YOU HAVE UNTIL SUNRISE

Escort Mission

"This your first time isn't it? You look scared."

Frank looked back at the girl, surprised at the question.  He was prepared to say "Hell no" since that was the default answer when a beautiful woman asked you if you were scared, but he faltered and blinked instead, wondering if the fear had been that obvious.

Suddenly the elevator felt smaller than the six by six by eight measurements.

He could feel the heat bloom like a mist off of his top lip, that heat going right back up his nose like a dose of some drug. The heat was the result of the adrenaline pumping through his system, the same adrenaline that made him clench and unclench his fists, a nervous tick he had never manage to shake.  He realised that he was also sweating behind his ears and that his muscles were all tense.  Anything that he said to the girl about him not being scared would be a lie.

He wasn't scared, though. He was terrified.

The girl (what was her name again? Melody? Melanie?) smiled and reached out to hold his arm for a moment, and he instantly calmed down a little.

"There's no reason to be scared," she said.  "I've done this dozens of times.  These guys are mostly sweethearts."

Frank tried to smile back at her, but his face wasn't selling or buying it and seemed to have no intention of cooperating.  There was still a niggling thought at the back of his head, and the weight and bulk of the gun strapped on under his suit jacket.  Just in case, was what Flanders had told him back at the office. Frank hadn't believed it then either.

"Just follow protocol," Frank said then, repeating the words Flanders had spoken to him and all of the other new guys. 

Melanie/Melody smiled reassuringly. "That's right sweetie, just follow protocol."

Frank looked up at the number on the elevator display, watching as it dinged past 15, 16 and 17, and wondered just when he had become so claustrophobic. He felt anxious just standing there in the elevator, and there was a rising panic in his chest that made it hard to breathe.  He had never been claustrophobic in his life, not even when he had been wiggling through tiny water-filled passageways two hundred feet underground as a teen with his buddies. In fact, he had been the one who had to reassure the other guys to be cool, so where was this sudden claustrophobia coming from? And why did it feel like his head was being squeezed between the ungainly but powerful thighs of a very small but determined man seated on his head?

Follow protocol. What the hell did that even mean?

Melody was speaking to him again. Now he was sure her name was Melody.

"Why don't you tell me what protocol is. It might help if you have something to focus on."

The elevator dinged as they arrived at the 22nd floor and the doors slid mercifully open.   Frank nodded to Melody, grateful for her suggestion and tried to clear his mind from his impending panic.  He focused on the words that had been written in the brochure for the place he now worked, the same words that had been repeated during the interview process and then again this morning when he had checked in with the rest of the new hires.

Following protocol, to the letter, Frank stepped out into the hallway first, making sure that Melody stayed behind in the elevator.  She was the seasoned professional and stood there patiently, beautifully elegant in the black evening dress she had picked out, the one that showed off her long legs through the split that went all the way up to her waist on one side.  She had picked out a long pearl necklace (real pearls) since this particular client had a liking for pearls, a fact she had confided on the way back while trying to get a read on Frank.