Before The Day Is Done

One day is all it takes to change your life. Not even a day, a minute, a second. One decision and suddenly nothing is the same. Sometimes you know what is happening, like when you decide what to wear and sometimes it sneaks up on you. This was something that I learned the hard way, a lesson that everyone needs to learn.

My name is Alex, and my lesson came while I was still denying who I was to most people. As unpopular as this will make me, I was a hit man. I kill people for money, and frankly I was good at it. Of course that made having a relationship rather difficult. At least it did until one fateful day when everything that I knew in my life to be true was changed and challenged. One moment made me rethink everything.

The day had started like every other. I woke up early, put on my clothes, and bought a coffee from Starbucks. Nothing unusual happened; everything was comfortable, just the way that I liked it. Until I decided to drop my guard for a moment and partake in some fun, a drink of alcohol and a glance around the dance floor to see if I found anyone attractive. My job didn’t allow for fun but I figured why not.

There was a bevy of women dancing with men on the dance floor but none of them struck me as being worthy of my attention. After taking another sip from the bottle of beer in front of me, I decided that it was time to find my mark and finish the job. I patted the gun that was in the waist band of my pants and looked around for him.

“Hey, Sailor can I buy you a drink?” It was a man’s voice but there was a sultriness to it that made my blood run hot. I looked over at him and wondered why this man seemed to be getting under my skin in the way that only Scarlett Johannson did.

“I’m not gay. Thanks though,” I answered, trying to get of him before he got any closer to me. His hand was already travelling down my back, and sweat beads formed wherever his hand moved. If his hand got any lower it would be in my pants, and he would find the gun. “I’m sure there is a guy here who would like to make you very happy, at least for the night.”

“True but you came here, specifically for me. I know it and you know it,” The heat in my blood suddenly ran cold. How had he found out that I had followed him into the bar, that I had been hired to kill him? The breath left my body as my mind raced to find some reason that I had come to the bar. “Don’t insult me. I saw you staring at me in the restaurant and knew that you wanted me. It’s ok because I want you too.”

With his breath on my neck, I found that all of my blood was rushing to the lower half of my body. I closed my eyes and prayed that the most beautiful woman in the world would walk in and hit on me, thus proving that my heterosexuality to me and to this man. “It was a coincidence that we ran into each other twice.”

“There is no such thing as a coincidence. Just come dance with me, you’re in a gay bar so it’s not like you have to hide the fact that you like men here.” The way his warm breath hit me was making everything blurry for me. Questions were starting to form in my mind about everything that I had known to be true. Impatiently he grabbed my hand and pulled me onto the dance floor with him. It was just my luck that the song ended and a slow romantic one began. He pressed his body against me, and smiled. “Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy to be pressed against me?”

“Happy to be pressed against you,” I muttered as the diva that was singing decided it was time to hit a high note. He brought me even closer to his body, which was confusing to mine. How was I supposed to feel about this?

With that train of thought leaving the metaphorical station, it was derailed. The diva was singing about the pleasures of being in love and my dance partner seemed to be swept up in the song. He looked up at me and puckered his lips. When his lips pressed against mine, it was as if fireworks were going off behind us. It was every romantic movie that I had ever watched, this was better than anything that I had ever felt before. After he pulled away, I softly said “That was nice. Really nice.”

“Why don’t we go outside? I think we can think of other things to do with that,” He pointed to my crotch. Every other part of me told me not to go out, to remember that this was a man that I had been hired to murder but as it usually happens with men, Mr. Happy won out.
He grabbed my hand and pulled me out of the bar. We stopped by his white Corvette and he kissed me again. “My name is Dom, but you already knew that.”

“I’m Alex.” I responded, wanting more of his kisses. I was addicted. When I leaned in to kiss him again, he pulled out a gun of his own and fired off a shot into my head. I slumped to the ground, the life already draining out of me.

The last words that I would ever hear were, “Dad has got to stop hiring these armature hit men closet cases to try and kill me. It’s so wrong that he thinks that I would fall for them.”