Clara's Martini
A Super Short Story by Chad Schomber
The bartender at the Gold Coast Beach Shack dropped the lychee into Clara’s martini with surgical precision and a confident smile.
She watched it settle beneath the pale liquid while rain feathered across the windows behind the bar. Amber light and low music filled the empty spaces between men loosening ties worth more than Clara’s rent. Women crossed their legs slowly, aware of being watched.
Clara sat alone near the end of bar, one heel hooked against the brass rail beneath her stool.
The corset under her black dress kept her posture perfect and her breathing shallow. So sexy, she thought.
That had been the intention.
She lifted the martini glass carefully. Sweet sting at first, then the vodka snapped underneath. Cold enough to make her teeth ache. Perfect.
“You look like you’re either waiting for someone,” a voice said beside her, “or hoping they don’t show up.”
She turned.
He was handsome in the kind of accidental way men sometimes were. Dark coat damp from rain. Sharp jaw softened slightly by offset dimples. Not young, exactly, but carrying himself with the confidence beyond his years. And a healthy spattering of gray.
“Which one seems more likely?” Clara asked.
He slid onto the stool beside her. “You hoping they don’t.”
She said nothing.
He said nothing.
The bartender appeared after a beat. The man ordered bourbon, Old Forester 100 Proof without looking at the menu.
Confident, Clara thought. Or practiced.
“Daniel,” he said, offering a hand.
His fingers were warm when she shook his hand. Softer than she expected.
“Clara.”
For a moment they simply looked at each other while the piano drifted somewhere behind them.
There was always a moment like this. The quiet calculation before attraction either arrived or didn’t.
It arrived.
A subtle shift in the air between them.
Daniel leaned closer. “So, who you escaping tonight?”
“Myself, mostly,” she said behind a soft, tired laugh.
“That bad?”
“No, just be dramatic.”
His mouth curved faintly at that. Not a full smile. Something more private. Something shared.
Outside, headlights dragged across the wet street below the windows.
Daniel loosened his tie with one hand. Clara noticed the silver watch at his wrist. Beautiful. Understated. The kind of thing chosen carefully. And most definitely expensive.
“Come here often?”
Clara laughed and took another sip of the martini.
He said nothing.
“Oh you’re serious? Um, no, not often. First time actually.”
The bourbon arrived. Daniel thanked the bartender, eyes still on Clara.
Most men looked at her dress first. Then her mouth. Then the shape of her body.
Daniel looked like he was trying to figure out whether she was happy. Focused on her eyes.
It unsettled her a little.
“You’re very tense,” he said quietly.
Clara laughed once under her breath. “That’s the corset.”
He smiled.
The piano player shifted into something slower. Old jazz. The kind that made people lean closer without realizing it.
Daniel’s gaze moved briefly along the line of her shoulders, lingering at the bare skin above the dress.
“You know,” he said softly, “there are easier ways to torture yourself.”
“You sound experienced.”
“I was married.”
That surprised a smile out of her.
“There it is,” he murmured.
“What?”
“The real smile. I was starting to think you didn’t have one.”
His voice had dropped lower sometime during the conversation. Intimate without trying too hard. Clara felt warmth spread slowly through her chest that had nothing to do with the alcohol.
Dangerous, she thought. This moment.
The ease of slipping briefly into somebody else’s attention. The relief of being seen at the exact moment you’d gotten used to feeling invisible.
Daniel traced a finger once along the rim of his glass.
“What’s your story, Clara?”
She looked toward the rain-streaked windows.
The truthful answer felt too large for the room. The moment.
So she gave him a smaller one.
“I think,” she said slowly, “I got very good at becoming whatever looked beautiful from across the room.”
Daniel studied her for a moment after that.
Then, very gently:
“And up close?”
Clara felt the corset tighten when she breathed in.
For the first time all evening, she wanted to be touched. By him.
Just enough to make her feel less alone inside her own skin.
This has been another Super Short Story where Substackers give me three random words and I write their story.
Thanks to Tracy Hawkey for providing the words: Gold Coast, Lychee Martini, Corset. Be sure to give her a follow.
Clara's luck may be turning around. Daniel seems like a cool fellow. To the happy couple. Nice post.
You are a menace for ending the story there. I was completely pulled into Clara and Daniel's weird tender gravity toward each other and then suddenly... nothing. 🥵 Also, “I got very good at becoming whatever looked beautiful from across the room" is such a killer line.