Beckett Reed and Samiyo Datoru
Original Characters
Written by Snarks
Beginning March 2014I made a habit of visiting the bar as often as I could whenever I knew Sam was on duty, and I would top it off by bringing him a cup of coffee, which would elicit one of his real, relaxed smiles, a salute, and a swig. I'd found out that he liked flavored coffees so I tried to bring him a different one every night. I discovered that there was a real sweet tooth in that smart mouth.
I admitted some frustration that we both worked nights but since I owned the art gallery I worked at, I had an in with the boss and could get any night off that I wanted. Sam, a bigger draw than the atmosphere in the bar, or the drinks, was a priceless commodity that his manager refused to do without any more than he had to. All of my begging and pleading hadn't been enough to convince my uncle to give Sam an extra night off on the weekend.
'Weekends are our busiest time! Or did you forget from when you were busing tables, huh?" He'd asked me, giving me a soft smack across the back of my head. 'Next you'll be asking if you and Gordon can go catting around on Saturdays like you used to!'
I just smiled and took a seat at the bar to wait til my Samiyo had a few moments to spare.
"Ready for tomorrow?" Sam asked as he brought me a fresh drink. He leaned on the counter and smiled at me. He was clad in tight blue jeans that accentuated his bubble butt. A gold and diamond stud in his ear, a thin gold chain around his neck and a white shirt enhanced his smooth mocha complexion.
I was only a couple of chromosomes away from being a full albino, but I loved how we looked together, my pale skin, his looking darker by comparison; his amber eyes and my ice blue; my neatly brushed platinum blonde hair against his, dark, and perpetually tousled no matter how often he combed it. I had to admit to some pleasure at how many double takes people made whenever the two of us were able to get out together.
"I'm looking forward to it. Are you sure there's nothing I can bring?"
"Well, mama loves those Russell Stover candies. Find a twenty-pound box of those and bring them along, eh?" Sam replied with a wink.
"Samiyo! Sam, man! My customers are dyin' of thirst here! Stop making goo-goo eyes at the ghost there and fill the damned order!" One of the waiters yelled down the length of the bar.
"Crow,” Sam shouted back over his shoulder, “If you're gonna be a dick head at least wear a condom over it, eh?"
"Yeah, f*** you too, smart ass. Make with the drinks!" Max Crowley, known as Crow to all, yelled back.
"What do you need, Oh Great Olori Buruku?" Sam asked, bowing deeply.
(asshole)
Crow looked at Sam uncertainly, not knowing what it was that Sam had said to him but knowing it wasn't anything complimentary, "Don't get smart with me, kid."
"If I were getting smart with you, how would you know it?" Sam grinned, that wide, gap-toothed grin that charmed and disarmed.
Thinking that he was going to embarrass the young bartender, Crow belted out the names of a dozen drinks from a list in his hand. It said a lot for Sam's professionalism and skill that he didn't need to write the order down to remember it.
Then, sinuously as a snake, gracefully as a tiger, Sam made his way down the bar, gathering up the ingredients for Crow's drinks. Every eye at the bar was on him as he performed what would have been an erotic dance anywhere else.
Sam placed each drink on a tray as it was made, as usual not spilling even a drop, then carried it over to Crow. He placed the spotless tray before Crow with a bow and a flourish, and in a husky, sultry voice accompanied by one of the sexiest and most provocative smiles I'd ever seen, said, "Nik ni ọwọ rẹ ki o si gba labara ara rẹ ni oju."
(Shit in your hand then slap yourself across the face.)
Everyone at the bar burst into applause and wolf whistles, subsiding into laughter and going back to their chatter and their drinks when they saw that Sam had finished his latest show.
Crow was completely taken aback. Sam was an excellent bartender and his coworkers liked him well enough but none of them could ever understand what the customers saw in him. Until now. Crow was grateful for the dim lighting in the bar because his face was burning and although he was straight as a board and married, he could feel a not unpleasant sensation spreading. He hurriedly delivered his drinks and ran to the men's room.
I watched Sam work for quite some time. I enjoyed watching him move and interact with his customers, and he didn't repeat his earlier performance for which I was grateful. During a brief lull, Sam came to me and gave me a surprisingly thorough kiss and one of his authentic smiles, which was sweet and boyish.
"That was some show you put on." I murmured in his ear as I nibbled on the lobe with the stud in it.
He chuckled, that sexy, husky sound that shot jolts of electricity from my groin to my brain and back again. "Did you like it?" he whispered, his breath tickling my cheek.
"Sam, I know that we haven't exactly sat down and said it out loud, but as far as I'm concerned, you're mine. I'm telling you now that any more displays like that are to be saved for me, and not for a bar full of strangers. Understood?"
Sam bowed his head slightly, studying me from beneath those thick, dark lashes; lips curved up in an amused arc, amber eyes glittering with some emotion I couldn't exactly put my finger on at the moment. Finally, he gave a shy and endearing smile. "Everyone is someone's weirdo, I may as well be yours." He said, then he gave me another soul kiss before he allowed himself to be called back to work.
While I was working, as unobtrusively as possible, to help Sam rein in his smart mouth, I could see that it was as much a part of him as his ability to juggle bottles and put on a show while making drinks. I especially liked watching him turn down every man who hit on him, although I'd warned him about how he did it, reminding him about his friend Franklin Van Wolferstein, or whatever the man's name had been.
"You are so sexy, Sammy," breathed one enamored patron who had been hitting on him all night even though he had, at my urging, politely declined every pass. "You're so hot. Everything about you makes me hard. Let's you and me disappear out back. Whadda ya say?"
Sam had leaned in toward the patron, licking his lips, golden eyes wide and framed by the dark lashes that people still took bets on as to whether they were real or not, and said in a husky voice, "Oh, yeah, sweetie, you're so sexy my middle finger gets a boner every time you're near me." He'd replied, lazily flashing said digit before turning his back on the man.
I waited to see if the patron would take the hint with dignity or become angry. The man, finally getting the message, snarled at the other patrons who were chuckling, flipped my Sam the bird, slapped a twenty on the bar and stalked off.
"Sorry, sweetie," I heard him saying only minutes later, "I don't date guys whose age and IQ are the same."
Shortly before his shift was to end I heard Sam in a heated argument with a man and woman, and I went over to see if I might be needed. I stayed on the periphery, but close enough to step in if things got bad. I noticed that my cousins, Gordon and Morgan, the bouncers on duty, were close by as well.
"Hon," Sam was saying, "I can't possibly see your point of view because I can't get my head that far up my ass. Now, why don't you just drop it. I told you I wasn't anyone to judge." He tried to turn away but the man grabbed him by the bicep and by the look of it was digging in pretty hard.
"All you hadda say was that Stina here was the prettiest of the two of em. This 'They're equally pretty' crap was just... crap! All you hadda was say that Stina was the winner."
Stina, who had been standing with her arms crossed and one foot extended and tapping angrily, flipped her bleached blonde and expensively coiffed hair over her shoulder. "Yeah!" she said around a mouthful of chewing gum, “You're gay! I thought you people had taste and could identify quality when you saw it! There was no way that tramp was prettier than I am, or even as pretty. Where do you get off saying we were equally pretty!?"
"You are a physically attractive woman," Sam said, and I prayed that Sam would leave it at that, "However, perhaps if you ate some of that make up you trowel so thickly on your face, you'd be beautiful on the inside as well. She had a beauty you will never match as long as you continue to act like this," he said, making a gentle circular gesture in her direction.
"That's it, you're dead meat!" the man yelled, pulling back a fist. "Let's see what a big man you are with a few teeth missing."
To my surprise, Gordon held me back, but I could feel the tension in his arm as he prepared to jump to Sam's defense the second it was needed.
Sam caught the fist, and with his dancer's grace swung and turned so that the man's arm was twisted up behind him while his date shrieked.
"Oh, shut up!" he said disgustedly to the woman, "I'm surprised that anyone within a five-mile radius of you doesn't have seizures every time you speak!"
"And you!" he said disdainfully to the man who struggled and cried in his grasp. "Your mother is twice the man you'll ever be. If you don't want the truth then don't ask for it, and if you demand the truth," he continued, shoving the man's arm further up his back, "then live with it and don't have a tantrum when you don't get your way."
He shoved the man away but I could tell from his body language that he was prepared for a physical altercation, and the flick of amber eyes checking his surroundings. He saw me, winked solemnly, and focused his attention on the couple before him.
"Now look, my shift is nearly over, and it looks like you two had a hard night. Why don't I get you a couple of drinks on the house? You sit and relax, and end your night on a pleasant note. What do you say?"
The man looked as though he were going to continue to argue, but the woman wasn't about to give up the opportunity for a free drink or two and she nudged her boyfriend in the ribs to get him to quiet down. "That's very gracious of you," Miss Bleached Blonde said around her mouthful of gum, which she popped coyly.
"Morgan, please, ask Hill to clean off a table for this nice couple and give them whatever they want, on me."
Morgan and Gordon both grinned and shook their heads in amusement while they backed off, one to make his rounds, and the other to find Hillary who could charm the teeth out of barracudas. Besides Sam, she was the highest tip earner in the bar.
The now mollified customers followed Morgan to one of Hillary's tables and I could see the muscles in Sam's body relax somewhat, but I could hear him muttering to himself, and his brow was furrowed.
"Talk to me, hon. It's over." I said, putting an arm around him.
"That's very gracious of you." he mimicked in a nasal whine that reminded me of a swarm of mosquitoes. " 'Gracious!' I'm willing to bet she has no idea what the word means! God! I hate having to deal with people like that every freaking night." he griped, walking back behind the bar to wait for the couple's order.
Once he was back behind the bar he called the kitchen. "Robbie, would you please get me a plate of those finger snacks, the jalapeno poppers, and chicken nuggets and stuff, and have them sent out to Hill's table with the two morons sitting at it... don't worry, you can't miss them, woman looks like she got dressed in the dark in a clown's closet and then let Tammy Faye do her make up. Yeah... Thanks."
Hillary came around with the drink order and Sam mixed them up faster and with less showmanship than I'd seen in the past. Hillary was about to take the tray when Sam asked if she'd mind if he delivered them. "Don't worry, tips are all yours, sweetie pie," he assured her with a kiss to her cheek.
"Here you go, drinks on the house and I ordered you a little something from the kitchen," he said as he put down the thick paper coasters and placing their drinks on them. "Oh, and Miss, I didn't get the chance to tell you before but that dress you're wearing is absolutely meretricious!" he gushed, "And whatever else I might have said to offend you, I just wanted to let you know that you are by far the most vacuous woman I have ever met in my life. I mean that sincerely."
"Thank you!" The woman replied, blushing and coyly holding out her hand so that he could kiss the back of it.
He took the proffered hand between his and loudly kissed the back of his own hand, which both man and woman completely missed. "Ohhhhh!" Cooed the woman, "He's such a gentleman! Why can't you do that!" she said, angrily turning on her boyfriend.
Sam bowed with a smile and then left as quickly as he could. He clocked out and met me in the car.
"I had to get out of there before her voice shattered my eardrums." He said, pressing his fingers against his temples. "My Lord, I've never met a more stupid couple! If their brains exploded it wouldn't even mess up their hair!"
I pulled him closer and put my arms around him. He rested his head against my shoulder and I used one hand to massage his neck while I kissed his forehead. "OK honey, it's all over and done with. You handled that very well, I was proud of you. Where did you learn that trick?"
Sam gave a laugh that sounded eerily similar to a snort. "After you told me about Mr. Wolframandhart I thought it would be a good idea to learn a little self-defense." He rubbed his shoulder ruefully. "Morgan kept me at it until I could get his arm down, if not behind him. And he gave me some good advice."
"What was that?"
" 'On the keyboard of life, always keep one finger on the escape key.' "
I huffed a laugh, "What?!"
"When faced with more than you can handle, keep your eye open for the closest escape route!" Sam laughed.
I drew him closer and into a kiss. When we finally broke it, we were both relaxed and unwilling to start the car and go home, so we sat there, watching the colors of the city pass us by in our little cocoon.
tbc
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