It was the red lipstick.
Deep red, like the color of a matured rose.  It was a dramatic contrast to her porcelain-pale face, and her gleaming pearl teeth underneath were flawless.  Not a blemish donned her face, nor a wrinkle or freckle.  Her eyes were clear pools of glassy blue, enhanced beautifully by the smoky eye shadow and midnight black eyeliner.  Her skin was smooth across her raised cheekbones and every other part of her body.  Her arms, her legs…  It was all perfect.  Her hair looked like it was made from gold.  The lipstick, the hair.  My mind instantly thought of Marilyn Monroe, without the beauty mark.  The dress she was wearing was simple but gorgeous.  Slim and black, with a silk black ribbon tying at the waist.  It reminded me of Audrey Hepburn, in “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”.  Her fingers were emblazoned with rings of silver, clasped around a wine glass, and her nails were the same lavish color as her lips.  She was in the middle of the reception room, surrounded by men.  They were all business men, without their wives, looking upon her like lions would a wounded gazelle.  It was a cocktail party for them, celebrating some major breakthrough their company made.  I wasn’t quite sure what that breakthrough was.  I only worked the bar.  It wasn’t in my job description to research that kind of stuff.  But all of these successful businessmen, in their pressed Armani suits and Italian leather shoes…she was anyone’s pick of the evening.
I accepted this without struggle.  I went to these parties all the time, and saw woman after breath-taking woman walk in and  out of my sight, screaming with their body language and dress for sex.  And they always left with one of the suits.  I never saw them after that.  This one, though…I just knew I wouldn’t forget her soon.  She was an enigma.  Her intentions for the night weren’t reeking off her body like every other beautiful woman at these get-togethers.  They were completely hidden from me.  She was closing them off, deliberately.  It was like watching a movie from the 1950’s.  The strong, mysterious woman that ensnares the leading man at first sight.  That’s what she was.  She was every old celebrity legend that made the men of that day weak-kneed.  A diva of the silver screen.  
She was purely a classic Hollywood goddess.
I shook my head, pulling my mind out of silly fantasies.  Not that I was able to get to the fantasies.  I stopped myself too quickly, before I could even get anything visual in my head.  If I didn’t quit while I was ahead, the image would never leave my head.  She and I, together.  Our lips locked, her ringed and red-nailed hand on my neck, my own plain hand untying the black silk ribbon around her waist…
It was a good thing I never got the visual in my mind.  It would make it harder for me to accept her leaving with one of the suits.  I would think about her for days, maybe weeks.  What else did I have to do when I wasn’t working?  Actually, there was barely a time where I wasn’t working.  And it was terrible for my self-esteem.  Most of my life consisted of watching handsome, successful men steal away drop-dead gorgeous women that I could never have.  Every time I went to one of these celebrations, I found it better to erase the faces that I saw.  My longing would have done best not to linger on things that could have never happened, anyway.
I didn’t want to forget her, though.
I kept my eyes on her.  There was one suit that was paying more attention to her than I cared for.  He seemed much older, with streaks of grey in his darkened hair.  He leaned forward, toward her.  So close, that he looked as if he could open his mouth and rip her throat out with his teeth.  He made me nervous.  My fingers tensed around the dish rag I had been using to clean a glass, anxious to intervene if his skin were to touch her in any way.  He reminded me too much of my father.  But her amazing blue eyes were aware, not a trace of naivety within them.  She knew exactly what he wanted, what they all wanted.  The only question left unanswered was if she was going to give it to them.
I tried straightening my tie, pulling the creases out of my dress shirt, and flattening my hair.  I was looking a slight bit better than I would normally.  I had to look my best when I was working company parties.  Despite being able to clean up, I wasn’t much to look at.  I was pale, skinny, and bespectacled, with hair that did not want to listen to me.  I believe one of my ex-girlfriends described me as “Robert Langdon meets Harry Potter…only not sexy.”  Yeah, that comment stuck with me a while.  It resurfaced whenever I saw a gorgeous woman that I would never be able to attain.  Without mention, it was resonating in my ears at that moment.  It was a constant reminder about how unsuccessful I was at…well, not just women.  Everything, actually.  My career…come to think of it, it wasn’t much of a career.  It was a job.  But at the age of twenty-eight, men don’t have jobs.  They have careers.  Mainly, as the result of four plus years of college and grad school.  Me?  No.  No career.  No plans on having a career.  Just a job.  Most likely, always a job.  Never a career.  I just wasn’t a career man.  Or a ladies’ man.
I just was not much of anything.  But it was alright.  This fact I had accepted a long time ago.  Even before the Robert Langdon/Harry Potter remark was made.
“Excuse me?”
My head snapped up.  I had been gaping at the floor in self-degradation.  Not very professional, I had to admit.  But I was a bartender, not one of these well-to-do businessmen.  It wasn’t actually necessary for me to be professional.  I could come to this job stark naked, and all the onlookers would do is shake their heads and sigh, “Those crazy bartenders…” maybe even chuckling in amusement.  Still, I did take my job seriously.  Since I didn’t have a career, what else did I have to take seriously?
But once my gaze was leveled, I could have sworn I’d retreated into my imagination, once again.  She was standing right at the pewter counter-top, looking her ice blue eyes right into mine.  I had a compulsion to look behind me, to see if there was anyone there that she could have been talking to, instead of me.  But there was no one.  It was me she was staring at.
I waited expectantly, wondering what this goddess could want from a lowly mortal like myself.  Her ringed finger clinked against her empty glass as she gently set it on the table.  “I didn’t much like the Chardonnay.  Could I try red, this time around?” she asked.  Her voice was almost as beautiful as she was.  It was a lower tone.  Sultry…seductive.
I swallowed nervously.  “Of course,” I answered, almost stuttering over the two very simple words. I took her glass off of the counter, keeping my hand from shaking too badly.  I had to keep on a calm demeanor.  Otherwise, I had no chance against the suits.  Oh, what was I saying?  I didn’t anyway.  She only came over for a refill, not because she found me remotely intriguing.  
Still….this wouldn’t have hurt my chances.
I took the long-necked bottle of Merlot and tipped it ever-so gingerly, pouring the red beverage into her barren cup.  She seemed like she would enjoy Merlot.  It was not as rough as the other red wines we held.  Her whole appearance was suited for something milder.  Merlot was definitely the best choice.  Once the glass was filled almost to the top, I handed it over to her.  The liquid did not ripple, thankfully, for it would have given away the fact that I was so blushingly anxious.  
She looked at the glass, then up at me, causing myself to forget how to breathe.  She smiled, no teeth, but genuine.  Being sure as not to touch my own fingers, she curled her own around the glass, taking it into her possession.  Once mine were free of it, my spirits fell.  She would turn to leave any minute now.  Perhaps there would not even be a “thank you”.  Any second now…
“Thank you,” she said, gratefully and poised.  
Goodbye, I thought, woebegone.  Have fun with whatever suit chooses you.
But she did something that took all of my pre-conceptions and threw them out in a whirlwind: She sat down at the bar stool.  
“If it’s not too much trouble for you,” she started, setting the glass back down after a refined sip.  “I would like to sit here for a while.  One can only handle so much of self-absorbed business tycoons, blathering on and on about conglomerates and mergers.  It gets rather dull.”
My mind was moving at a snail’s pace, but I soon laughed, nodding in agreement.  “I know what you mean.  I’ve been to…”  I tried counting in my head, but there were too numerous of an incident to keep track of.  “I’ve been to…too many of these things.  I don’t even pay attention half of the time, any more.”
She grinned again, teeth showing this time.  “I truly have sympathy for you, my good man.  I don’t know what I would do if I had to go to these things regularly.”
I cocked my head, a little curious.  “You don’t come to these kinds of events often, then?” I wondered.  “Did you come here with someone?”
She was in the middle of taking another sip of her Merlot (which she seemed to enjoy, thoroughly), but she nodded as she swallowed and lowered her cup.  “A friend, actually,” she replied, once her mouth was available to do so.  “He’s…”  She swiveled in her seat to try and locate the gentleman, but after a long moment of scanning, turned back to me a little disheartened.  “Well, it looks like he’s gone now.  Probably found someone with a better ass and a bigger chest.”  She chortled, cynically.  “He’s a bastard, anyway.  I tagged along for the free wine,” she admitted, tapping her glass with her painted nail.
I smiled at this.  “I can almost guarantee that’s why half of these people are here tonight,” I informed her.  I was getting more comfortable with her.  Perhaps it was because she was treating me like one of the guests here, not just a menial bartender.  “Free alcohol will attract any one.”
Her laugh this time was loud, very amused.  Raising her glass, she said, “I will drink to that, my friend.”  She took another sip, larger than the ones before, but still setting it down on the counter with tenderness.  “I’m Danielle, by the way,” she introduced, holding out her dainty hand for me to shake.  “Danielle Lamprouge.”
French.  Of course she was French.  A woman that astonishingly stunning had to be French.  “Christian Scott,” I rejoined, clutching her hand, afraid I would break it if I held on too hard.  We shook.  Her hand was very cold, despite how warm and inviting she appeared.  Was she nervous, as well?  No, the temperature of her hand said nothing about her inner feelings.  It was probably just a tad chilly in the room.  Not that I would know, since I was covered in a shirt buttoned all the way to the cuffs and a vest that threatened to suffocate me if I bent the incorrect direction.  
Once we let go, she took the hand she’d extended and retracted it, placing it under her chin and leaning her head on it.  “Christian, eh?” she inquired.  “Quite a name to live up to.  Are you religious?”
I was inclined to answer, but I thought better of it.  “Actually, that’s one of the subjects on my big long list of things not to talk about on the job,” I explained.  “Religion is number two, I believe.  Politics is the top spot.”
Another smile.  No teeth, again.  “I don’t get fiery and passionate about such matters, my Christian friend,” she gleamed.  “If you start talking about God, I won’t set off in a heated rage to get you fired.”
“I know, I know,” I said.  “Just…you know…it’s a formality.”
“I see,” Danielle replied.  “Understandable.  Looks like you take your career very seriously, Mr. Scott.”
I cleared my throat, a little dismayed.  “Job,” I corrected her, reluctantly.  I found such a problem with rectifying her statement, as if I had no place to do so.  A mere mortal correcting a deity like her?  It was disgraceful.  “Job.  It’s not a career, really.”
“Oh?” she asked, sounding intrigued.  “Then you’re a student?  Working a job to earn a career?”
Pitifully and regrettably, I shook my head.  “No,” I responded.  “I was a student.  A long time ago.  I dropped out.”
“Ah…” Danielle said.  She did not press on the matter of why I decided to secede from education or even where I used to attend.  She cradled the wine glass in her delicate palm, swishing the blood-red alcohol inside it in a circular motion.  Her eyes wandered across the counter, vaguely.  In order to keep from making her uncomfortable, I picked up an empty wine glass that I had cleaned spotless about fifteen minutes earlier.  There was no such thing as “too clean”, I supposed, and began rubbing it with the dish rag that I had forgotten about since the lovely creature had graced me with conversation.
The next time I dared to glance at her, she was up out of her seat, reaching her pale arm across the bar counter, grabbing for something on the other side of it.  Her smile was precocious as she did so, like a little child causing trouble for her parents just for the sake of it.  Her intentions were not to get me angry, so I found, when she plucked the newspaper that I had with me, sitting right next to the bottle of Merlot.  My eyes growing wide, I tried to grab for it.  I was trying to hide that.  These haughty businessmen may not have thought much of bartenders, but I was still not one to let them know I was reading on the job.  “Hey!” I exclaimed, but she snatched it from my fingertips just as I was about to curl them around the flimsy paper.
Arching a thinned, dark eyebrow, she grinned mischievously.  No teeth again.  “So, the Christian reads the paper, huh?” she wondered.
My face grew hot as a flame.  “Some guy gave it to me for free on the way here.  I didn’t know what else to do with it, so I…” I mumbled, trailing off awkwardly.
Danielle ignored me, holding the newspaper with both hands, facetiously looking at it in seriousness.  “’Man Found Dead on South Side: Suspected Serial Killer Victim,’” she read aloud, in a rather comical news anchor voice.  Giggling, she let her shoulders fall and threw the periodical on the counter.  “So, what do you think about this so-called serial killer, my Christian friend?”
The pink was fading from my face, or so I thought.  “Well…really, I don’t think there is a serial killer,” I expressed.  That was all the headlines had been about lately.  Whenever someone was found dead, it was this mysterious unknown murderer.  All a bunch of crap, in my opinion.  
Danielle cocked her head, looking genuinely confused.  “Now why would you say that?” she asked, inquisitively.  “All the police seem to think there is.  Don’t you trust them?”
I chuckled, cynically.  “What proof do they have, though?” I argued.  “I mean, there’s no MO.  They’ve all been killed different ways with different weapons.  Guns, knives…suffocating, poisoning.   There’s no connections between any of the victims, either.   There isn’t even a suspect!  I don’t see what evidence that the authorities have of a serial killer, if there is one.”
Her face was solemn.  “Seems you’ve done some research,” she commented.
My face warmed up again, but I didn’t feel a blush coming on.  “I…read,” I said, stupidly.
“Well,” she said, smiling.  There were teeth this time.  “You’re wrong about one thing.  There is an MO.  A rather simple one.”
I waited for her to expand.
She shook her head, like she was talking to a silly, naïve puppy.  “All of the victims are men.”
I wanted to call her out, tell her that wasn’t correct.  But thinking about it for a second, I found she was correct.  All of them were men.  Not one woman.  Strange.  Though it could have been a coincidence.
“It may not be the best MO in the world, but it’s a pattern, all the same.  Think about it.  Forty-year-old men slice up pretty women in their basements.  Now, some femme-fatal is shooting up men for kicks,” the goddess continued.  “It’s someone choosing targets at random.   Not just a bunch of vengeful wives and lovers losing their cool. They’ve all been checked out.  Plus, none of them have any mutual acquaintances.  Normally, serial killers don’t know their victims personally.  How many of them have been killed so far, since the first one?”
I pretended to think, but I knew the answer right away.  “Including that one, nine.”
Grinning, she inquired, “Now, how many times does it happen that nine different women decide to go murder nine different guys, hm?”
“No one said it had to be a woman who was doing it.”
She laughed loudly, throwing her head back.  “It has to be,” she said.  “Not only are the victims all men, but have you read details on the deaths?  I’m telling you: all of the murders were executed far too…”  She paused, gazing into the bottom of the wine glass, now half empty.  “Too…elegantly.  Far too clean.  It was a woman, Mr. Scott.  There’s no doubt about that.”
A chill ran down my frame.  She seemed so certain.  In any case, I shuddered a little and said, “Well, I just hope they catch…her.”
“Why?”
I looked up at her.  Her face was straight, not a crease on it.  Neither corner of her mouth was precariously upturned, nor were her eyes wrinkled in amusement.  She was serious.  “Why?” I asked back, holding back a laugh.  “Well…because she’s a murderer!  I mean, maybe your neck isn’t on the line, here, but I’d feel a lot safer if I knew there wasn’t some man-killer on the loose.”
Danielle shook her head again, draining the rest of her glass.  She did not throw her head back, but sipped it all the way down.  Finally, she spoke.  “In your opinion, Mr. Scott, why is murder wrong?”
I opened my mouth to retort immediately, but no words could form.  The only answer I could think of was-
“Because they all say so,” Danielle replied for me.  “Since the beginning of the stone age, someone decided it would be wrong to murder.  Whoever that was passed it along, spread it throughout nations, and here we are.  You get arrested and put away like a mad dog for taking the life of another.  Mainly, it was the Christians who advocated this motion.”
“It’s not just us, it’s…” I began, but quickly zipped my mouth shut.
Chuckling, she said, “So you are religious.  Fancy that.  I guessed correctly.”
I sighed, getting frustrated that I could not put together a defensive argument.  “Look, I know plenty of people who don’t even think there is a God, and they don’t go off killing everyone that rubs them the wrong way,” I retorted.
Her smoky eyelids lowered, no longer having fun.  Gingerly setting the glass on the counter, she straightened out her dress and put her elbows on the table, leaning her chin on her intertwined hands.  “That’s exactly right,” Danielle agreed.  “You see, the people like this,” she tapped a painted finger on the newspaper.  “They don’t kill because they think God won’t care.  They kill…because they believe that they are farthest thing from him.”
I stared at her, open-mouthed.  
Her porcelain hand wrapped around the glass once again.  “Refill?” she asked.
I was unfocused as I poured her another round of Merlot.  It was the wave of her bejeweled hand that brought me out of my stupor.  “It was an enlightening conversation, my Christian friend.  But I believe my duties are required elsewhere.”
And just like that, she walked away.  She did not say goodbye.
Through the rest of the evening, even as all the suits came up for their share of liquid courage, my eyes never left her.  All of my strength was invested in staying behind the bar, resisting the urge to scoop her into my arms and sweep her away.  I was stronger than I thought, for I did not move at all.  It was not until she departed that my eyes wandered onto something else.  She didn’t leave alone, either.  On her arm was the suit I had noticed before, the one reminiscent of my father.  As they glided past the bar on the way to the door, however, Danielle’s eyes were not on the suit.  They were on me.  Twinkling with excitement, their blue locked onto my brown.  She set the glass back on the counter as she went by, not breaking her stride.  “Merlot is a little tame.  Next time, I’d prefer something with more a bite.  Shiraz, maybe.”  And just as our gaze broke, she winked and smiled.  With teeth.
And at that moment, I took her photograph in my mind.  Black and white, just imagining it in a magazine article about the young, the sophisticated, and the famous.  The party lasted only an hour or so longer, but the picture remained.  Like it was burned onto my brain, branded there for all time.  This woman, this classic specter, seemed like she would haunt me for a lifetime.  I could picture myself, an aged man in his deathbed, remembering this Danielle Lamprouge with the same fondness as when I first met her.
This fondness only lasted an hour longer.  For when I saw her next, it was in the back alley behind the building, as I was on my way to my car.  Rain was pouring from the clouded sky.  She stood, glowing with her flawless skin, her blue eyes radiating through the dark…
The suit was lying at her feet…dead.  
His blood was seeping in between her fingers.  The same color as her lipstick.
Her glare was manic…devilish.
From that moment, the classic Hollywood goddess I had come to desire so fiercely was deceased.