The Bartender and the Oyster

The bartender held the oyster in one hand, dipping it towards me so I could see that it was fresh and untouched. He gripped the knife tightly and inserted it in between the top and bottom shells, twisting mercilessly until the shells became unhinged. He pulled back the top shell, revealing the lump of mucus underneath, before separating the meat from the body in one skilled swipe of the knife. Delicately, the shell and the oyster meat was placed before me, on a bed a ice. I stared at it for a moment, taking a dainty sip of my Manhattan, and then finally picked up the oyster, throwing it back in one shot.

There was the distinct taste of seawater and brine. The oyster felt like nothing in my mouth, as if I had simply gone diving and opened my jaws to accept a waterfall of ocean down my throat. I did not chew; simply tasted, before swallowing.

The bartender had taught me two weeks beforehand. I reeled at the idea of eating raw, slimy shellfish, never having been exposed to such a thing in my life. For the past four months, I'd been ordering familiar things from room service: chicken and mashed potatoes, steak and eggs, pasta carbonara and Caesar salad (anchovies included). I was starting to gain back a little of the weight I had lost since leaving home, but not enough to make a difference. I was still small, and frail, too weak to do anything other than sit at a bar and order overpriced seafood.

The bartender shucked a few more oysters, setting them before me and encouraging me to eat them right as they went down on the ice. "Still so fresh, they may as well be alive," he'd said the first time he served them to me, jokingly. It had dawned on me within a few days of Beyond leaving that alone, and without his protection, a wedding ring was not even close to enough to keep away other men. They saw a girl, alone, drinking cocktails at the hotel bar, and if she was even vaguely decent-looking they all went rapacious, hungry dogs chasing their own tails. I rather liked the bartender; he gave me shots of the best top shelf vodka for free right at closing, and kept away the other beasts by staring them down when I looked uncomfortable under their soft glares. He never gave me his name, and I never asked for it; the bar put a reasonable distance between us so I never felt like I had to push him away.

I started coming to the bar about a month in to Beyond's disappearing act. The guards followed me, keeping blank faces as usual, positioning themselves at each entrance to the bar area and never letting their eyes stray from my sight. I was bored, and lonely, and just seeing other people—even if I did not talk to them, even if I was only watching, silently, from my quiet corner—was secretly thrilling. Aside from this, I had developed a distinct taste for alcohol. It was not a smart move for someone attempting escape from capture, but with my freedom feeling farther and farther away the longer Beyond was gone, and being stuck with a team of serious body guards, I realized it was a quick and easy way to numb the pain.

The first drink (aside from the champagne the night Beyond and I had had sex), had been a straight-up double of bourbon, no ice. I chugged it down, choking as the chilled liquid burned my throat. It had come on a night when I couldn't sleep. My dreams were filled with that man in the woods; never alive, as he had been, but always dead, with his blood on my hands. I tossed and turned but every time I closed my eyes I saw his slackened jaw and lifeless eyes and felt the weight of his body as he fell to the ground. And then I remembered his blood, soaking my shirt and my pants, a badge of honor to Beyond but a complete symbol of shame for myself. As soon as those feelings began to set in, the feelings that were not quite guilt or hatred but perhaps a mixture of the two, I wanted—no, needed to do something, anything to push them away.

The guards watched me each night afterwards as I moved back and forth between the strongest cocktails I could get my hands on—long island iced teas, bone dry martinis, jungle juice—and just straight-up shots of pure liquor. The bartender, whose name I never asked and whose name was never given, started to get used to me as a regular, putting in front of me drinks depending on the look on my face; the more miserable I seemed, the higher the alcohol content. Despite almost never talking, he was starting to become my best friend.

At a certain point, I became stir-crazy. Staying up until sunrise and not waking until sunset. Watching out the window, waiting to see his familiar figure waltz down the sidewalk outside. My plots came to a grinding halt, because I was too afraid to try and go looking for the things I needed, and did not have enough freedom to train the way I originally wanted to train. The only time I was alone was in the hotel room, and the hotel room was suffocating and boring.

Eventually, after two weeks had passed and no Beyond, I grew desperate. I ordered a steak and stole the knife that came with the platter. It was dull and didn't do a great job of cutting things, but I thought it might still work to my advantage. Then I waited, unsleeping, for three days straight. I lay in bed and watched the shadows move on the walls, thinking of my first few days in the building in Chicago. I started sleeping again, keeping my hand on the knife handle at all times. When Beyond was still a no-show, I eventually gave up, tossing the knife into a basket of dirty towels and letting the maid take them away the next day. It wasn't likely it would have worked anyway. There was no planning that went into it, and the weapon was useless. Beyond would have grabbed my hand at the last second and everything I had worked for up until that moment would have been ruined.

That's when I started testing out my limits. I came down to the bar almost every night. I started swimming in the pool when no one was around, trying to build my strength slowly and as inconspicuously as possible. I went on a walk around the block, and then farther—I took my lunches at hot dog stands and ice cream kiosks, sitting at a nearby park and enjoying the midday view. I tried to walk a little farther, but as soon as I was starting to feel like I was getting away from them, the two men would appear out of nowhere, standing in front of me with hands outstretched, ushering me back to the hotel.

Weeks passed into months. Before I knew it, it was June, and Beyond still hadn't made an appearance at the hotel. I continued to go down to the bar, each night, up until the bartender made the suggestion: oysters. I had been eating regular bar food; charcuterie and cheese plates, buffalo wings, pickled salads. Small items I could pick at while I picked my poison for the night. The bartender was always there, the same man, bringing me my food directly from the kitchen and pouring my drinks, standing in front of me as I sipped them, only leaving my side to get a foreign beer for a Chinese diplomat or a bottle of sake for the gold-digger in the skin-tight dress who was looking to show her catch how cultured she was when it came to alcohol.

He was a short, lean man with curly brown hair and a beard to match. He didn't look like the type that would be serving seafood to the crème de la crème of society. He looked out of place in his black tuxedo, like he belonged joining the party rather than serving it. He could have been an actor, the kind with the odd, memorable face who played the quirky friend on a sitcom. He was most definitely the charismatic type. The first few days he tried to talk to me, flirt with me—harmless, of course, just the type of behavior that was expected of a waiter trying to make a decent tip. When I responded better to silence he adopted that instead, only speaking to comment on the drinks he concocted—"this would put a Mexican cage wrestler to bed in under five minutes, guaranteed"—or to explain a new item on the menu—"filet minon sliders, served with parmesan garlic fries, my own suggestion to the chef."

And then the oysters came in. They hadn't served them before. Like I said before, I had waved away the idea of trying something so exotic and opulent. But he convinced me. "It's not just about the taste," he said. "The oyster offers something for all the sense. The smell of the open sea, the touch rough shell juxtaposing with soft interior, the crack as you split it open, and the sight of something so ugly, it almost becomes beautiful." I was floored by his explanation, my curiosity peeked. I had oysters every night after that. Up until this night.

It didn't start out much different. After I had downed a dozen, he shucked open the last, the "lucky thirteen," and set it down before me. My eyes were trained on the knife he used: a short, broad blade attached to a wooden handle. It wasn't particularly sharp; the point of the oyster knife was not necessarily to pierce, but to provide force strong enough to rip the creature open. The process dazzled me; he was correct, the whole point of the oyster wasn't necessarily the taste but the experience of the eating. I watched him take apart that last oyster and set the bed down before me, but I didn't pick it up immediately. Instead I stared at the knife.

"Can I see that?" I asked, holding out my hand. He seemed taken aback. I didn't talk much; mostly, he was the one doing the talking, in the rare instances it was required. But he didn't hesitate to hand me the tool. I twisted it in my fingers, and my mind immediately went to the pocketknife I had planted straight into the camper's neck. I handed it back.

"This thing could kill a man, you know," he said, nonchalantly, with downturned eyes and a small smile. My mouth opened and I wondered for a moment if he could read my mind, see the way I had held it as if I meant to use it to kill, as if I had intended to reach across the table and stick it through his left eyeball.

"Really?" I asked, coolly, but even more intrigued than I had been before. "And how would you do that?"

"Well, it wouldn't be quick, I can promise you that. It would be slow, and painful, and torturous. You could use it to uproot the fingernails, one by one. And then the toenails, if you'd like. Next, I'd go for the ears. Twist it inside them until the eardrums bled. You could place it underneath the tongue and pull upwards until the appendage was ripped out altogether. And finally, the eyes. Pop them out of their sockets, sever them from the head. At that point, the man might survive, but why would he want to? He'd probably kill himself."

We sat in silence, staring at one another. He began to clean a beer glass with a rag, as casually as if we were discussing the weather or the latest celebrity gossip. I leaned back on my barstool, calculating. This man was obviously not what he seemed. Had I met another Beyond Birthday? Or simply someone who thought like me?

I tapped my fingers against the counter, contemplating what to say next. It was risky, but… something told me this man, this man who was a stranger but at the same time was not, could have more use than just serving me midnight oysters and cocktails.

"And how would you kill a man, if you weren't restricted to an oyster knife?"

His eyes grew dark for a moment, and then he threw his head back, laughing. "That's easy. I'm trained in tantojutsu."

I blinked, confused. "What exactly is that? A sort of martial arts?"

"A sort. Tantojutsu is a relatively broad term for Japanese knife fighting. A tanto is a short knife; it's used in various combat and defense arts, one of the most popular being aikido. I'm not too skilled. I worked as a stunt double in the movie The Way of the Fist. Don't bother looking it up; it didn't exactly make it past post-production."

"But you had to learn aikido and… tantojutsu, in order to play the part in the movie, right?"

"Yes, I did."

I downed the rest of my drink. It was last call for the bar, many of the remaining guests gathering their things and leaving. My guards were getting antsy, checking their watches and staring my way, waiting for me to make my slow walk back up to the hotel room.

"Do you…" I began, then stopped, uncertain. I didn't know if I could trust this man. I didn't know if I could trust any man. I bit my lip and studied his expectant face. I didn't want him to think I was in any sort of danger; involving someone else in my predicament could only spell disaster, another Alexander fiasco. I had to keep cool. I batted my eyelashes, putting on my best seductive face. It was different with another man than it had been with Beyond. With Beyond, he preferred me docile and full of innocence; uncertain and scared and lustful all at the same time. With this man… with any man, for that matter, I wasn't really sure what they wanted, but I was certain it wasn't the same as Beyond.

I smiled coyly, leaning across the bar so he could see my cleavage over my low-cut dress. He didn't shy away from me, or look uncomfortable; instead, he leaned in as well, arms resting against the bar as he waited for me to complete my sentence.

"Do you… think I could see it?" I blushed, intentionally, pushing a strand of blond hair behind my ear. "Your knife, I mean."

"A tanto? I do still have one left from the set. It's a keepsake of mine, really special." He raised his eyebrows suggestively. "I could take you back to my place tonight and show you."

My heart raced, knowing full well I couldn't leave this hotel. Even if I did give the guards the slip, they would alert Beyond right away, and my plan would be ruined. No, it wouldn't do.

"I can't leave," I said, deciding to add a hint of truth to my story. "My husband would find out. He'd be furious."

I half expected him to give up right then and there, deciding that a married woman was more trouble than she was worth. But I had sat in front of him for months, alone, always drinking, barely eating—he had to know that my so-called "marriage" was a sham, not to mention the fact that I was living in a hotel. By bringing up the fact that I was restricted by my husband, however, gave my story another dimension. It didn't sound dangerous enough for the bartender to want to attempt rescue, I knew, and he barely knew me anyway. But it was enough that he would bend to my needs, as a damsel in distress. It was enough to make him work for me.

"Ah, I see. Is that what those two big, scary men over there are all about?"

We both looked over to the guards, who were more than impatient at that point. The taller one was tapping his foot on the ground, and looked like he was about to drag me from the bar himself.

"Yes," I whispered, not managing to keep the real-life desperation out of my voice.

"Hmm. Well, I could bring it here tomorrow, to show you. If that would make you happy."

I sat up straight, beaming. A new plan was beginning to form in my head, slowly. I had finally found my ticket in.

"Yes," I said, standing up. The guards looked relieved, slouching in fatigue as their shift for the night was finally coming to an end. "That would make me very happy."