I Never Look Classy: Part 13-and-a-Half: Story Time!!

Story by myself, Entitled "Whoopsie Doopsie Doo, I Killed You."

I wrote this in 2 hours and 13 minutes, from the start of when I sat down with a vague plot and two character names until I finished the final sentence. I started the exercise with ten minutes of plot brainstorming, an outline of the events, and then began writing.
No editing has taken place to the story since I finished the last keystroke when I wrote it.
It is probable that this needs some editing, but I do like it. With that in mind, enjoy.




Vanessa stood as her friend sat down on the white large black marble floor. She watched coldly as Stephanie hunched over with her forehead on the ground and vomited her entire stomach contents on her dark wool skirt and black stockings.

The pale young man behind the counter stood staring in bewilderment for a second at the mess creating itself in the middle of his clean floor. After a few seconds he remembered himself and rushed around the formica countertop to kneel beside the sick woman.

Clutching Stephanie's purse, Vanessa turned and stepped out of the tiny coffee shop. Her heels clicked on the worn beige tiles that made up the floor of the subway station and, not 30 seconds after her friend collapsed on the floor, making no breathing sounds, Vanessa had disappeared into the warm rainy lights of the dark city.

–

“Do you remember that party,” Stephanie said viciously, “the one on the last day of freshman year?”

“Of course I fucking remember that party,” Vanessa spat back at her.

“Well, I have a few dark spots from that night. I remember doing shots with you early in the night. There was jello shots and then some other things happened, but the one thing that I do remember very clearly is being in the hot tub with Franklin.”

Vanessa's eyes flashed with anger.

“Yeah, we were all along. It was the hot tub on the porch of the master bedroom. It didn't even take that long before he was complaining about you. 'Oh, Vanessa? She can be a real stuck up bitch sometimes,'” Stephanie impersonated Franklin with a flourished, over-emphasizing tone. “'Sometimes I wish that her and I had never gotten together.'”

“Shut up,” Vanessa hissed. She looked quickly around the small, empty coffee shop and over to the barista behind the counter, but her had not noticed anything. He was reading a fashion magazine with some young thing on the cover. Dark hair and a pink ribbon wrapped tightly around her throat.

'Oh how I wish I had a ribbon wrapped around Stephanie's throat,' thought Vanessa.

Stephanie was continuing her story about Franklin in her cruel voice as if Vanessa had never said anything. She seemed to delight in twisting every word as if they were knives in Vanessa's side.

“I spent the night with him. We spent hours and hours just fuc-”

Vanessa grabbed Stephanie by the wrist, pressing her long red fingernails into the tendons in Stephanie's carpel tunnel. Stephanie was cut-off mid sentence, yelping in pain.

For the first time she noted the coldness in Vanessa's eyes as Vanessa glared at her from under her short black bangs, over the top of her delicate glasses.

“You know, I actually knew about,” Vanessa said, pressing harder and encouraging another sigh of pain out of Stephanie, whose expression of anger had been replaced with one of fear. “I knew all about you and Franklin. That's actually one of the reasons that I was happy to take this assignment.”

Stephanie tried to pull back on her wrist, but Vanessa dug her nails in deeper. A small trickle of blood splashed against the wooden tabletop and leaving a few speckles on the folder file that Stephanie had in front of her.

Vanessa put a finger to her lips and shushed Stephanie gently.

“Now now, we wouldn't want our host to hear us,” she said, looking at the bored college student behind the espresso machine. “It was icing on the cake, actually. I was so angry at you when I walked in on you and Franklin in that hot tub. You were on top of him and it took everything I had not to run over and throw you off of that balcony.”

“You see, Stephanie, that day I made a vow, and the vow was this: 'I am going to kill her.' Her meaning you, Stephanie.”

Stephanie was frozen, blood slowly oozing out from her wrist as Vanessa twisted it backwards, all the while keeping her nails pushing further and further into the nerves in Stephanie's wrist.

“I never did see you after that. I mean, it was summer time and I ended up going away for the next seven years. Do you want to know where I went?”

“Please let go-” Stephanie stammered.

“Nope, that's not where I went. Actually, I went overseas. There was a recruiting program, and I had caught their eye. It turns out that they were very interested in me.”

“What- What do you mean?”

“Well, I was Romania, staying with my family for a few months over the summer. The group was... as I had said, interested. In me specifically.”

Vanessa moved her mouth in such a way as to resemble a smile, but there was not a shred of mirth or happiness found there.

“I won't say much about the first few years, because really it's not becoming of a lady to talk about that kind of place in polite company. It wasn't a good place, and they did not treat me kindly. I have scars from the first few times I tried to escape,” Vanessa sighed. “At one point they did push me too far, though.”

“That's when they noticed something else about me, Stephanie. I wanted to survive. Do you want to?”

Stephanie made to reach into her purse. Vanessa yanked her wrist to the side.

“What are you looking in there for, Steph? Your gun? When you were in the bathroom I stole it just in case you made a dumb move.”

Stephanie kicked out with the sharp heel of her shoe, aiming for Vanessa's instep, at the same time yanking her torso backwards in order to break Vanessa's grip.

The pale man behind the counter remained oblivious, listening to his headphones.

Vanessa let go as Stephanie pulled back, leaving her own momentum carrying her off balance, making her surprise move useless.

In a split second Vanessa had pulled out the small matte black pistol that had once resided in Stephanie's purse.

“It doesn't matter, really, Stephanie, you trying that. Let me finish the story though, before we settle up our 'account' so to speak.”

“They know I am here,” Stephanie said, putting pressure on the wound on her wrist to stop the bleeding.

“No they don't. You may be the aide to the Prime Minister, but they aren't following your every movement. And by the time you don't show up for work tomorrow, I will be long gone. Now, as I was saying, when I was noticed for a second time by the group I currently work for, it was because they found me in a room with two dead and one blind man, covered in blood and a bootknife in my hand. That's when they decided that maybe I could be of use to them in other ways.”

Vanessa leaned in close across the small circular table and whispered in Stephanie's ear.

“You're not my first, you know.”

Vanessa pushed the barrel of the gun into Stephanie's abdomen.

“Bang,” she whispered.

Vanessa leaned back and checked up once more on the clueless dude, now counting muffins behind the counter.

“It doesn't matter. I know you, and of course, just like in the old days, you ordered the exact same thing every time. A cappuccino, it takes a few minutes to make, and while you were in the bathroom I slipped just a taste of cyanide in your drink.”

Stephanie's eyes widened in realization. “You fucking-” she gasped as she flung herself back from the table and out of the chair.

Vanessa watched as she made it partway across the tiled floor before she stopped, clutching her stomach. Stephanie teetered as if on the brink of stepping on to a train bound for parts unknown, before one of her heels twisted underneath her and she collapsed.

–

The lights in the concrete ceiling swung ever so slightly as the vibrations from another subway train shook the minuscule coffee shop gently.

“That could get irritating,” Vanessa said with a smile, “but I guess it's lucky that we don't work here!”

Stephanie smiled back.

“You may not work here, Vanessa, but sometimes I feel that I do. I come in here usually every day before and after work. I am thinking of asking my boss for a raise, just so I can help pay for the coffee's that I get here.”

Stephanie sat down on one side of the small wooden table, Vanessa on the other.

“Would your boss do that?”

Stephanie laughed a bit, to herself more than anything.

“Well, he's a nice guy, but a bit hair brained. I suppose it's to be expected, the President has been giving him a lot of hassle over this Conduction bill they've been trying to get passed into law. Either way, he is also a big connoisseur of coffee, so I suppose the case could be made to him.”

“You should do it! Even if you don't spend the money on coffee, it's always nice to have a bit of extra cash around, if you can find the time to spend it.

“I guess.”

There was an awkward pause as Vanessa sipped her coffee and Stephanie looked to the barista who was going through the process of still making hers.

“So what about you?” Stephanie asked. “What are you up to these days?”

“Oh, you know, just working on a bit of- well, consulting is a good way of putting it. I'm just in town on a bit of business.”

“You travel a lot, I didn't know.”

“All over. Last week I was in Brussels, but the food was bad and the company- unwelcoming.”

“I wish that I had a chance to travel, I can barely see the sun shine here. Maybe one day I can make it down to the south, my 'Nan has a bit of a cottage down there.”

“A bit of a cottage? That sounds nice. Is it right on the sea?”

“Oh yes. I've had a weekends of fun and games down there, but with the new job and everything I haven't been able to get away for the last 18 months.”

Vanessa nodded in commiseration.

“No rest for the wicked, I suppose.”

Another pause as the two of them tried to bridge the gap that lay before them.

Stephanie watched the barista and Vanessa took a good look at her.

Her blond hair, long in high school and in freshman year was now cut short in the popular fashion that was going around. Stephanie had put on a few pounds since then as well, but it only served to round off her sharp features and give her a more wholesome, grown up look.

The barista rattled the espresso machine and twisted and pulled some of the dozens of shiny brass levers and knobs that formed the shiny coffee denizens countenance. Steam hissed out of somewhere on the machine.

Stephanie excused herself to the bathroom for a moment while waiting for her coffee.

Another train rumbled by and shook the small coffee shop again.

The barista finished his work with the brass beast and placed the cappuccino on the table across from Vanessa before retreating behind the counter and picking up something to read.

Vanessa pulled from the manila envelop a small vial of white powder.

The cappuccino had a flower pattern of steamed milk poured into the foam, the creamy brown and foamy white mixing along the edges and creating a very pretty marbled effect.

Vanessa sprinkled the white powder on top as if icing sugar. The foam flattened and began to break apart.

Stephanie returned from the bathroom, buttoning up her pea coat as she walked back over to the table.

“So,” said Stephanie, “how about the cinema on tuesday? I have a free night that day, perhaps we could go and see a film together?”

“That sounds lovely. What films have come out?”

“I don't really follow, but I am sure that we could see something.”

Stephanie sipped her cappuccino and Vanessa bared her white teeth in a somewhat predatory smile.

“Okay. It's a date.”

“A date?”

Vanessa tilted her head

“A plan, then.”

Stephanie nodded and sipped her drink again. Vanessa did the same and once again the awkwardness of two people who haven't seen each other in quite some time was thick.

Especially that one of them had just poisoned the other.

“So what ever became of you and Alex?” Vanessa started.

“Alex? Oh, I haven't seen him since-- a long time ago? I think the summer of freshman year.”

“But you two were so in love, weren't you?”

“Oh, I thought that we were at the time,” Stephanie said, shaking her head. “I think that he was in love with me, but I was looking for someone a bit more- exciting.”

“Exciting?”

“Oh, yes. You remember how I was back then. Though now I've settled down a bit, my husband actually works in the office across the hall from me. A boring chap actually, but we still get up to a bit of fun now and then.”

“You're married? I hadn't heard.”

“Oh, yes, for three years now. He have a flat not too far from the city centre.”

“My- well, congratulations.”

Vanessa thought back to the details inside the Manila envelope. It hadn't contained any mention of a family.

“Hopefully,” Vanessa added, “this one lasts a bit longer than Alex did.”

Stephanie's smile faltered at these words.

“What do you mean by that?”

“Well, you were a bit of a wild child if I remember correctly.”

“A 'wild child?'”

“You know what I mean, Steph, it was barely a week that went by that you didn't have some new young thing on your arm, and that's even when you were dating Alex. He never knew because he was always at his studio painting.”

“I never did anything with those other-”

Vanessa nodded in mock agreement.

“Of course you didn't,” Vanessa cooed.

Stephanie's cheeks flushed red and she shoved across the table, splashing some on one of the file folders that she had set in front of her. She look around at the empty coffee shop to ensure that no one had seen her embarrassment.

The coffee shop was still empty, save for the barista reading his magazine.

–

The subway train sped along the tunnel, lights flickering past quickly. The evening train had very few people on it, and Stephanie was sitting alone at the front end of the second car.

Every few seconds the lights in the car would flicker, but Stephanie's attention was on her cellular in her hands.

She saw that she had two messages.

The first was from her friend, Vanessa, saying that she was going to meet her at the Alperton Tube station, which is where Stephanie was headed.

The second was from her husband.

'Hun, I'll see you tonight. Make sure to bring those files home and don't stay out too late, you know I worry ;)' said the text message.

Stephanie smiled to herself and looked once more at her purse and the few file folders that she was carrying with her.

The new Conduction Bill that had been introduced was getting a lot of flak from some of the other parties in Parliament and Trenton, her husband was worried about some sort of political attack, but Stephanie didn't think so. She wasn't worried.

She checked in her purse once more for the two devices that she now always carried with her.

The first, a small Walther pistol, given to her by the Prime Minister himself not six months ago when she had become one of his chief aides.

“These are dangerous times,” The Prime Minster had said.

Indeed they were, thought Stephanie as she checked the second device.

About the size of two decks of cards was a black box with a red button and a metal disk where something was made to go.

Taking the black device out of her purse, she mated the peculiar pattern on her wedding ring to the design in the device and turned the metal disk until it clicked.

“One can never be too careful,” Stephanie muttered to herself. She placed the timed incendiary device back into her purse, the timer reset for another 60 minutes. It nestled in her large purse beside the sensitive computer drives that she had brought home with her along with the paper files.

The conductor called out the next stop and Stephanie collected her things.

“Alperton Station, Alperton Station,” said the conductor.

As the train slowed to a stop Stephanie saw her old friend about thirty metres away, sitting on a red plastic bench on the platform. Her hair was the same, dark and short, messy as if she had just gotten out of bed. She seemed thinner and taller than Stephanie had last seen, dressed in a pair smart leather boots and fashionable red leather coat with black buttons.

Stephani stepped off the train and began walking to her sitting friend.

Vanessa pulled a yellow envelope from her purse and opened it, taking something out and looking at it. Even though Stephanie was relatively far away she could see that her friend was concerned for a moment.

'I wonder what that is about,' thought Stephanie, 'I'll be sure to ask her about it after coffee.'

“Vanessa!” she called to her friend across the deserted tube station.

Vanessa looked up and the two of them waved,

'Old friends,' thought Stephanie as she walked briskly across the white tile, 'some people never change.'