Maybe

Casual Friday evening. Casual Tinder hook-up.

Online dating has really given spontaneity the opportunity to shine.

So, this guy and this girl decided that they should see each other after no more than 40 minutes of joking around and making connections. He was supposed to leave the morning after, so, what gives?

Three hours behind the accidental superlike on her side, guy and girl meet.

“You superliked me by mistake, didn’t you?”, he asked.

But she didn’t dare to spit on his self-esteem just like that, although he wasn’t particularly good looking.

“Why’d you think that?”, she asked in return.

“Well, you’re… pretty cool. Much cooler than what usually happens around here.”

She thought she was cool. But he didn’t know that yet.

They went on naturally casual, bonding like they had known each other for a lifetime. And even though they’d been there with the obvious purpose of hooking up, none of them had moved in that direction. They were flirty, but as long as the time spent together was to be well invested, it was worth it. He didn’t hesitate to mention that he’d been accommodated in a different hotel by mistake, but that one had a round jacuzzi in the middle of the room.

He and his hotel room had been nothing but an option for her. But the best she had at the time.

It appeared as both of them were having a good time. He failed to understand how she’d been so spontaneous.

“Give me context. I need to understand.”

“Understand what?”, she asked.

“What is your game? Why did you respond so spontaneously to… this? You know my story, why I’m here, but, why are you?”

“So let’s see. You’re trying to get a hold of my story, seemingly giving me the upper hand, just to find out my truth so you can have the upper hand.”

“You’re sharp”, he noted enthusiastically. “Another round, please”, making a sign to the waiter to fetch them both one more glass of what they were having.

He’d been a gentleman all along. He described his accidental hotel room like it could easily fit into a scene out of a Tarantino movie. Good move.

There was no other type of flirting involved, he never made a move or a joke, nor had he sent her a sexy text message. The question hanging on everybody’s lips was being inhaled and exhaled with every smoke of a cigarette. The obvious “maybe” didn’t change a thing, it just provided the music they were both dancing to.

“Let’s have another drink”, she proposed indecisively.

A man will never tell you he’s done talking. But a gentleman will make it seem like it was your idea, so he led her to believe that they were going to do some more bar-hopping, even though he’d been clear about what a long day it had been and that he’d rather be somewhere silent.

“We could have another drink, but I’d rather be somewhere more cozy, more silent. I feel the need to be chill, more… tactile.

“Subtle”, she giggled, with half an eyebrow raised respectfully towards his diplomacy of dealing with the facts. She’d always been the kind of girl witty to interact, and at this point a situation was created in which she’d usually throw her imaginary knickers off.

“Then make a decision already, I’m tired of making them”, she begged with big eyes looking up at him as she was holding the collar of his shirt in her hands.

The collar-grabbing led to calling it a night in town.

(Intermezzo)

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(Build-up)

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(Anticipation)

No woman has felt more like a woman than when she enters a hotel with a man.

The room was as she’d imagined and surely just as he’d described it.

Post-modern-communist interior with glass doors and windows, and rattan furniture which fit the picture so little it hurt your eyes. It incorporated the vision of an Eastern-European small company CEO who’d been to too many foreign countries. The misplaced jacuzzi was clearly the centerpiece, strategically positioned so you could watch TV. Opposite from the jacuzzi, next to the gigantic TV there was this… pole. If you’re imagining a strip-club pole as you’re reading this, you’re right. That is exactly what it was. Needless to say the room provided enough context for different things to happen. It was the proper mistake in their context.

She took her earrings off. He went to the bathroom to make himself more comfortable. She was thinking about exploring the architecture of the room while waiting for him to return. She was also taking imaginary walks into her little world of Korean movie scripts where this scenario offered enough context for murder to take place. Also, two strangers meeting for the first and probably only time in their lives in a room of a central, yet shady hotel, perfect depiction of a Tarantino-movie scene and the eerily-shaped bag of music gear he’d brought in for the event he had attended a few hours before they met. As she got closer to take a look at his bag she’d noticed a little black book inside of it and what appeared to be a large sum of money, cash, American dollars, she’d estimated around $20,000, among other objects which, given the new context, all seemed suspicious.

“Come on, he’s not plotting to kill you. Surely you’ve sensed his vibe by now, you’re good at that. Trust your instincts and silence the little devil on your right shoulder who’s watched way too many serial-killer documentaries.” At that point, her heart started skipping beats as it accelerated its rhythm. She wished he’d be back from the bathroom just as much as she’d wanted him to take the longest possible shower.

“What about the money? Someone paid him! Who and why would someone pay to have me killed? Of course. That makes sense! How do you manage to get yourself in such situations? From all the trouble you got yourself into this is by far the worst. What is your mother going to think if they’d find you like this?” “My girl’s been whoring around with some stranger in a hotel room. Was she working as a prostitute? Whom did I raise? Why hasn’t she come to me for money?”, you’d only make your mother feel guilty and not have her rest til the end of her days.”

“You could, you know, get out of here at any time”, she reasoned, “but you’d like to stay and see what happens, wouldn’t you, you thrill-seeking, ill-advised teenage girl, who hasn’t been exposed to much adventure in her prime, now, innit?”

“Terrified Room-Service Employee Finds Body of 31-year-old Female in Eastern-European Hotel Room”, sounds like the big title in tomorrow’s paper.

In her head, of course. Sounds like something she’d read. What if, just this once, she was the girl? What if all the films she so casually watches every other night were only to lead the way towards her own murder? Probably her teenage mind would have found this macabre scenario quite intriguing and awesome. But now she’s startled, to say the least, more by her scene-plotting mind than anything else, really. What was it, some box of musical gear, a little black book and a few thousand dollars? How easy it is to turn something you don’t even know into a scenario that you can relate to. A projection, maybe? An extension of self that you can adapt to any story as it pleases you. It’s what we do. It’s why we’re so opinionated all the time, every time, about anything. We see ourselves in a context that’s clearly not our own but our minds are so powerful that we can relate to almost anything. Making up crime-scenes and even first-page headliners out of thin air. Is that what she’d been doing?

The dread. The self-induced fear. The plotting. She’d been feeding herself stories just to make life more interesting, even though she knew that $20,000 was not even close to a decent amount of money for a murder. She was worth more than that.

“That’s it then. I’m done engaging in cheap thrills. And 20,000 is a bit cheap for killing someone, although we live in an ex-communist block”, she thought. But maybe this one costs more than her previous adventures. How do you ever win, if you never take a chance? And she’d been the kind of woman to throw it all in. Up to the point where “all” could mean her life. In her head, of course. Or perhaps in his, too. It’s hard to tell, really. After all, you connect with like-minded people. Maybe this was it. Maybe this evening was supposed to be the end of it.

It seems like all of us are trying to spice things up and imagine ourselves in different situations which could put an end to the dreadful monotony of our everyday lives. That’s what she’s been doing, threading the fine line between brave and irresponsible.

But then again...

What if the “musical gear” was just boxes hiding duct tape, cellophane and some chloroform to make it even easier? Maybe he didn’t have a plane to catch, but could carefully slice her up into a million little pieces and fit her right into that oddly-looking crate by next morning and then… then she’d never be found. She’d never become a headliner. Not even that. Just an anonymous, anxious, not-so-young woman looking for a thrill. A Jane Doe.

“Yeah, but you don’t live in a movie”, he mouthed, running his hand on the back of her forearm, surprising her from a few steps behind. He takes her hand and drags her softly towards him, moving around a little bit as to initiate a dance.

“I noticed, on my way out that I’d left my music case open, there’s all sorts of things coming out of there. It’s like Pandora’s box.”

She felt like her heart got to her throat and felt a cold wave down her spine. “What about the money, ‘d they pay you already for your performance earlier?”

“Not yet. No. That money’s for another project. I didn’t get to tell you about it yet.”

She takes a quick step back.

“What if I told you I brought you here to kill you? Would you believe it? No, you’d think someone could see me through the tall window-wall. But I could slip something into your drink, maybe I have already. It would appear as if you’d fall asleep. Nothing strange about that. I could do it in this room. Yeah.”

Her heart dropped to her feet. She felt fear.