Mysterious

It was a mistake. A blind mistake. How she got there, I don’t know. How I found her, even more mysterious. Mysterious. Mis tear ious. I don’t know.
Where was I? Let's see… One of those corporate coffee houses with Jan and Tyler. Jan is a dude. I guess the name is Swedish or something… well it doesn’t matter because Jan never saw her, never even made it to the parking garage.
I didn’t have anything. At the corporate coffee house I mean. Jan had a black coffee and some marbled pound cake and Tyler had an Americano. I don’t even know what that is, but I heard the girl call it; “Tyler, Americano” and he took it from her. I guess I did have something. I ate one of those packets of raw sugar. My stomach. It was hurting, had been hurting all day. Well… there is a reason for that.
My dog Ludwig is 12 years old. He’s got arthritis and all kinds of problems. The vet prescribes this medicine for all the pain. I really haven’t been sleeping well lately. Every time I close my eyes I see this weird skinny little man glowing and dancing. It’s like in that KE$HA video, only for real and I hear all this noise like poker cards in bicycle spokes or locust during monsoon.
I had this big presentation to give yesterday in front of the whole department and I really needed to get some shut eye. Some honest to god sleep. So I took one of Ludwig’s pills and slept like an angel all night. Woke up, dressed for work, ate my Pop Tart and started throwing up. It was seriously bad. I had to call in and go back to bed. Jan gave the presentation. It looks like he might get a promotion. Whatever.
So my stomach was still hurting the next day at the corporate coffee house. I didn’t need any of that swill anyway. I was going home. Only guys who are up for a promotion need to tank up on caffeine and head back to the office. That was Jan’s plan I think.
Tyler’s just a perv. He orders coffee with a fancy name, flirts with some girl in line, makes eye contact with her while he’s sitting at the table with us, and when she’s on her way out, he also happens to be on his way out, holding the door for her. He takes her back to the office and gets her panties down around her ankles in the elevator. Then, after they exchange phone numbers and she leaves, he goes into the security office to watch the surveillance video with Rodney, the night watchman. I’ve been invited to have a look a few times.
It doesn’t exactly get old because he keeps a sort of score card upon which various depraved acts are outlined and wait for a tally mark. In this way things are kept interesting and new acts are always being dreamed up. The standards are there of course, doggie style, a blow job, anal shenanigans… but things are now more subtle. For example the goal might be to get a woman to say a particular word or phrase while he works that coffee buzz off on her ass, or he might get her to play a role like pretending to be his boss.
I have to say that it usually works out for him. You’d think that most girls would tell him to bug off. It's his looks. That’s the problem. Its why they go along with it, and it’s why these elevator escapades are the only way he can get off anymore, because as a good looking guy he’s had enough vanilla sex to last him five normal guy life times.
Jan, by the way, knows nothing about all this. It would freak him out. He’s a vanilla kind of guy. And me, I’m just not good looking.
But none of this has anything to do with it…
So Tyler left first with this tall Asian American chic in a short orange dress and gladiator sandals. Seriously, the Greeks would have been proud of her. Then Jan talked for a while about his girl, Dora, and then begged me to go see his acupuncturist about my stomach. Of course he doesn’t know about the dog’s pill. Then he wiped the cake crumbs from his ample lip with the recycled paper napkin and announced that he was heading back to the office.
I guess my car was on the third floor. I hate parking structures, ever since I was a kid. Nothing good happens in parking structures. Your fingers get smashed in the car door, you get mugged, or if you’re a chick you get raped, or you can’t remember where you parked and you get lost. Nothing good.
That’s what I got. Lost I mean. Because I was on the fifth floor wandering around and around under the flickering yellow lights. I kept pushing the lock unlock button on my key chain, but I couldn’t hear the alarm disarming. I was convinced my car had been stolen.
I walked into the farthest end of the garage and pressed the little button again and heard a weird thud. Then a muffled voice started screaming and the thud was repeated. Again and again like someone was pounding on a car. I guess it was adrenaline, because suddenly I was Mighty Mouse flying towards the sounds of distress.
Within moments I had tracked down the source, an old yellow Dodge Dart. The trunk of an old yellow Dodge Dart to be precise. Someone was inside pounding and screaming away.
“Are you okay?” I called to the mysterious prisoner. A stupid question perhaps.
“Get me out of here. Please!” came the muffled cry.
“I’m trying. I will. Just hang on. I’ll call the police.” I said taking out my cell.
“No! No police. They take too long anyway. Just get me out.”
The trunk could only be opened with a key. This was an old car. I tried wrapping my arm in a jacket and breaking the drivers side window. I saw that in a movie once. Inside I looked for a trunk release lever or a spare key under the visor. Nothing.
Finally I returned to the trunk.
“I’m going to get some help. Some tools or something. I’ll be right back.”
“Hurry. Please hurry. They could come back.” The mysterious captive implored.
I looked around the garage and sprinted for the elevator. Before I could get there a young Latino got off and headed for a black Cadillac Escalade.
“Hey man, I need a hand!” I called. “You got any tools? There’s somebody locked in a trunk out here.”
I think his name was Hector and what he had was a crowbar. He accompanied me back to the DART and we got to work prying the trunk open.
When it finally opened this cute little blonde leaped out into my arms.
“Thank you so much! Oh thank you.”
I held her for a full minute before she was collected enough to release me and thank Hector with a handshake.
“Okay. Well, thank you very much. There’s no way that I can repay you really, except maybe money.” She turned and ducked into the trunk and dipped her hand into a big black duffel bag that had been her bedfellow. Out came two stacks of hundreds.
“Here we go.” She said handing us each a stack before she tried unsuccessfully to close the trunk. When it wouldn’t close. She grabbed the duffel bag out and tossed it through the broken window. “So my advice would be: don’t spend it right away or all at once. They aren’t marked so don’t worry too much, and enjoy!”
She smiled at us as she brushed the broken glass off of the driver's seat with her sweater and dug a key out of her jeans.
“Thanks again. Really.” She said it warmly and got behind the wheel. She closed the door and started the engine up.
Hector and I moved out from behind the car. She pulled out of the parking spot and said to us out of the broken window:
“I’d skeedaddle if I were you, before anyone else shows up on the scene.”
Then she waved and was gone.
It was a mistake. A blind mistake that led me to her. How she got there, I don’t know. How I found her, even more mysterious. Mysterious. Miss tear ious.
I don’t know. I haven’t spent any of the money. All I can think about is her. The way she felt pressed into my arms for those two or three minutes before she came back to her senses...
I could maybe hire a private eye to try and find her. I think I saw something like that in a movie too. I could maybe go to a strip club and blow a hundred bucks or two and forget about that cute little smile. I don’t know.
Why I feel this way… it's…mysterious. I don’t know.