Alexander Ch. 03

Author's Note: all characters are over the age of 18; any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental.

Recap: Alexander has inherited a ring that seems to give him some kind of power of command. It doesn't allow him to command people's thoughts, but only their actions, speach, and sensations. He doesn't know what he is doing, and has made a mess of his first experiments. One other person knows about this -- Ellie: a lesbian or maybe bi bartender who aspires to help him get the most out of this ring.

----

And then he was fired.

Alexander stepped out into the alley. Spring seemed to have turned the corner to Summer. The evening was warm; the air had a kind of humid viscosity. A siren went by, something flashed from the end of the alley and the vehicle was gone. Afterimages of green and yellow.

"Fuck."

Louder, into the dim orange of the overcast sky: "Fuuuuuck."

If only he had the stupid ring on him, he could head back in there and make everyone crawl on the floor like dogs. But he didn't have the ring, did he. He had put it in a box, inside another box, inside a shoe-box, at the back of his cupboard.

He had mouthed off to Joann just once too many times, a joke that fell flat, that sounded mean although he didn't intend it that way. Then he put too many capers on a marsala, and it was all over.

He would never make -- or eat -- a chicken marsala again in his life, that was for sure.

Insult to injury, they didn't even wait to the end of his shift, which meant four less hours of pay, but more importantly meant they knew exactly how much they didn't need him.

* * *

"You don't have to go home, but you can't stay here," the old saying went.

Alexander sure as hell didn't want to stay there, but he didn't want to go home. And he didn't want to end up in his local pub, Shenanigans, again. He didn't want to see Ellie, and he couldn't imagine she wanted to see him.

The night before he had opened the door to Aaliyah, Davon still stark naked, Tanya still rubbing his cum over the expansive curves of her breasts, Ellie wide-eyed with her hand over her mouth.

He had opened the door and walked out. He had left them to sort it out for themselves.

No, Ellie probably didn't want to see him.

* * *

"I don't have any choice." Talking to yourself on the subway is not the most promising sign, but it was hardly an unusual practice. There was always someone talking to themselves. Usually a drunk, drooling homeless man. But soon, Alexander would be that drunk, drooling homeless man.

Unless...

The question he couldn't figure out was, was the ring a curse or a blessing? It seemed like a godlike power, and yet everything about his life had been going to absolute crap since he got it. Not that his life was so fabulous before...

His Great Uncle Julius had been wealthy, they all knew that. But nobody had liked him. He was not invited to family gatherings. Alexander had met him exactly once, at his grandfather's funeral. That had been Julius' brother, Marcus. Julius had kept to himself. Alexander remembered his mother looking daggers at the man.

Still, Alexander had introduced himself.

Julius had seemed pleasant, polite. Alexander remembered him saying that he and his brother had not been close. He remembered him mentioning regrets. But isn't that what everyone says at a funeral? Pleasant, polite... and powerful. He did have an aura about him. The kind of man who expects to be in charge. To make decisions and have them carried out. To be obeyed. It had impressed Alexander at the time. He would have to go back and look. He might have tried to write a poem about power. About brothers named after Roman generals.

Was he the only one who had even spoken to him? Was that why he had gotten this "gift?"

What had Julius done with this ring? What had Julius done to his mother? Could he ask her?

Alexander was so immersed in his thoughts, he almost didn't notice the man at the end of the subway car. Seven in the evening, people were going home; people were going out. Alexander would have thought nothing of it, just another passenger staring into space. The man's gaze seemed a little more focussed than that, but he had been talking to himself.

Nonetheless, when his stop came, he again noticed the man watching him intently.

"Well, that's not creepy, not at all."

If he was going to talk to himself, he might as well do it in style.

* * *

Broke, no rent money, no job, no laptop. He had enough credit left on his card for a week or two if he bought actual groceries instead of take-out. Alexander felt a resolve growing in him all through the journey home.

This was no time for scruples. He could focus on being "good" later.

Face it, you're just an asshole.

Maybe so, he answered himself. But if I'm going to be an asshole, I am not going to be a broke asshole.

Steeling himself against his inner critic, Alexander trudged home, took the stairs two at a time, and pulled out the shoebox. He took the ring into the bathroom which had the brightest light in his apartment.

He held it up and scrutinized it. There were no marks inside the ring. The band itself was scuffed and a little scarred It was a particularly rich, pure color of gold. The stone: rounded, not cut. Black: not opaque, but not transparent in a smoky way. It was more like some kind of obsidian, with something glimmering in the depths, something his eye couldn't quite see. Like a luminous darkness.

Alexander remembered a passage from scripture: If the light that is in thee be darkness, how great is that darkness.

Very carefully, he slipped it on his right pinkie finger, putting all his attention on the sensation.

As before, he felt nothing unusual. There was no feeling that came with this power. No tingle. No tickle. No unnamable presence. It was just a ring on his finger.

But he knew better, and it was time to take charge of his life and change his fortunes.

* * *

Alexander changed into his best clothes, and called an Uber. This would have been an unimaginable luxury. If his fortunes weren't about to change, this would be pretty near half his remaining credit.

He set the destination for an upscale restaurant he had read about earlier that week. The kind of place he would have been trying to get hired at if his career had gone on a few more years.

"Do you have a reservation?" the hostess asked. She was a tasty little morsel. Slender, sharp edged, in a black dress that was revealing enough to whet the appetite in a stylish-but-not-slutty way.

"No," Alexander said, appreciating her figure. "But you will give me a seat at the bar."

She pursed her lips, but said: "Let me see what I have."

She flipped the chart on her iPad around and examined the options.

"You are in luck, sir, I do have a seat at the bar."

Alexander smiled. Of course she did.

He glided behind her through the bustle and noise of the crowded restaurant. The bar was small, with seven stools packed in and just enough space for servers to pick up drinks. One was, indeed, open.

He ordered an aged beef that was an absolutely ridiculously expensive. He had the bartender choose the pairing wine.

It was exquisitely prepared, almost worth the price, if you had that kind of money. Even so, he didn't quite enjoy it the way he had hoped. He felt a gnawing edge of anxiety. He was basically planning a dine-and-dash, and he hated those motherfuckers.

He did, however, appreciate the way the place was run. He saw the staff share smiles; the quick, competent way the bartender kept himself organized; the steady flow of drinks and meals passing through. It was a well oiled machine. He could only imagine the kitchen was the same. The poetry of a well run restaurant. How could you put that into words?

As he completed his evening with a nice glass of port, Alexander pondered how to properly end things. The bartender was ahead of him, however, setting the bill down in a (genuine) leather folder.

Alexander made himself respond before he could get tangled up in his head about it.

"Just charge it to the house," he said, looking the bartender commandingly in the eye.

The man didn't blink. "I beg your pardon?"

Alexander made sure his statement was simple and unambiguous. "Charge it to the house."

The man frowned. "If you're being funny..."

He showed no sign of moving toward the console. Alexander's heart sank. Previously, people might not have enjoyed following his commands, but they did it.

The bartender hardened. "Look, buddy, I can call a manager if you want."

It was a threat. The manager would call the police. The restaurant would press charges. Alexander had seen how this plays out. Fuuuuck.

What was he doing wrong? Maybe the ring had run out of batteries? Were there a certain number of wishes, and he had blown through them already?

The manager strolled over. She was tall, had long shimmering hair pinned back tightly. She wore a pencil skirt, with a serious looking jacket over a business formal top. She also had full, red lips and luminous green eyes. Even as he dreaded appearing the fool in front of this woman, he wondered what it would be like to mess up that hair, those formal clothes.

"What seems to be the problem?"

Go big or go home. His card would decline on this dinner anyway, there was no way out but trying again. Maybe the bartender had some special immunity.

"No problem at all. Just charge my bill to the house. Everything was satisfactory."

Her face hardened. "Jeff, charge it to the house please." She looked shocked at her own words. So did Jeff.

"You told me earlier that was the arrangement, I think. You know it's perfectly normal. You feel good about this."

"What's up with this guy?" Jeff asked the manager, his expression not happy. She didn't look happy either. But Alexander felt the confidence seeping back in.

"It's all good, my friend. Just a little mis-communication, I guess. Go ahead and ring it through like she said." To the manager. "You should show me the office now."

Her expression showed bafflement. "I... sure..."

Jeff was busy at the console.

If he was smart, he would leave right now. This had not gone according to script.

He followed her across the floor, through the employees-only door, down an extremely narrow staircase. They stepped into a dimly-lit cellar crowded with storage bins, wine racks, and shelving carefully labeled and organized. The manager led him to an unmarked door.

"The office, sir," she said, opening the door and flipping on a light.

"Tell me your name."

"Katherine McKelvey."

"Tell me what you think is going on, speak honestly, but stay calm. Speak calmly."

"I don't know. I don't understand."

"Do you find me attractive?"

"Not at all. You are good enough looking, but you strike me as a scumbag."

"Why are you doing what I tell you?"

"I have no idea. I can see myself doing things, and it's like it's not me."

"Feel pleasure, all over your body. Sensual pleasure."

Her pupils dilated.

"Tell me what you feel. What kind of thoughts are you having?"

"I do feel good. I feel a beautiful sensation. I can't "feel it" feel it, like in my skin, exactly, and yet I feel it. Like being held, embraced, caressed by a lover. And yet I am scared, I don't know what you are doing or how, and I don't want it to be happening."

Alexander saw a rising panic in Katherine.

"Stay calm. Be even more calm. Breathe slowly, nice and deep. How often do people come down here?"

"Depends on the night, and what we run out of upstairs. Wine, usually; the kitchen is generally ready for anything, unless there's a preponderance of orders for some specific dish."

"Nice word. Preponderance. You sound educated."

"I should hope so. Halfway into a PhD in Social History."

"Great. Take off your jacket."

She shrugged out of it, held it in her hand.

"Put your jacket on the desk there, and take off your blouse."

"Why are you doing this?" She asked, a tremor in her voice. But she followed his instructions.

She was no stunner. She had medium sized breasts, held tight with a sturdy bra. Her belly had some stretch marks. Not much in the way of hips to speak of. The word sturdy came to mind. But she had a very beautiful face, rich copper-gold hair, and artful makeup.

If they had been in grad school together, he probably would have been attracted to her.

Why are you doing this, then, dick-breath? He asked himself.

Alexander shook his head. He definitely didn't need to be doing this. Especially not to her. She was a smart, interesting woman running a top rated restaurant.

"You can put yourself together. You will stay down here for exactly ten minutes after I leave. If anyone comes to check on you, make up a reasonable explanation. All you can tell anyone is that I am an associate of the owner. I needed to check on some things, and asked you to attend to something. You will make it sound as reasonable as you can. You will even believe it yourself. You won't remember taking your blouse off or putting it on. Your thoughts will be calm. You believe everything is normal. You continue to feel pleasure in your body. You feel strong and lively. You will forget my features as soon as I leave. And you won't look into anything about this incident. You will go on about your daily life as if everything is normal. Because everything is normal. You won't have any concerns, and if you feel some lingering in some way or another, you won't be able to mention them -- or to communicate them in any way."

She was already back in her blouse and sitting in the swivel chair looking anything but calm.

"You will spend this ten minutes breathing deeply, becoming more and more calm, letting this story settle in to be your truth. You won't have any fear. You won't show any fear, or any other indication that anything is wrong or out of the ordinary."

Her expression relaxed.

"When I give you a command, say: 'Yes Master' -- because it just feels like the right thing to say."

"Yes Master."

"And how does that make you feel?"

"Like an imbecile out of a science fiction C-movie."

Alexander sighed.

"Well, put that thought out of your mind as best you can."

"Yes Master."

He walked away before he could do any more damage. But he felt good, in a strange way as well. He launched himself up the narrow stairs, feeling that confidence in himself. Remembering her full, red lips and her bright, tightly bound hair. He knew he could have had her, in any way he wanted... and even better: he hadn't acted on it!

Whatever had gone wrong with the bartender had been a quick little glitch in the system. Nothing more.

He slipped out into the restaurant, and a few people were giving him curious looks. Jeff was glowering at him from behind the bar.

Time to go!

"Thanks for coming in," the hostess said as he approached, artfully posing in her tight black dress. Apparently she hadn't got wind that he was a douche. And he was feeling that stirring of desire, especially seeing the perfect round shape of her butt stretching that dress out.

Time. To. Go!

Yeah, he could find pleasure anywhere. No need to dig any deeper here.

"My pleasure," he said cheerfully, stepping out into the night.

* * *

Alexander meandered through the Park Slope nightlife. Curbside restaurant expansions overflowed with revelers. No longer desperate measures against pandemic, these were now now spilling over with flowers, draped with arbors of wisteria, filled with music, lit with candles, torchiers, strategic mood lighting. Alexander had eaten a marvelous dinner, checked the aged-beef extravaganza off his bucket list, and escaped with his freedom intact. And, even that nagging voice in his head expressed satisfaction that he hadn't done worse with the manager.

But now, walking through the evening, watching all the "beautiful people" enjoy themselves, he began to feel like that stranger in the Jim Moorison song. Everyone looked happy, attractive, like they belonged to this. He felt he had cleaned up well, but all he had to return to was his shabby hovel. It had seemed a romantic little poet-sized garrett when he first took it, but the romance had gone, and his poetry had turned out to be just as shabby.

His best theory was that the power of the ring only worked on women. That didn't explain Tom on the night of his discovery, and he wasn't too sure about Davon. But Davon could have just been playing along. Why wouldn't he after all? Still, he didn't want to have another experience like Jeff.

He needed to figure out how to get more out of this than one anxiety-filled meal. Also, after walking away from the restaurant, and its manager, and its hostess, he was feeling an uncomfortable heaviness in his loins. He was ready for a more... appropriate... victim.

He ducked his head into a few places, looking for a bar with some specific criteria. He wanted a female bartender, and he wanted to see a place at a bar next to a woman who didn't already have company.

This took him a roundabout path. Many of the bars were simply too crowded, others just didn't have what he was looking for.

The place that did was a half-empty Thai restaurant.

It was on the edge of the busy commercial stretch. The outdoor seating didn't have the same quality of build, and was in any case shut down for the evening. Although the posted hours suggested they would be open for four more hours, inside it had the vibe of a place on its last dinner seating. There was a young couple at one end of the bar, possibly Thai themselves, and a woman reading a book at the center of the bar. From the back, Alexander saw she had long black hair and a tight waist end generous hips, wrapped in a tight, bright, summery dress. The woman behind the bar was surprisingly tall for a Thai woman, keeping busy with polishing and organizing her workspace.

Alexander took a seat one over from the woman with the book, away from the couple.

He reviewed the cocktail menu, covertly collecting more details. The bartender had a platform back there. She wasn't so tall after all. The woman with the book had a slender physique, but was more likely mediterranean than asian.

"Give me a midori sour, please," he told the bartender as she approached him, slightly emphasizing the "give" to see whether it would work.

"Sure thing," she said, and set to work.

His target remained immersed in her book.

Alexander pulled out his phone and pretended to be similarly aloof. The bartender didn't appear to ring in the drink and presented it to him with a flourish. It has a spring-green color, topped with frothed egg white and sprinkled with some seeds.

It had that nice cocktail bite.

Alexander had never been good at pickup lines, and the woman had offered him no opening, so he went with the obnoxiously obvious: "What are you reading?"

She glanced at him with a weary side-eye. Showed him the cover of her book. Yoga Spandakarika. Alexander barely parsed the confusing title. It didn't look like it was about any yoga he had ever heard of.

"Tell me about it," he said, trying to keep the command subtle.

She opened the book back up as if to continue reading, but she started talking.

"It's mostly a translation, or perhaps interpretation, of an Indian book on spirituality. The author is a bit of a hack, or was, but when he got into spirituality he found his true calling. He explains nuanced things in a very accessible way."

"I'd like to hear more about it," he lied. "Do you live near by? Answer honestly and calmly."

She didn't have that look of fear he was getting used to, it was more a puzzled expression.