Synesthesia: Chapter Three

serial fiction

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I stared at her, standing there laughing like some sort of maniac.

I, the kidnapper here, was starting to feel uneasy and slightly afraid of this person I’d brought to my motel room.

As I looked at her, I realized she was older than I had figured at first glance. Not a girl, a woman. Her face had lines criss-crossing it, not just from age but from a life lived hard and unprotected.

Before I could say anything, she spoke.

“Look, mister, I don’t know what you’re playing at here. You wanna scare me? Okay, fine. I’m scared. I’m real scared! Does that make you feel good? This some sort of fetish?” She muttered to herself. “Fucking weirdo.” Then to me again: “Kinky shit’s gonna cost you extra.”

I fought a strong urge to stomp my feet in frustration.

“No,” I said, my voice coming out a childish whine. “It’s not a game. I don’t want you to pretend. You’re supposed to…” I trailed off. How could I explain to her what I wanted?

My stomach rumbled its way into the conversation. I couldn’t remember if I’d eaten anything that day or not.

“You wanna go get something to eat?” I asked.

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Image credit: Hans Vivek, Unsplash

Ten minutes later, the two of us were sitting opposite one another in a booth at the Golden Plate Diner with menus in front of us. Next door was a much nicer motel than the one I was staying at. Across the street, semi trucks and regular passenger cars shuffled in and out of a truck stop, filling their tanks with gas and contributing their meager share to the flatlining local economy.

The girl—woman—was practically salivating over the menu. “Ooh, they have shrimp here!” she said. I raised one eyebrow. Shrimp in the middle of a desert? Seems untrustworthy.

A pudgy waitress with unnaturally bright red hair and sad gray roots appeared at our table and asked with sickening politeness if she could take our orders. A faint scent of wood smoke clung to her—the unmistakable aroma of boredom.

I was about to speak, but the girl—woman—spoke first.

“I’ll take the chicken fried steak, please,” she said, pointing at the menu as if the waitress might be unfamiliar with the dish.

“And for you, sir?” the waitress asked, turning to me.

“Uh… beef chimichanga,” I muttered, not looking at her. I hated having to talk to waitstaff. I couldn’t wait for the day when electronic ordering screens would be universal.

I ordered a cup of coffee too. The woman I’d kidnapped requested a Diet Coke. I looked her skinny frame up and down and wondered if she shouldn’t have ordered the full-fat version. But I didn’t mention that to her.

“What’s your name, anyway?” she asked me.

I’d been dreading this.

“I don’t think that’s any of your business,” I said, trying to sound menacing.

She smirked and giggled slightly. “Then what am I supposed to call you? The Zodiac Killer?”

I took offense to that. “Hey! I don’t kill anyone. I never have.”

She raised one eyebrow. “So I guess I don’t need to be afraid of you, then.”

Damn. I was really blowing this.

My coffee and her Diet Coke arrived. Thankfully, the waitress still stank like a campfire and didn’t seem to have overheard any of our conversation.

“Anyway, my name’s Amber,” the woman said brightly, stirring the ice in her Diet Coke with her straw before taking a sip.

I hate it when they tell me their names.

“Look, I don’t need to know that, okay?” I said.

She continued sucking at her Diet Coke, like some sort of scrawny butterfly drinking nectar.

The waitress reappeared as if by magic, sneaking up behind me balancing a tray on one hand. She set an enormous chicken-fried steak down in front of Amber and an equally gargantuan plate of refried beans, rice, a sad-looking salad mix probably from a bag, and a chimichanga deep-fried to perfection in front of me.

I picked up my knife and fork, excited to cut into my chimichanga, when I suddenly smelled dog shit.

I put my silverware back down and looked across the table at Amber.

Her eyes were drinking in the sight of the feast in front of her. They roved across the plate: from the steak, drowned in thick white sausage gravy, to the mound of mashed potatoes with its perfectly round crater filled with dark brown gravy, to the little ceramic dish of cole slaw swimming in its own watery dressing.

“Just eat it,” I begged, trying to breathe as shallowly as possible.

She looked up at me and smiled. There was a new smell. Vanilla.

I wasn’t actually sure what that one was. Maybe just something in the restaurant. I picked up my coffee and sniffed it, just to check. The coffee smelled exactly like coffee. Nothing more, nothing less.

I looked up from my coffee mug. Amber’s green eyes were still fixed on me. She was still smiling as she chewed her deep-fried steak.

I looked down at the cooling food on my own plate. The air was full of wood smoke, vanilla, and shit. My stomach growled loudly, demanding to be fed. A large-bellied man with a long white beard at the table next to ours looked over at me, apparently surprised by the noise.

I covered my face with my hands in frustration.

After several increasingly desperate attempts to capture the red-haired waitress’s attention, I finally succeeded in calling her over to our table. Amber was working her way through her meal with the careful precision of an architect.

“What can I do for you, sir?” the waitress asked.

I pointed at my untouched plate. “Can I get this to go?”