the bartender whistled, his eyes looking like two smoldering bullet holes, staring rudely at whoever entered the front door. Benjamin didn’t care to follow his gaze. He simply didn’t have the energy for it. In fact, it took all the strength in Benjamin’s body not to tilt his head backward and groan again.
“Sweet Jesus, I was hoping you’d sit at my bar,” the bartender flirted, as this new mysterious customer took a seat at the barstool next to Benjamin.
“Shut up,” a voice snapped. “Give me something I can drink quickly.” Now for the first time since Benjamin arrived, his attention shifted away from his own narcissistic self-loathing. He didn’t turn to look at the woman sitting beside him. For some reason, which he didn’t understand, he simply couldn’t bring himself to turn his head. As though a magnetic anxiety had forced his skull away from the voice, forcing him to stare dead ahead.
The bartender returned with a shot glass filled generously with something clear. Out the corner of his eye, Benjamin watched a slender hand reach and remove the glass from the bar. The hand moved in a way that frightened him. As though its quick precision might be capable of punching holes through flesh and bone. “What’s his problem?” the voice beside him grumbled.
“You know how it goes,” the bartender said. The vagueness irritated Benjamin. It felt as though the bartender was trying to include himself in Benjamin’s horrible feelings of failure and defeat. There was no way on Earth this man standing before them could possibly have earned such a painful entitlement.
“How does it go, pal?” the voice beside him asked. This time, the person which the words were intended was undeniable. Not the bartender. Not the group of strangers in the corner booth. The woman on the barstool next to him was speaking directly to Benjamin Moses. Now he had no choice but to face this magnetic specimen, so stunning that she made the bartender’s glass slip right out of his hand.
Benjamin sighed, a pathetic sound which lasted longer than he had planned. It felt as though he had to clench his jaw in order to prevent the sigh from turning into a groan. “What are you asking me?” he said, annoyed. From the look on his barstool neighbor’s face, this stranger seemed surprised that Benjamin hadn’t knocked over his own glass just like the bartender had. Instead, Benjamin just met her gaze, wondering if this unknown woman might ruin his life just like his client’s secretary had a few hours ago… In Penelope Tall’s defense, Benjamin Moses was the first man in a very long time who hadn’t gawked at the sight of her. It was normal for men to lose track of their conversations whenever Penelope entered a room. In fact, if Penelope entered a bar or business, and wasn’t met with a sudden silence, she would wonder whether she was doing something wrong. The male gaze had become expected.
“That tasted like shit,” Penelope told the bartender, pushing the empty shot glass away from her. The glass glided smoothly, teetering on the ledge of the bar. “Give me something different. And I’m not paying for that last one.”
The bartender nodded, not saying a word. Perhaps he sensed some sort of chemistry developing between the two customers in front of him. Benjamin on the other hand had returned to his slumped and pathetic pose. Penelope studied him, watching his mouth hang open like a sleeping dog. She knew that she couldn’t stay in this bar for long… Not with Nate Hoil’s goons out there searching for her. When the bartender returned with a different drink, she caught it in her fingers without looking.
“Do you have a room here?” she asked Benjamin, who had begun to breath heavily through his nose. Her drinking buddy seemed unresponsive to her question. The bartender, on the other hand, did not let the question go unnoticed. From the way his eyes darted from Benjamin to Penelope’s he may as well have been Benjamin’s oldest friend. “Great Jesus, buddy!” the bartender cried. “Did you not just hear this lovely lady’s quest–?”
“Go away,” Penelope interrupted.
Benjamin’s eyes seemed to come back into focus slowly. He turned to Penelope, giving her an emotionless glance. If Penelope weren’t already using Benjamin for her own safety, his indifference toward her might have actually made her angry.
“I have one,” Benjamin said, his voice sounding strangely thoughtful in contrast with his blank expression. “But I think I’ll just stay down here a while. I don’t want to go sit by myself right now.”
“How much did you serve him?” Penelope asked the bartender.
“Only one drink, I think…” the bartender frowned. But looking at Benjamin, the number didn’t seem right. “He said he had just come from work,” the bartender added.
“Hey!” Penelope snapped her fingers a foot or so away from Benjamin’s face. “I am asking you to take me to your rooooom.” She wanted to look over her shoulder at the hotel’s entrance, but worried that the gesture might come off as suspicious. She was certain that the door would make a noise if anyone walked through it. A noise had happened when she entered this space, hadn’t it?
“I don’t think that I’d be all that fun right now,” Benjamin said. “I have had a very difficult morning.” Penelope wanted to tell him that she could relate. Instead, she reached out and took his hand in her own.
“We could talk about it,” she smiled at him. “Let’s just go up and talk.” Keeping her eyes locked on her target, Penelope tried not to flinch as the sound of the hotel’s opening doors reached her ears. The busy streets outside became more audible, as someone unidentifiable entered the building on foot.
“Howdy,” the bartender said to his new customer. “How goes it, Sport?”
If Penelope’s eyes could turn all the way around in her skull, she would do so now, in order to catch the slightest glimpse on the new customer. Her ears stretched impatiently, begging to hear what this new arrival might say to the quiet barroom first.
***
In his home office room, Nate Hoil stared at a new notebook. A weak little three-subject. The pages were blank and haunting, as if mocking phrases appeared and disappeared within the notebook’s empty lines. He tried to remember something… Anything… which he might have written in his old notebook— the one which the horrible Penelope Tall stole from him. Gripping the notebook by the spiral, his knuckles became white and painful. He hurled the notebook angrily, smacking a lamp off the corner table. The lamp tumbled down with a crash.
“They have to find her,” Nate Hoil growled. “They simply must…” But after crunching his cellphone in his fist earlier, he could not get ahold of any of his tactical goons. He mourned letting Penelope Tall into his home. He should have just left her there at the bar, legs crossed and swirling her drink like a squishy little magnet. He had never met such a regrettable demoness in his entire life.
If Penelope Tall had indeed hidden a camera in Nate Hoil’s home office, she would have leaned in closer to her computer’s monitor in order to see whether he was weeping. Droplets of tears dribbled across his empty notebook, some of them powerful enough to soak through ten or twelve pages. Upon seeing these tears, and the places they fall, she would have wanted to steal this new notebook as well.
Lucky for Nate Hoil, Penelope did not have such a camera placed inside the office. Instead of squinting her eyes close to this imagined screen, she sat holding her breath at the hotel bar, trying to persuade a blubbering moron into taking her up to the safety of his room. “Woe is me,” Benjamin Moses said, his face drooped upon the bar beside her. Watching as Benjamin buried his face into the crook of his elbow, Penelope was certain that she had never heard anyone say the phrase Woe is me sincerely.
Not until now.
Not until this pathetic little man cursed her with his inconvenient presence.
***
By the time Penelope convinced Benjamin to bring her to his room, the faceless stranger sitting beside them at the bar had already come and gone. The stranger hardly said a word. In fact, after a minute or two, Penelope had quit worrying about this sudden barstool drinker’s appearance all together. As for Benjamin on the other hand, the President of the United States could have sat down next to him and he hardly would have batted an eye. It wasn’t until Penelope grabbed Benjamin by the arm, insisting that it was time for him to go to bed, that she was finally able to lead him up to his room, scanning his room’s keycard and dropping him backward across the room’s king-sized bed.
“Are we going to have sex?” she heard Benjamin grumble. The words made her want to strangle him. Perhaps the only thing stopping her from doing so lay in the fact that she didn’t want to look at him any longer.
“Go to sleep,” she said flatly. Now her fingers felt for the notebook in her purse. She wanted so badly to open the notebook, but the noise it made might have only prolonged her more responsible interest of hearing Benjamin begin to snore. She tried to control her breath, inhaling and exhaling as quietly as possible. She continued to do so for several minutes, until a sharp snort sounded from across the room, followed by the heavy tired breaths of a man who might sleep for days. Smoothly, Penelope withdrew the notebook, letting it fall open to a random page. She began to read the rough handwriting as best she could in the room’s dim light. Before she turned one single page, she found herself biting her knuckle to keep from crying.
“You son of a bitch…” she whispered, hugging the notebook against her chest. “You’ve really done it this time, haven’t you.” Outside her hotel window, the sun would set soon. The stars would show up, and way out there among them, the sexiest planet in the solar system would be grinning down upon Penelope Tall, watching her turn page after page, deciphering the greatest poet on Earth’s handwriting.
***
After a few months, Nate Hoil had forgotten about his stolen notebook. It wasn’t the first notebook he had written in, and it was never going to be the last—not by a long shot. The hazy memories of that notebook’s sentences might somehow seep into new pages. And if they didn’t, were they really supposed to be remembered in the first place? In fact, if someone pointed a security camera across the patio of Nate Hoil’s swimming pool, they would see that he had completely forgotten about the notebook entirely. Craft beer in hand, he stood just above the surface of the pool. He watched adoringly as two world-famous ballerinas swam circles in the water, encouraging him to jump.
“I’ll be back,” he smiled, leaving them to groan in disappointment. His feet patted through his summer home’s sliding glass door, across the tile hallway, and to the front entrance where the mailman had recently stuffed a stack of envelopes through the mail slot. Three letters glided across the tile in a fanning triangle. Nate Hoil slowed to reach down and pick them off the floor. The letters were exactly what he expected: Junk mail… Junk mail…
Pausing at the third envelope, he felt lucky that the handwriting upon it’s white paper caught his eye. If the address had been typed out, he likely would have shuffled the envelope into a stack with the others. Instead, the curling green lettering which drew out his name made the writer’s eyes widen. A beautiful handwriting—almost too beautiful. He could hear vague splashes coming from the pool behind him. He considered going into the other room, suspicious that whatever might be found inside this envelope might be best kept to himself. The flap of the envelope tore free beneath his thumb. He widened its insides, removing whatever was inside it… And gasped.
There it was…
His forgotten notebook. Or rather, a photograph of the notebook. He was so shocked to be reminded of it, the green painted finger nails clutching the cover so tightly. The cover seemed to be put on… backwards? He let the mysterious envelope drifted to the hallway floor like a fallen leaf, as he held the photograph closer to his eyes. His hands shook as he studied it, the notebook and the fingernails, soon realizing that the notebook had been photographed in a mirror. Presented toward the mirror’s glass, a blinding flash from the camera’s light shining across the mirror like a blazing sun. His eyes darted back and forth, studying the image for clues. But the only clues he found was a simple silhouette. A seductive curve hovering behind the notebook’s presented reflection.
“Oh God…” he stammered, flipping the photograph over. He begged that there might be some sort of note on the back. The photograph split in half, revealing a second snapshot stuck to the back of the first. Hands still shaking, he pulled the images apart. He could hardly bring himself to turn the second image, already knowing what tormenting demoness he would find on the developed image’s opposite side.
“Oh God….” He groaned louder. He wanted so badly to drop both photographs and run right out the front door. In the second image’s stillness, he locked eyes with her face. She seemed to bully him, to beg for him to say her name. Although her lips didn’t move, fallen slack in a primal snarl, Penelope Tall seemed to howl out despite her captured motionlessness. The covers of the notebook lay open like a butterfly, the spiral drooping across her bare chest, as she sprawled across a jumble of satin sheets. Her knees fell inward against each other and for a moment he believed he saw her muscles flex. He felt that he could hear her… In the same rude and unapologetic way she had, as though she had suddenly found herself hanging from the ledge of a cliff.
He knew there was no way of finding her. Even if he learned where this bed might be located, there was no way she was still there at this point. She was probably in a different country by now. Or perhaps these pictures were already taken in a different country, and he was two countries behind her instead of one. Maybe Penelope Tall had managed to hitch a ride to another planet. To another solar system. To another time entirely. The future or the past. And if she had managed to do so, how could he possibly know the difference?
What could Nate Hoil do, except stand before his doorway and stare down longingly into the photographs that stayed trembling in his hand? He shuffled the two photographs neatly, so their corners were stacked and even. The pool had fallen silent behind him.
“I’ll be right out,” he called backward, toward the open sliding doors to the swimming pool. He waited for an answer. There was none. Squatting down to pick the handwritten envelope off the floor, he examined the writing again. There was no postage stamp on it. Someone else was about to betray him.
Nate Hoil is an accomplished writer and editor, particularly active in the US literary scene. His most notable published collection, 24 Hour Monologue, consolidates his earlier works and has received positive acclaim from readers. He is also responsible for Secret Restaurant Press.
High Horse 