Beware The Eyes of Sadie May
A Smuthunterstory
“Why hello there sweetie, you must be looking for me.”
The refurbished two bedroom, two and a half bathroom Dutch colonial was out on what Scott would call the edge of town, but the way the town looked, everything seemed like it was on the edge of something. It was different than city living so far, different than up north where he’d spent his entire life, but two weeks of living in an extended stay hotel didn’t really ground him in the local experience.
Work had taken him out here, well down here, and he knew city living was expensive, but he had no idea how expensive it was until he saw these home prices. This house, on a quiet tree lined street on the border of where there stopped being sidewalks, was beautiful, affordable, and bigger than he needed, but not bigger than he wanted.
Which also seemed to sum up the blonde, fair skinned real estate agent standing in the living room’s enormous breasts. She wasn’t a short women, and was about eye level with him in heels, and her melons were… well they were te size of ripe, full melons. She wore a yellow, calf length floral print dress that did nothing to minimize or particularly accentuate her immense breasts, breasts that seemed too big for her, or just about anyone’s frame.
And while he was surprised by the volume of modestly yet undeniably presented cleavage in front of his face, it was this sharp featured young woman’s bright blue eyes that grabbed hold of Scott’s attention.
She walked across the room and offered her hand. She was about his age, maybe younger, maybe older, but not by much either way, and beautiful in a way that was intimidating in its simplicity. “I’m Sadie May, and you must be Scot right? Well Scott, honey, could you close the door for me.”
He shook her hand as she spoke, and as he stared into those bright cornflower blue eyes, something jumped out at him from his memory. “Sure, of course.”
He looked out onto the street as he closed the door, and saw someone; an older women across the way frown at him and shake her head. There was something in her body language, a resigned pity in the way she did that then offered up a helpless shrug to him as the door closed.
“Beware the Eyes of Sadie May.”
When he was carrying in a bag of groceries from the corner store by the hotel, a vagrant had approached him on the street and asked him if he was new in town. Scott, being used to city bums tried to ignore him, but the man, who looked tired and disheveled but on closer inspection, not really homeless… as if ‘homeless’ were a uniform look… had said that to him.
Then, a few nights later at a bar on Main Street he’d seen the same thing written on a bathroom stall in the men’s room.
“Oh I know it’s exiting isn’t it,” Scott realized he’d been staring at the closed door for far too long when he felt her hand on his shoulder, “let me show you around this beautiful house.”
He turned around to face her and those bright blue eyes hit him like a tractor beam. “Obviously you’ll have to use some imagination to make this place look the way you’d want it. This being such a big house, it’s staged for a family. Oh, I’m sorry, I’m being so presumptuous, do you have a family Scott?”
“Nope,” she was radiant when she smiled. She had high cheek bones, perfect teeth, and a slim, sharp nose. Scott shrugged and felt like even though she was standing at a bit more than an arm’s length from him now, she was still in his personal space, and it wasn’t just the jut of chest. “It’s just me, but I’m going to be here for a while, and you know what they say, why rent when you can buy.”
She gave him a complimentary little laugh, “Why that’s exactly what I say. And I hope you don’t mind me being so bold, but over the last few years we’ve started doing a little snooping about our possible home buyers, that’s why I supposed you didn’t have a family but you’re a private person on your social media. And anyhow, this is all to say that some folks are far too ready to waste my time, or try and steal a few minutes of it. But you don’t care about that, and here I am talking your ear off.”
Scott found himself thinking maybe he wouldn’t mind Sadie May talking his ear off, and maybe he could understand why a suitor might try and arrange a private showing from her. He also noticed that as she finished talking she brought her left hand up to her shoulder, there was no trace of a wedding ring at all. No tan lines, nothing.
Something about the gesture made it seem like she’d wanted him to notice her hand, more so, the absence of a ring, and it reminded him of something else he’d overheard at the office earlier in the week. He’d passed by the break room and two of his female coworkers were having a chat. One of them had said something about “Really needing to warn the new girls about keeping their boyfriends away from Sadie May,” and the other one had laughed and added, “We should warn the new guys too… not that it would do any good.”
They walked through the living room and the dining room, the spacious kitchen, the den and the half bathroom on the ground floor, and it was all very nice. More so, Sadie’s energy was intoxicating. She was flirty without flirting, and charming without being forced, and all the while, any time she spoke to Scott, he found himself staring into those bright blue eyes.
Every time Sadie described a room, or a feature, she talked about how comfortable, and natural, and generally relaxing the home was. She drew attention to how welcoming it could be, and asked him to imagine himself living there. The stopped in every room, and she asked him to visualize what could be, suggesting ideas to him, asking him to notice how easy it would feel for him to relax in a place like this after a long day, and it was all very consuming.
Sadie was a captivating speaker, and her charisma was enhanced by her ability to make meaningful and focused eye contact with him. Looking into Sadie’s eyes and listening to her describe the house was all consuming, and that was a relief too, because when she wasn’t looking right at him, Scott wasn’t beyond taking a passing look at her chest. It was hard not to see it, and he knew part of her presentation was to woo him, so he let her woo him. Occasionally admiring her chest was just her doing a good job, or at least that was how he justified it.
“Now downstairs has a spare room that you could use as a bedroom, but we don’t list it as a bedroom because there’s no closet so it technically isn’t one, but the smaller bedroom and the master bedroom and both full bathrooms are up stairs. This is really is a big house for one person, but that just means you won’t be crowded.” Sadie stood in front of the broad, spiral stairwell in the hall and held him still with her eyes, “You know, I think you’d like to see the basement first, wouldn’t you?”
The idea of looking at the basement first was a good idea. That was what he wanted to do, he just hadn’t thought of suggesting it until she brought it up.
Sadie walked back towards the kitchen then led him down the narrow stairs into the open main room of the basement. Unlike the rest of the house it wasn’t staged, and was just open space, just a few rugs over a concrete floor, and a nook with a sink and connection points for a washer and a dryer. There was a door out to the side yard, and a door to another room.
“It’s funny how fast spacious areas can fill up with, but so many of the people your company has brought to town are just starting out really. This would be your first home, wouldn’t it? I bet your storage unit back in your city up north is barely even full is it? I bought my first house not so long ago, why I live right down the street from here really, and I’m already starting to fill up my basement, and I don’t even know how. Anyhow,” there was a sparkle in Sadie’s already bright eyes as she walked him over to the other door, “let me show you this little room before we go back up to the bedroom. After all, once you’ve seen one master bedroom and master bathroom you’ve really seen them all.”
There was a cadence to her voice, something musical, but in a rhythm he couldn’t quite put his finger on. He also realized her accent was a bit different than the other people he’d met in town, men and women alike. Everything about her was bright, and smooth, and polished. She was devastatingly charming, and Scott wondered how many people she’d put in houses that were better for her commission than for the buyer’s needs.
“Now you know Scott,” the room had some windows that were up at shoulder level, and a surprising amount of daylight made it into the empty room. She stepped around him and closed the door behind them. “I want to make sure we find the house that’s right for you, and I think it might be this one, but I want to be your friend in this, I want to help you.”
The room was empty, but the carpet was thicker.
She leaned against the closed door and ran a hand through her soft, perfectly straight, perfectly blonde hair. “So wouldn’t it only be right if I told you a little bit about me. I was born and raised here, and I love this little town. I even love all of the new out of towners that are making it home, it’s good for me obviously, and it’s good for the town. But can you believe Scott, I’ve always worked very hard to get what I want, it’s because my mamma named me Sadie May, Sadie after the Sadie Hawkins dance, do you have those? I know it’s a bit outdated, and it’s from a comic strip of all things, so that means I’m named after a character form the old newspaper funnies, but it’s the dance where the girl asks the boy. Anyway that’s where Sadie came from, and May, well that’s because that was her favorite month. And you know, what do you call it, nominative determinism, where you’re bound to be like your name, or do what your name says, well that’s just me.”
Scott stood in the middle of the room, lit only by the outside light, and stared deep into Sadie’s eyes as she took a few steps towards him. He’d had a sense she was up to something when she walked him down here, and now he had to just wait and see what it was. Whatever it was, whatever flirting, charming, cajoling approach she was going to take was bound to be… flattering.
He really had no idea what she was up to through, especially because he wasn’t really thinking much about what she was saying, he was just passively listening, absorbing everything as he looked into those beautiful, magnetic eyes. It was so natural to just listen, and so easy to relax, especially because this house was so naturally relaxing. He already felt at home here. He already felt at home just listening as she stared deeply into his eyes, pulling him deeper into hers.
The energy in the room changed, and her sweet, lilting, voice full of southern charm dropped to something more familiar, something closer, softer, and warmer. “Well I try and be as sweet as a warm spring day, and I go for what I want, and you see that don’t you Scott? Why, I’m certain you see that deep in my eyes don’t you?”
He was looking into those beautiful blue eyes, eyes that caught the slightest shimmer of daylight and still sparkled in the dark. “Why, I know you do, you’ve been staring deep into these pretty eyes all afternoon haven’t you? And you know, it’s so hard for people our age, in our generation to really have these opportunities. Just look me in the eyes Scott, you and I, we’re more than just hard workers, we’re more than just lucky, why Scott, you and are, we’re special because you’ve made all the pieces fit. You see it in my eyes Scott, you do, look deep in my eyes and you see it, you know you do. You feel like you’ve known me all your life, and that’s why you’re just relaxing with me now.”
Sadie walked up to him, weaving to and fro as she walked, swaying like a snake, and her eyes held his as the sound of her voice started to wrap around him. He saw everything she said, he felt what she said, it felt like there was no reason to answer, no reason to talk, the room around them didn’t matter, all that mattered was her. “I see it in your eyes Scott, you see it in my eyes too, it’s really just so easy to relax and listen to me isn’t it.”
The way she said ‘relax’ seemed like the sweetest, most thoughtful suggestions, and every time she said it as she stayed staring into his eyes, pulling his gaze ever deeper and deeper into hers, Scott felt his shoulders slump and his chin start to drop. His lips parted and his jaw loosened, then he swallowed and blinked his heavy eyes.
“You’re…” Scott took a step back from her, but there was nowhere to go, she was in between him and the door, “you’re trying to hypnotize me aren’t you Sadie?”
The idea hit him out of nowhere, and it was a jarring thought that broke the slow, soft, lingering heaviness of the moment, the lingering, sweetness and heaviness that had infected him from head to toe, inside and out.
“Oh Scott honey, has someone been telling you about me? What did they tell you?” She stopped where she was, but her gaze stayed fixed on his, and despite himself, her eyes, her sparkling, radiant… yes… her hypnotic blue eyes. “I do love this town, I missed it when I went away up north to college, but when I came back there were some real nasties telling stories about the things my mamma used to do, and some nasty things about me too. What’d they say honey? Was it men, or was it those jealous ladies at the bar maybe? Tell me Scott, I know you want to. I know you want to be my friend, and friends don’t keep secrets like this.”
The swirling, lulling sound of her voice, and the soft foggy, sleepiness that had crept over him moments before added up to a confused blanket of detachment and confusion. It wrapped around him as quickly and forcefully as that the thought that had broken free just seconds ago had, and Scott felt himself falling back into the sound of her voice and her irresistible eyes.
Had she been doing this all along, preparing him, training his mind to listen, teaching his eyes to stare into hers while she used her body language, and her charms, and whatever other hypnosis tricks she might have know? Had she done it all so smoothly that now he couldn’t help himself? Was he already falling under her spell?
Her eyes.
Scott looked away from her eyes, he looked down at her feet, forcing himself not to stare at her cleavage as he looked down to at her white high heels as she walked closer to him.
Things were slowing down in his mind, and he wondered why he was having such a hard time thinking, and he wondered what he actually knew about hypnosis. He knew it wasn’t mind control, he knew it was just a trick, a sort of…
“I bet I know what it was,” she put her finger under his chin and tilted his head up. Why wasn’t he moving? Why wasn’t he walking away, or pushing her out of the way? Why had he let her touch him? Why had she moved him so easily? Scott brushed her hand away from his face and willed himself to look through her, to look right through her eyes and show her that whatever she was doing wasn’t going to work.
“Oh honey, you have to be so confused. Someone told you about my eyes didn’t they? And you’ve been making such wonderful eye contact with me, and listening to me, and I know I’m a charmer, and maybe yes I know a little bit of hypnotism that helps me give people what they want, you know, put them in the mood to see things the way they want to see them, but you’ve got it all wrong.”
She turned away from him and took a step towards the door, “Why, I won’t lie to you and say I wasn’t giving you a little hypnotic nudge just now, but it’s not my big beautiful eyes they were warning you about.”
Scott watched as Sadie reached behind her back and unfastened a few buttons on her dress before she turned around, “It’s these.”
