Jasmine Chapter 2

(Author's Note: Are you afraid of the dark? I am. I sleep with the lights on sometimes. - Lee)

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“Hey! Hey! Shhh!”

I felt a cold hand over my mouth, while another was holding my wrist against what appeared to be the wall of the coffee shop’s restroom.

“What the hell? I thought you wanted this?”

It was jasmine-smelling girl, with her hair all ruffled and her bra strap falling off her left shoulder, giving me a rougher kiss than I had expected. I immediately felt my face flush as I realized what had happened. How she came when I was reading her book, how I gave her a smile, a quick chat, and the invitation to the coffee shop’s restroom for a quickie.

She let go of my hand and fixed herself up.

“I was just trying to find a good time, you know. I should have known you were a weirdo the moment you told me you were researching about eggs.”

With that, she left the restroom with me in it, and her lingering jasmine scent. I was still a bit rattled as I turned to the restroom mirror to wash my face. That was when I noticed something on the floor, just beside the toilet bowl. It was the pocketbook that I saw jasmine-smelling girl put on top of the table earlier, opened in the middle, face down on the floor. I picked it up, and was shocked to see that the opened page contained the face of the disfigured man on one side, and mine on the other. I screamed for the second time in that restroom as I saw the mirror reflecting the disfigured man, with his bloody eyes and lopsided mouth, standing behind me.

“Miss, miss, wake up!”

I felt a strong hand shaking my shoulder as I woke up with a  sick sense of disorientation in front of my laptop in a corner of the coffee shop. I saw the coffee shop’s guard looking at me suspiciously.

“We’re about to close up, miss. That must be some heavy article you’re writing for you to doze off like that.”

I apologized and thanked him and shoved my things in my bag as quick as I could. I rushed down the stairs and had my hand on the door when I heard the guard call me.

“Miss! Hey, miss! You left something.”

I turned back and saw him extending his hand, holding the purple pocketbook with the disfigured man on the cover. Without saying a word, I turned my back and rushed out of there as fast as I could. I was sweating bullets, half-running towards the taxi bay.

I was able to breathe more regularly when I finally settled inside the taxi. I gave the taxi driver my address and plugged in my earphones to calm me down. I kicked myself for being too much of a nervous freak. Absolutely no more expensive bitter coffee for me!

I closed my eyes and listened to the upbeat music. After a few moments, I opened my eyes and looked outside that dark street barely illuminated by cheap halogen street lamps. Then, my hairs stood on end as my nostrils caught a whiff of a familiar scent. Jasmine. In slow-motion, I dreadfully looked at the rearview mirror and the cruel disfigured purple face of a man with bloody eyes, lopsided mouth was the last thing I ever saw.