Thanks for reading! (Part 1 is available here)

An oily, polluted rain had just decided to fall, leaving a thick, cumbersome coating of gloom and glimmer over everything that it touched. Quickening my steps,  I swept up the street in the direction of Le Lune Levant. The sky broke open and flooded the lowly streets of man and I veered into doorway of Le Lune Levant and sheltered there for a moment, if I had only continued on down the avenue and journeyed home. I can never return home.

While I stood in the doorway, shivering and drenched, the symphony of the rain fell away as if it were growing distant and my ears were filled with the steady heartbeat of a drum. A bass guitar beat an arrhythmia into my chest and I was intoxicated in the moment the saxophone began to play. I know of no music more devilish than the conniving melodies of jazz.

It wasn’t the jazz that finally coerced me through the doors. It was the voice.  I was helpless the moment I heard it, I couldn’t even tell you what the song said or what the words were but it was so beautiful. Moments later, compelled by something other than my own volition I opened the door and glided, mesmerized, into the club and closer to that voice.

Le Lune Levant was dramatically difference on the inside. All traces of the cinder-block walls were gone. The walls were adorned with deep, rich wood that seemed extremely out of place given the outside of the building. The floor was half filled with tables and half the appearance of a dance floor. The ceiling crept down into a beautiful bar with a mirror against the wall. Drawn to the bar, I found a seat and turned to listen to the musicians whom had enchanted me in the doorway.

She wasn’t quite what I expected. Her voice certainly didn’t match her features. I am not sure what I was expecting. She was an average woman, curvy in the right places. Her face, what was visible through her dark hair, was dotted with freckles and her lips came together in a way that made her top lip look somewhat larger than the bottom. That wasn’t to say I wasn’t enchanted. There was something about her and I watched as she sung into the microphone gazing around the room with a knowing smile. In that moment, it was clear that I wanted to know her.  I don’t remember how long I sat upon that bar stool listening to her sultry jazz.

To Be Continued