Just A Taste (A Short Story)
Just a Taste (A Short Story)
Dan Ames
Contents
Just A Taste
Copyright
JUST A TASTE
Afterword
About the Author
Just A Taste
A SHORT STORY
by
Dan Ames
Copyright © 2014 by Dan Ames
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from the author or publisher.
JUST A TASTE
Delta Airlines flight attendant Tate Forsythe left Detroit Metro airport just past midnight. The flight from Dallas had been uneventful, boring, and a slight smell of shit had permeated the aircraft. Tate suspected the old guy in 14B had crapped his pants.
Tate took I-94 to Southfield Road, then shot over on 696 to his little two-bedroom flat a block from downtown Ferndale. Once inside, he stood his rollerbag up against the side of the kitchen table and flipped on the lights.
A noise behind him startled Tate. He felt something stab him through the cheap polyester fabric of his Delta Airlines shirt. His body jerked uncontrollably as pain radiated through every muscle in his body.
He collapsed on the kitchen floor.
A figure loomed over him. A face enclosed in a black ski mask.
A cloth was pressed over his mouth and a burning chemical stench filled his nostrils.
***
When he swam out of unconsciousness, Tate Forsythe was tied to a metal desk chair and his mouth was clamped open. Already, his tongue felt horribly large and dry. His jaws ached.
The figure in the ski mask appeared before him again.
“Hello, Tate,” it said. The voice was female. Any hope of a practical joke put on his by his buddies at the gym was gone. The knowledge that a woman had Tasered him, strapped him to a chair and clamped his mouth open set off a raging panic inside his brain.
The woman held a picture in front of his face.
“Remember her?” she said.
Tate closed his eyes.
The panic began to convert to pure, pitch-black dread.
He remembered the girl in the picture, and he didn’t.
***
There had been a time before his divorce when Tate Forsythe was out of his mind. His marriage was falling apart. He was drinking. Snorting cocaine. Watching pornography. Banging hookers and strippers, anything he could get his hands on.
Including unaccompanied minors.
As a senior flight attendant, he was able to assign himself the job of caring for underage children traveling by themselves. So he developed a system. He was a walking pharmacy, after all. He would give the girl he’d targeted a complimentary drink, laced with a little bit of the sedative Rohypnol, then keep an eye on her. Eventually, the girl would start to slump over in her seat, usually about halfway into the flight.
Then, he would help her to the bathroom, go inside with her, and explore.
After he had his fun, he would help her back to her seat. Before landing, he would give her another drink, this one laced with an upper, speed, maybe even a little coke.
It was just a phase he had gone through. There hadn’t been that many. And he couldn’t really remember them all, what they looked like.
But when he looked at that picture, he knew.
***
“I want to explain something to you,” the woman said. “I’m wearing this mask because I don’t intend to kill you. As long as you’re honest with me. Nod if you understand.”
He nodded quickly and with great gusto.
“Okay,” she said. “Now, did you rape this girl?”
Tate shook his head wildly from side to side.
“Did you take this girl into the bathroom, pull down her sweatpants, and violate her with your mouth?” the woman said.
It was a secret, Tate thought. Buried deep within himself. Despite the circumstances, he couldn’t will himself to respond in either the negative or the positive.
“I want an answer, or the mask comes off and you die,” the woman said. “This is the last time I will ask you. Did you drug this girl and perform oral sex on her against her will?”
It came then, like the root of a long-dead tree finally yanked from its burrow.
Tate nodded.
He heard the woman sigh.
“And did you figure that if you did it this way, she would have no idea if she’d been assaulted?”
Tate hesitated, then nodded.
He heard the woman sigh.
She took off her mask.
***
“She died six months ago,” the woman said. “My sister left a long journal that detailed her fall into drugs, alcohol and depression. I could never figure out what happened to Bonnie. Until I read her journal. Seems she thought she was assaulted by a male flight attendant. That’s when she started using drugs. It was the beginning of the end.”
The woman stepped back, pushed a cart carrying bottles and containers up next to him. She lifted a yellow plastic can he recognized as antifreeze.
“So tonight I thought I would arrange a sort of Taste Test for you. Seeing as how you are such a connoisseur of flavor. Tell me, how do you find the bouquet on this one?”
His mouth was suddenly full and he tried to spit out the antifreeze, but some of it slid down his throat.
“Let’s use this to cleanse your palate.” Tate’s mouth filled again. The burning liquid bit into his tongue and the walls of his mouth began to shred. He felt chunks of flesh slide down his throat.
“Don’t care for the drain cleaner?” the woman said. “I thought it had overtones of licorice, raw sugar cane and elderberries.”
Tate’s head spun and he vomited. The acid went through his nose, unleashing the scorching agony in a whole new area.
“I saved the best for last, Mr. Forsythe,” the woman said. “This is a very rare vintage from Vineyard Amoco. It’s called Octane 87.”
Tate smelled the gasoline, felt it flood his mouth. It splashed over his face. He tried to scream, but the gasoline poured in. He held his breath until his lungs gave out. He sucked gasoline deep into his body.
“This is best served as a flambé.”
Tate heard the explosion, felt the pain envelop his entire being and then he couldn’t feel anything anymore. He also realized something else.
He couldn’t taste anything.
THE END
Afterword
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About the Author
Dan Ames is a national and international bestselling author. His mysteries, thrillers and Westerns have sold hundreds of thousands of copies, and he won the Independent Book Award for Crime Fiction.
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Dan Ames, Just A Taste (A Short Story)
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