Chapter III: Meetings

Chapter III: Meetings

The first thing that she realized was that Norma was no longer lying next to her. “Probably went to get some more food, the little glutton.” Emily kept her eyes closed and tried to fall back asleep. It was then that she noticed that familiar tingling sensation on her arms and cheeks that meant that someone was watching her. She recognized the burning feeling form when Mr. Markovic was staring at her while she was pretending not to notice. She opened one eyelid and stared into the black room. “Nope, nothing there. You’re just going insane from all of the mystery suspense movies that you watch all the time. You definitely need to find a new addiction, because this one messes with your mind too much.” Exhaling from relief, she closed her eye and started to feel relaxed again.

Then she felt a hand clamped tightly over her mouth.

She tried to scream, her eyes wide and fearful, but the hand was pressing so hard onto her mouth that she could hardly breathe, let alone emit sound. She tried flailing her arms to get him off of her, but he was so much stronger than her. Her head was getting pushed into the mattress from the force behind the hand, and she was starting to get lightheaded.

The smell from him was so overwhelming, but it was vaguely familiar, almost minty. She would like the smell if it didn’t belong to a stranger who was wrestling wither her while she tried to stay conscious. The lack of oxygen in her lungs made everything go fuzzy, and she was no longer resisting so much. her last attempt to fight back was her hand weakly hitting the intruders arm.

Eventually, everything went dark, as if she was falling asleep, but she knew that was worse than any nightmare she’d ever had.

-x-x-x-x-x-x-

“Hello, how may I help you?” he smiled at the customer standing in front of his counter. She smiled and looked a little embarrassed. “uh, yea, hi. Um,” She paused, trying to find the right words. “My boyfriend said that he loved exotic smells, so I wanted to go out and buy myself some perfume for him, you know, surprise him. But honestly, I have no idea where to start or what to smell like. Do you think that you could, you know, maybe help me?”

He just looked at her, and she couldn’t quite decipher his expression. It was like she reminded him of someone. He didn’t answer back, so she figured it would be best to continue talking until he came back to earth. “Right, you knoe, I figured that maybe because you’re a guy, you might know some smells that guys like, so I wouldn’t be so far form the right idea…” She trailed off, looking at him, waiting for a reaction.

“What? Oh, of course!” he responded with a gleeful smile. Emily smiles back, grateful that she had finally found someone male who was willing to help her figure out what the hell she was trying to do.

“My God, she’s just like Anna. Same smile, same embarrassed curiosity. She could be her twin.” Happy thoughts and memories of his days with Anna swirled through his head while he helped this new girl out.

“Ok, first off, you said he likes exotic smells, correct?”

“correct.”

“What kind of exotic smells?”

She looked completely confused but the question ‘I don’t understand…”

“I mean, is it like exotic fruits? or is it exotic plants? does ‘exotix’ mean from a tropical place, form the middle-eastern desert? Africa, or in Asia?”

She looked as if she had just realized how far in over her head she was.

“I’m so sorry, I don’t even know how to start answering any of those questions. He just said ‘exotic’, he never exactly specified.”

Her expression changed from crestfallen to a case of serious depression..

“Hey, hey, it’s ok. Don’t worry, we’ll find something that he’ll love. What’s your name?”

“Emily.”

“Emily, that’s lovely. Now Emily, what were you two talking about when he mentioned exotic smells?”

He looked truly concerned, like he actually cared about what perfume she was going to buy from him.

“Right, well, we had just finished watching this one foreign film made in India, we borrowed it from his friend. We started talking about how we would love to travel, and where we would love to travel to. The first thing he said was that he’d love to smell so many exotic smells, he never specified.”

He smiled at her, “Hold on, I know the perfect thing.”

She looked confused while he went over to one of the many counters and dug around until he came up with a tiny red ‘test’ bottle labeled ‘Indian Ink.’

“Just smell this and tell me what you think. I think it suits you.”

She leaned in closer, obviously unaware of the effect she had on him.

“My god!” She said, smelling the fumes emanating from the vial. “you’re a genius! It’s perfect! I know he’ll love it. Thank you so much!” She jumped at him and gave him a hug, at the same time, inadvertently smelling his minty perfume.

Little did she know that he was doing the exact same, and she was completely unaware at what it was doing to him.

He stoode there in somplete shock when she jumped on him, at first anyway. he wrapped his arms around her back as what appeared to be a friendly gesture, but inside he just wanted to hold her next to him. he could tell that the fumes of her shampoo were still in her hair, so she must have washed it earlier that morning, and her jean jacket smelled fresh and clean. in fact, it smelled exactly like the same detergent he used for his own clothes. “we’re a perfect pair,” he thought. “She’s going to lean back right now, look deep into my eyes, and tell me that she loves me and that she wanted to be with me forever.”

Emily just gave the hug as a gesture of thanks, but when she felt his arms around her back, she started to feel he may gave thought of it as more than that. His cologne, which had seemed almost dreamy and romantic before, now seemed to smother her, filling every pore of her lungs. She leaned back, and looked curiously at the dreamy expression on his face. She cleared her throat, stepping politely away form him.

“So how much is this going to cost?” She asked smiling at him. He looked disappointed for a split second before he went back behind the counter to where he had originally grabbed the tiny vial form. He looked at the price of a full size bottle: 65.95. He pulled the price tag of and handed her the bottle. “That’ll be 25 dollars,” he said with a smile. She looked as if she’d seen a real-life tooth fairy. “Oh my god, that’s…so wonderful!” She reached into her wallet, pulled out 25 dollars and handed it to him.

“I really can’t thank you enough for this,” She said, backing away and bumping into people.

“No problem at all!” He said to her as she started to fade into the crowd.

“What’s your name?” she shouted?

He smiled to himself as he pretended not to hear. “All in good time,” He thought to himself. He knew that she had left, so he reached into his back pocket and pulled out 41 to put into the till. Immediately afterwards, he quickly shut down the shop, and decided to go over to visit his friend in the back with the security cameras for the mall. He had to hurry though, after all, he did have a license plate to find.