Spanish Key

I'd always loved jazz and particularly Miles Davis, so it was no strange thing for me to be sitting behind a kit at Ronnie Scott's in Soho, London. Bitches Brew, with its pioneering sound and conception, was a firm favourite.

I knew each piece from Pharaoh's Dance to Sanctuary like the back of my hands. Our quintet's set started with Spanish Key which allowed me to gently get lost in the music.

The atmosphere was electric. Warm, an escape from the cold outside. From behind my kit, I had a full view of the room. I could see everything from the jazz heads at the tables attentively watching to the cool cats at the bar sipping their gin and whisky. All seeking music's refuge.

In a crowded room, people expect a lot to go unseen. Not when you're on stage, though.

On quieter nights, I found myself getting so lost in the music I paid little attention to what was going on. As the place was heaving, I liked to stay alert in case there was trouble.

A striking woman in red caught my eye. I knew her from somewhere. Where, I was not sure. But her peroxide hair that draped over her gently sloping shoulders and slight figure hugged by the black cocktail dress made her stand out and showcased the flashes of alabaster skin of her arms and legs.

She was a knockout. The kind you read about, not the kind you take home to your parents. She was standing at the bar playing with her dirty martini - I knew it was a martini because I recognised the glass. As we reached the first frantic-paced section around the three-minute mark, I lost her.

Focusing for a moment, until the music soothed into the next quieter section, my eyes darted from left to right across the room to the bar.

I’d given up hope, thinking she had disappeared, when I spotted her near the front of the stage. Although too much of a consummate professional to lose my rhythm, her smiling red lips and lavishly long eyelashes and green eyes did make me gasp.

Our eyes remained focused on one another throughout the rest of the song, minutes passed as if they were seconds until it was the crescendo, cacophonous finale. She rose slowly, swaying to the erratic rhythm, then moved behind a very short, bald man, resting her dainty hands on his shoulders. Darkness consumed the room. Then I was alone, cuffed to a bed with the small bald man standing over me.

The room was white. Not off-white or cream - sanitised medical white and behind the man was a poster with a woman. No, not just a woman. The woman. It was cold.

The sultry passion of Ronnie Scott’s was a distant memory. The cold, harsh reality of my situation set in.

“Mr. Allens, you drifted again. Back to the club? Back to her? You know none of it was real.”