What Kind of Man

A cloud of smoke hung in the air over the dimly lit club. Bodies danced and writhed against one another, trumpets blew and drums beat, drinks were poured and bets were placed. The club was thrumming with bombastic, erratic life and I sat in a velvet lounge chair, legs crossed, smoke in one hand, drink in the other, bored stiff.

Jeanie, the skinny blonde who'd asked me to come out with her tonight, had disappeared some time ago on the dance floor with her beau whose name I couldn’t seem to remember. I had a sneaking suspicion that the only reason she had asked to me join her tonight was because none of her other friends would be caught dead in a place like this. But she had to take someone with her else mommy and daddy dearest wouldn't let her leave the house. So that landed me as her last resort. I was almost flattered by what little regard she held me in.

Had I been back home in the states, I wouldn't have minded being so blatantly ditched. But this was Edinburgh, not Detroit, and I didn't know another damned person or place here. And while at this particular moment in time that fact was bothersome, it was also the main reason I had chosen to visit this city.

No more than a few moments after my drink had run dry, a sharply-dressed young man sat down in the seat next to mine. “So did you get all dolled up just to go out and sit by your lonesome all night?” His slicked-back hair was a dull shade of sandy blonde and he had a thick Scottish-English accent.

“And what's it to you if I did?” I replied sharply.

“Oh, an American I see.” He made note of my accent, smiling cheekily and showing off his immaculately white teeth. “That'd explain it.”

“That would explain what, exactly?” I pressed, now finding myself growing intrigued by his radiant smile and deep, brown eyes.

“Nothing, nothing.” He pressed his lips together in a feeble attempt to hide his grin.

“Sure seems like it would explain a whole lot of nothing.” I took a drag from my cigarette and did nothing to avoid blowing the smoke in his face.

He didn't so much as breathe differently. He just sat there, eyes on mine, smirk still poorly hidden.

“Well I certainly didn't come out tonight to sit here and be harassed by an obnoxious billboard.” I put out my cigarette in the crystal ashtray on the side table to my left.

“But what about a charming billboard?” He countered.

Charming? That's what he called this behavior? I couldn't help but scoff. “Go chase yourself.”

“Let me buy you a drink, Red.” And there it was. I was wondering how long it'd take him to make some sort of comment about my hair. It typically took men about two sentences to brand with me with a less than clever nickname. Some even chose to lead with it. I found it less and less entertaining each time.

“Not going to offer a dance?”

“Nah. Doesn't seem like your thing.”

That was true – to some degree. I'd give him that. I enjoyed dancing, but I did enjoy drinking far more.

“So, what'll it be?” He stood from his seat and buttoned his tailored suit jacket.

“I'll have a Manhattan.” I replied with a smirk of my own. “With extra cherries.”

“Says the American. Of course.” At least he was able to see the humor in it.

He disappeared into the crowd and I was left alone once again. Most girls my age, at least the respectable ones, didn’t accept drinks from strangers – regardless of how handsome they were. But I had done it once, a long while ago, and couldn’t seem to break the habit. Same went with my smoking, my swearing, and my sleeping around.

It was almost refreshing to be in a place where nobody knew, or cared about those things. Where the people overindulging at the bar or dancing themselves dumb on the dance floor didn’t occasionally pause to stop and stare, snickering amongst themselves, spreading the latest gossip that the rumor mill had spewed out about me.

Did you hear what Margeaux did?

I heard it was more what Margeaux said.

No, no, I heard it was more who Margeaux did.

So if some stranger thought I was lonely and pathetic rather than thinking I was wild and reckless, then that was just swell.

The blonde fella returned, drinks in hand, mine nearly overflowing with cherries. I laughed and he flashed back a wide grin.

“Somebody asked for extra cherries, did they not?” He sat back down in the chair and handed me my glass.

I took a small sip as quickly as I could to prevent any of the liquid from further sloshing out over the sides.

The drink tasted strangely bitter considering the amount of cherries in it.

And that was the last clear, coherent thought I had for the rest of the night.

○

I woke with a start, jolting upright in bed. An instant jolt of pain shot through my neck, earning a loud curse from me. It took me a moment to register my surroundings: A dimly lit room with luxurious wallpaper and plain furnishings. A silk-covered bed that was empty save for me. No windows and only one door. My black dress and heels thrown in a heap on the wooden floor.

At first, I assumed I was in the bedroom of the blonde fella I had met at the club. I thought perhaps last night had ended the same as so many others had; in the bed of someone I hardly knew. But as I tried to recount the events that had occurred prior, I couldn’t remember a damned thing.

The man himself was nowhere in sight, and as I looked at the space in the bed next to me, it seemed as though he never had been. My gaze bounced around the room a little more scrupulously now, looking for any signs that someone else had been in here with me –I could find none.

A mild panic began to rise in my stomach. I hadn't the slightest inkling where I was, or how I'd gotten there. I wracked my brain desperately trying to fill in the gaps. To find an explanation as to why I was in this strange room. To try and avoid the panic that was growing and growing inside of me. But I could come up with nothing.

Last I remembered I was sitting in a lounge chair, sipping on a drink with too many cherries and flirting with a blonde-haired, brown-eyed man.

And that’s when it clicked. The drink. I could distinctly recall it having an odd bitterness to it. A bitterness the likes of which I had never tasted in all the multitudes of drinks I'd ever downed. A bitterness that could only mean one thing: that blonde-haired devil had drugged me. Drugged me and… somehow hauled me off to some unknown location, I supposed. With that full and final realization, I was swallowed whole by the panic that was previously just a murmur.

The only person who knew I had gone out last night was Jeanie. Jeanie, who in minutes of arriving at our destination had ditched me. Jeanie, who had referred to me several times as Margaret. Jeanie, who was so consumed with the thought of her damned dewdropper, would never notice I had gone missing.

No one would come looking for me.

Sure, at some point my sister, Virginia, my brother, Ellis, or Coltilde, my gouvernante, would take notice that I had never returned from my little trip abroad. But that wouldn’t be for weeks, if not months.

Over the last few years, my family had become accustomed to me going off to other states or cities, even other countries, for a long period without any supervision, accompaniment or contact whatsoever. I was the oldest of three siblings; I had no one to answer to. Save for my father. Though the moment I had turned 16, 8 years ago, he no longer took any interest in the goings-on of my personal life. I could almost guarantee that at this very moment he thought I was safe and sound, tucked tightly in my bed in Detroit, thousands of miles away from wherever he was – if he even thought of me at all.

In the time it'd take for my siblings or Clotilde to take note of my prolonged absence and even begin to try and track down my last known location, it would be far too late. For it would take only moments for this stranger to kill me.

As if someone had been reading my mind, the only door to the room suddenly flew open.

But the man who stumbled through the doorway was not the same as the one who gave me the tainted drink. No, this man was far shorter and wider, without even a whisper of blonde on his shaved head.

I blurted out the first words that came to my mind, “Who the fuck are you?”

“Who the fuck am I?” He shot back, words stumbling over one another. “Why I'm Stanley fuckin' Briggins, all right.” His words were coated in a thick back-alley, Cockney accent. “But I'm not so sure that's what's important right now.”

“Then what is?” I dared to ask.

“I've come to see how our little guest is doin'.” His crooked teeth flashed in a lopsided grin as he shut the door and took a few graceless steps towards me.

“I would be doing a lot better if I knew where I was.” I struggled to keep the panic out of my voice.

“Aw, hush now, love.” He crooned with hyperbolic sweetness. “You don't need to know that. I know that and that's all that matters. Now, as I said before, I've come to see how you're doin'.”

“And as I said before; I'd be doing a lot better if I knew where the fuck I was.” The panic inside me was now molding into anger.

“What a bearcat you are,” he near growled in amusement.

“Well, you know what they say about girls with red hair,” I glowered.

“Yeah,” he stalked closer. “Does the carpet match the curtains?”

The innuendo dissolved my anger, my panic as well, and replaced them with pure fear. I had no response. No desire to carry this conversation any further. Stanley however, was of no such mind.

“You deaf?” He was now near enough that I could smell the reek of alcohol on his breath. “I asked you a question.”

“Yes, well, it's not a question I'm going to answer.” I was sincerely surprised I was able to get a full sentence out without my voice trembling.

“Oh no?” His dark eyes glimmered with what looked like the excitement of a challenge. “Then I guess I'll just have to find out the answer for meself” Then he lunged towards me on the bed.

I started to scream but was cut off when his massive hands wrapped themselves around my throat. My arms lashed out and I managed to give him a good swipe across the face with my nails. I saw of flash of red briefly before he clutched the wound and let a cascade of curses flow. Though his hands were no longer on my throat, I was still unable to move. He had pinned my body beneath his hulking one, nearly crushing me between his strong thighs. Writhing wildly underneath him, I tried desperately to gain any advantage. I could gain none. I pushed and wiggled, punched and squirmed. Nothing moved him. He was a solid as stone and I was a flower now wilting.

No longer concerned with the blood running from his cheek, in one fleet movement he seized both of my wrists and pinned them to the bed.

“All I wanted was my question answered,” he grunted as he used his free hand to begin undoing his belt. “Now, you have somethin' to pay for.”

“No!” The sound that came from my mouth was so foreign. I had never heard myself sound like that before; so utterly helpless. Utterly desperate. “Please, no.” Tears brimmed in my eyes. My lungs felt heavy, not getting enough air in and not enough out.

“We don't take much to 'please' and 'thank you's' 'round here.” He cast his belt to the floor and undid his trousers.

And that was it. I poured every ounce of strength I had into trying to break free of his grip, to wiggle out from underneath him. But it wasn't enough.

Just when my muscles began to give way to fatigue, just when I thought all was hopeless, the door to the bedroom burst open.

"So is this how we're treating our guests nowadays?" Asked the rather tall man who now casually leaned on the door frame. "Because last time I checked, we had more manners than this.”

Stanley had released me the minute the door opened. He stumbled off the bed and scrambled to get his pants back up. If I hadn't been stunned by shock, my body nearly broken, I would've kicked him in the groin. “Cillian never said anythin' about treatin' her with manners."

The man still loomed in the doorway, his arms crossed. "He didn't, did he?” There was such confidence in his words. Such power that couldn't be ignored. Alongside that unignorable power was an English accent that was much more refined than my assailant's. Whoever he was, his mere presence had Stanley scared stiff. “So, just because Cillian didn’t specifically tell you not to do something, you figured it meant you were free to do as you pleased?"

The look on my assailant’s face was unsteady, a mix of terror and confusion. If the doorway wasn't currently being blocked, I'm certain he would've made a run for it. "Well… pretty much."

The man now broke away from the door and strolled leisurely towards the bed. Every step slow, precise, elegant. "Did Cillian tell you today not to go down to the Daily Harold and spill all the secrets of our business?” The question was a rhetorical one. “Did he tell you not to go down to Baker Street and shoot every person who, let's say, was wearing brown pants today, just for the hell of it, huh? Did he tell you not to sleep with his sister, break into his room while he's sleeping, slit his throat and take over his entire enterprise?"

The stranger had finally come close enough that I could make out some of his features in the dim light. There was a composed, icy rage burning in those pale blue eyes. His face was calm, his words were calm, his body language calm. But even through his very convincing mask, you could feel the anger and contempt that burned within.

It frightened even me.

Stanley, embarrassed and apprehensive to answer, sputtered out, "N-no, Gabriel. He d-didn’t."

Gabriel's unforgiving eyes bore into Stanley. "No, I'm sure he didn't. But with your logic, just because he didn't explicitly tell you not to do something, means you're free to do whatever the fuck you want."

"That's not what I –"

His mask was beginning to fray at the edges as his patience wore down. "See, there are certain things, we, in this business, don’t need to be told not to do. It's a simple, basic understanding that we all share. And for those who do not possess this simple, basic understanding, well, there's simply no room for them in this business.” He spoke the words carefully, slowly, as if talking to child. “Do you understand that, Stanley?"

"Y-yes." It truly stunned me that the man who was moments ago so violent, so reckless, so despicable now looked like a pitiful dog cowering in the corner, fearful of its owner who wielded a rolled up newspaper.

"Good. Good. Because if I ever find that you don’t understand…" Gabriel acted as though he were giving his next words great consideration. "Well, let's just say you won't ever have to worry about understanding anything. Ever again."

All Stanley could do was nod his head with the same lost and petrified look on his dirty face.

"Alright, let me spell it out for you." Gabriel's mask had finally shattered and his expression turned lethal. "Get the fuck out. And if I ever see you try to touch her again, I'll kill you, yeah?"

I might have been mistaken, but I thought I heard Stanley let out a whimper. "Y-yeah." Was all he could manage before he scurried of out the room.

I thought I would have felt relieved at Stanley's absence. It was the one thing I wanted more than all the riches, all the fame, all the love in the world only moments ago. But I was now left completely alone with someone who was potentially more dangerous than Stanley could ever hope to be.

My whole body buzzed with the trauma of everything that had just transpired. My bones ached, my muscles shook, gooseflesh formed on my bare arms and legs. I was grateful. I was terrified. I didn't want to be here. Oh God, I wanted to be anywhere but here.

The rage melted from Gabriel's face and he wordlessly walked over to the window where a table and two leather chairs were placed. On the table was a set of ornate crystal tumblers and a matching decanter filled with amber liquid. With a confident ease to his movements, he popped off the stopper of the decanter and poured out a knuckle's length of alcohol. He drank it down in one swig. Then a second time.

This man – this stranger – whose presence made the whole room – the whole damn house – feel entirely too small, stood next to the table, empty glass in hand, acting as though there were no other living being in the room. As though he hadn't just stopped someone from being raped.

I couldn't bare the silence any longer so I said, "Thank you."

"You're thanking me?" His eyes were fixed on the open decanter, the crystal glittering in the candle light.

"Um. Yes. I am." I answered as my heart began to gallop. "You saved me." I could still feel his hands wrapped around my throat, my wrists. Bruises already undoubtedly forming.

That got his attention. His gaze broke from the decanter and now fixed on me. "Saved you?" His gunmetal blue eyes roved over my body. The black silk of my chemise clung to my frame and left very little to the imagination. "Hardly.”

My racing heart was now accompanied by flushed cheeks and a knotted stomach. I quickly snatched the rumpled sheets at the bottom of the bed and did my best to cover myself.

This procured a small chuckle from him and he turned back towards the table. This time, however, he poured two drinks instead of one. With a drink in each hand he coolly walked towards the bed and sat down on the side opposite me. "After the evening you've had, I think you need this." He extended one of the drinks towards me.

In this light, this close, I could finally make out the details of his face. I was mildly perturbed to discover he was quite handsome. He couldn't have been more than few years older than I was. He had short, messy hair that was as black as the kohl now hopelessly smudged under my eyes. There was a slight warmth to his skin that implied it had seen many days in the sun and was kissed with a dusting of freckles all over. His lips were full, if a bit chapped, and his nose was perfectly petite. But the feature I found the most alluring was the strong line of his jaw. If I hadn't been so shaken, I might've dared to reach out and touch it.

With a good amount of skepticism, I took the glass from him. However, I refrained from consuming any of its contents.

Gabriel's eyes pointedly locked on mine as he took a sip of his own drink. "He wouldn’t have killed you, ya know."

I took a sip and waited a beat before responding, "I wasn’t worried about him killing me. There are worse things to endure than being killed."

He nodded in understanding, an almost conflicted look on his face, and silently took another drink.

A part of me wanted to press him for information. To ask just where the hell I was and why I was here. Who was the man who tried to rape me? Who was he? And why was Stanley so easily frightened by him? But my brain was at war with my tongue. I wasn't thinking clearly. A horrid cloudiness in my mind. No words came out.

The terror and shock pent up in my body began slowly melting away as I sipped the drink Gabriel handed me. In fact, even the fear and apprehension I’d felt towards him was disappearing too. As well as any fear, any worry, any anxiety I had ever felt – ever. As I drank down the last drop, I felt as if I were floating on a raft of blissfulness in a sea of ecstasy.

I let the covers fall from my body, my drink where it may, and crawled on hands and knees over to this beautiful stranger who sat feet away. He didn’t move, didn’t stir, just looked at me with the ghost of a smirk.

“You're beautiful,” I purred. “Perhaps the most beautiful thing I've seen.” In that moment I certainly meant it.

Still he remained stoic. Simply observing.

Meanwhile, my head had been catapulted off to dance with the stars and the moon and body was left to float weightlessly, carelessly in a pool of rich, mollifying gold.

And even though my head was swirling, my gaze could find no other object but him. A soft ache resounded in my fingers as I fought the urge to reach out and touch that jawline of his. Strong and wide and sharp and inviting. Gabriel, Gabriel, Gabriel. This stranger now looked like the only home I'd ever known. A stranger who didn’t look so strange after all.

An uncontrolled laugh bubbled out of my throat at the thought.

A stranger who didn’t look strange.

A face of beauty and eyes of stone.

A whole world that shined brightly and sang loudly.

“Don't you see it too?” I questioned, inching even closer.

“See what?” His deep voice rumbled in my bones.

“The whole world,” I replied plainly.

We locked eyes, his blue with my green, and something in my soul become unmoored, begging relentlessly to anchor itself to his. Perhaps I could manage it if only… I reached out to touch his taunting jaw. The moment I moved one of my hands from the bed and began to lift it into the air, I found myself toppling face first into the mattress.

A sound that might have been a laugh erupted out of Gabriel. It sounded like a song to me. Then a sound near the same poured out of me.

I flipped my body over so I could again see. It would’ve been nothing but foolish to try and get myself back up again, so I laid there on my back, staring at the ceiling I wished was made of stars.

My hand reached out to find a home on Gabriel's knee. I looked at him, but I couldn’t see him, not really. The edges of my vision were blurring and the world once so vibrant was dimming.

“Thank you,” I breathed out.

His voice was as cold as a mid-January blizzard. “I wouldn’t thank me just yet.”

The world then dimmed to black.