* This is not currently available in a 1oz, but should be soon! If you are a Patreon patron, you can order our special listing with a handwritten label.*

New to the story? Start with Chapter 1, Broken Heart, here. Catching up? Reread Chapter 6, Cold Heart, here.

Scent Notes: Think of a sweeter take on a strong Old Fashioned cocktail: Kentucky bourbon, high-quality vanilla, and brown sugar combined in a steel cocktail shaker.

Bob had never been to the Iron Heart before, but he had a good feeling about going there. He was in his mid-forties now, and sure, his hairline had receded a little, and yeah, his waistline had grown, but he was still a good-looking man. He wasn’t Humphrey Bogart, but nobody else could look as good as that man, so why should that stop Bob from trying to meet a lady friend or two? He was just passing through, staying in a motel just down the street from the bar, and he’d seen what looked like an endless parade of attractive women entering and leaving the bar down the road with nary a man in sight. They often walked out arm in arm, a way to keep themselves safe after leaving such an establishment after dark, Bob reckoned. “Must be smart girls who go to this bar,” he mumbled to himself. “Well, as smart as a woman can be.” Oh, that’s right: Bob was already drunk alone in his room. He’d grabbed some bottles on his way into town as he was pretty certain his cheap motel in this stretch of nothing wouldn’t have a bar. He was right. If only he could pace himself; if only he wasn’t on the road for work so much; if only he wasn’t a perennial bachelor; if only; if only; if only….

Stumbling out the door and directly into the parking lot, Bob sobered up temporarily in the frigid air. It was 9pm on February 14th, 1955, and absolutely freezing outside. The sidewalk was icy, and Bob had to walk very deliberately not to slip, fall, and break a bone or two. It was a delicate dance, but the bar wasn’t too far, and the prospect of a room full of beautiful women (and more alcohol) was too enticing to skip for another night. In fact, he could see two women walking up to the bar right now, a blonde and a brunette. Perfect; he loved options. He hurried up his pace, wobbling slightly. Bob was aware it was Valentine’s Day, though he wasn’t exactly a romantic fellow. Maybe the holiday was part of the appeal of trying to find someone to spend the night with on that specific night. If he was capable of self-examination, he’d realize that was exactly why he felt more lonely than usual, but as that level of self-reflection wasn’t a possibility for him even when he was sober, the thought was never more than a quick blip passing through his subconscious mind. All he could consciously think about was having a hot dame by his side and a cold drink in his hand. What else could he possibly need tonight, or any other night for that matter? Plus, as a traveling salesman, he could turn on the charm and schmooze anyone in his sight, according to him.

After what seemed like an eternity in the freezing cold, he finally reached the door of the bar. Opening the door, he felt a sudden blast of warm air, and he could have cried with relief, though he had been outside for under ten minutes. “Bourbon!” he yelled out as he crossed the threshold and stumbled face first into the closest barstool. When he regained his balance and properly sat down, he finally took a moment to look around him. He expected to see the place packed full of proper dames, maybe a few gents he had missed coming in while scoping the place out. To his utter surprise, he was the only one in the small, rather cramped bar. There were four empty stools down the length of the bar, and at the end, he saw what appeared to be a storage room with swinging saloon doors for semi-privacy. There were two or three tables behind him, a rather large bookcase in the back right corner, and a men’s bathroom in the back left corner. That was it. He couldn’t see anyone behind the bar. Bob’s brow furrowed. “Hello?” he blurted out. “Anyone here to give me bourbon?” Bob looked around, craning his head. Nothing. Nobody. No blonde, brunette, nor even a redhead in sight. He just saw two women walk in here, what, five minutes before he did? Where could they be? He stood up, gripping the bartop, starting to lean over the bar to check and see if someone had fallen or had a horrible accident on the job when he heard a gruff voice behind him. “Someone ask for bourbon?”

Bob startled, slipped, and could feel himself falling when a rough pair of hands caught him around the waist. “Whoa, easy tiger,” the same gruff voice said as it guided him down onto the stool. “You’ll be just fine.” The hand patted his shoulder then walked behind the bar. To Bob’s surprise, it was a woman, though you would be hard pressed to recognize her as a woman unless you were right up in her face, which Bob had been for just a moment. She was clearly very strong, though she was visibly older than Bob. Her hair was cut short like a man. Under the presumably men’s coveralls with a name patch saying “Sam,” he could see the outline of her biceps. Her nails were unvarnished; she wasn’t wearing jewelry nor a speck of makeup. Bob liked his women svelte yet curvy, delicate, with an appropriate amount of flattering makeup and well-kept, neat hair. This woman was none of those things, but she did have access to bourbon, so Bob decided to keep his mouth shut, at least until he had his liquor in hand. Then he might have to tell her to at least put on some lipstick to make herself presentable. He did notice her lack of wedding ring, so clearly she needed some advice. “Where is everyone?” he managed to ask while she reached for a bottle of bourbon. She ignored him. “Straight or rocks? One or two fingers?” she asked, holding a bottle of Kentucky bourbon aloft. “Straight up. No time or need for ice,” he said, holding two fingers up. She gave a small nod, grabbed a glass, and poured. “Enjoy,” she said as she slid it across the counter to Bob. He picked it up, knocked half of it back, paused, then took the rest.

“I see you really aren’t messing around tonight,” she said. “I’m assuming you’ll have another?” Bob nodded. As she started to pour again, he finally asked her name. “You can call me Sam,” she said. “This is my bar. Did you just get into town? Haven’t seen you here before.” “Yeah,” Bob said. “I’m a bit of a traveling salesman. I travel through most towns selling insurance and sometimes vacuums door-to-door, so if you happen to need either of those things, I’m all ears.” Bob picked up his freshly filled glass and took a swig. Sam remained silent, watching him closely. “I was s’posed to leave tomorrow and head up into the city, but the ladies around here have been so good looking, I might extend my trip.” He took another sip. “Present company excluded, no offense,” Bob said before finishing the glass. Sam smirked. “No offense taken; you’re not exactly my type, either, bud.” 

The laugh he let out surprised him with its intensity and how genuine it seemed to be. “You’re funny, Sam. I don’t usually find women funny. As a whole, your sex isn’t funny, but that was good.” Sam’s smirk didn’t move an inch. “Huh. Interesting. Well, glad you find me so amusing. Maybe that means you’ll leave me a big tip?” “Not a chance,” Bob said, tapping the glass on the counter. “I’ll take another.” Sam nodded, poured another two fingers, and he slammed that down before standing up. Well, wobbling up, really. “I expect this to be refilled by the time I get back,” he said as he stood up and stumbled to the men’s restroom. Right as he started to do his business, he heard the front door of the bar open and the distinct chatter of several women’s voices. “Finally,” he muttered. “I’ll get to meet a dame.” But by the time he came out again, it was just Sam behind the bar, no other people in sight. 

“Where the hell do all the girls keep going?” he yelled as he emerged from the bathroom. “You hidin’ them somewhere, Sam?” Sam didn’t answer; she was too busy pouring something out of a cocktail shaker into Bob’s glass. “Hey, I didn’t ask for anything fancy here,” he said. “I like my bourbon plain and my women hot, and it looks like I’m not getting either one right now.” He frowned as he sat on the stool, noticing how the world tilted sharply as he did so. “Yeah, not sure how many more drinks I can serve you, so I figured you should try our signature drink before you’re done.” Bob picked up the glass and sniffed it. “What’s all this? Smells like a cocktail for a woman who can’t hold her liquor. Which’s my favorite type of woman, really,” Bob said. Sam nodded. “Kind of. It’s my take on an Old Fashioned, but a slightly sweeter version with homemade vanilla bitters and brown sugar. We call it the Iron Heart, after the bar. It’s delicious, goes down smooth, but it’ll knock you on your ass if you’re not careful.” She smiled. “Like a hot dame, if you will.” Bob smiled. “Now you’re speaking my language,” he said. Bob took a careful sip. “Hey now, that’s not so bad,” Bob said, the smile still on his face. “I could get used to this.” He took another, larger sip and looked around. “Now, Sam, I could have sworn I heard other women’s voices in this bar. In fact, I know I saw them coming in shortly before I arrived. Where could they possibly be?”

Sam looked mildly amused. “What, no interest in little ol’ me?” Bob laughed, clutching his stomach, and had to abruptly stop as the room started to spin. “No, sweetheart, and you already knew that. I like my ladies feminine, thanks. And younger. The younger, the better, in fact.” Sam shuddered at that while she watched Bob take another sip of his drink. “Well, the ladies who come in here are all part of a reading club that meets in our back room. They’re all busy discussing books. Are you much of a reader?” Bob scoffed. “Absolutely not. Reading is for pansies and women with too little sense and too much time on their hands, all those romance novels filling their heads with slop.” “I figured as much,” Sam said, leaning against the bar. “Well, maybe you need one more drink before you head back to wherever you came from?” Before Bob could answer, Sam started making him another Iron Heart.

At that moment, a very attractive woman walked in the door with a book under her arm. “Hey!” she said as she stepped behind the bar and gave Sam a kiss on the cheek. She looked and saw Bob and startled slightly, but composed herself quickly. “Oh! Hello, sir. Please excuse me; I’m meeting my book club in the back.” “Go ahead, Joan; you know the way,” Sam said as she continued making the drink. “Hi! I’m Bob,” he said and stuck out his hand, but Joan just passed him by and headed for the bookcase. Bob turned to look at Sam, and when he turned around again to tell Joan what a rude bitch he thought she was, she was gone. He could swear the bookcase was moving slightly, but then again, turning his head twice in quick succession had made the entire room roll around on an invisible axis, so he couldn’t be sure. His head started pounding.

“This is my bar,” Sam suddenly started talking while she mixed the bitters and brown sugar in the shaker. “It’s called the Iron Heart because I’m a vet. I’ve had to do the right things, even when they were the hard thing to do, my whole life. My father passed and I took over and renamed this bar a few years ago, which was great timing, because I needed to change my life.” Bob’s head grew heavy, and he rested his head on his hands on the bar. “Did you work with animals or were you in the military?” “They started allowing women to join the medical teams in the military in 1943 during the war. That was more than ten years ago now, somehow.” She added ice and then started pouring the bourbon into the shaker, but instead of shaking, began stirring. She reached out and grabbed Bob’s glass. “I was a nursing student. I volunteered and went into the war. It was my patriotic duty, and I don’t regret it. But war is scary, and extremely hard, especially as a woman living abroad helping with injured soldiers. It was hell for them, but it wasn’t much better for us.” She stopped stirring and looked off into the distance for a minute. “Women deal with so much more than you understand every single day.”

She continued to stare for so long that Bob sat up straight and looked at her. “Toots, I’ll keep listening, but you gotta get me more liquor to keep me interested.” Sam snapped out of it and started pouring the drink, making sure no ice made it into the glass itself. “Sorry, yeah. It’s not only men who have war flashbacks. Anyway, when I came home, I was a veteran who went back to school and became a veterinarian. You could say that I’m a double vet.” She smiled at her little joke, one she had clearly made many times before, and slid the nearly full glass to him. Bob took it and greedily started drinking. “But being a veterinarian is difficult in a similar way. You have to make tough choices and treat patients who can’t tell you what’s wrong with them. You have to regularly end the lives of sweet, innocent animals. It’s not easy. It’s not for the faint of heart. Lots of people get into it thinking they’ll get to just play with puppies all day, but it is an extremely hard job emotionally, and also physically. Sometimes, it takes an iron heart to do what’s right.”

The drink was tremendous. He knew she probably wouldn’t serve him more and he tried his hardest to sip, but his vices were bourbon and women, and technically, at this moment, he had both. The vanilla, the bourbon, the brown sugar, and the faintest bit of metal from the shaker combined was just heaven in his mouth. He could tell he was getting drunker than he usually did, and that was a pretty high bar to clear, but he could feel himself sailing over it with ease. Maybe he could convince Sam to slide him just one, maybe two, no more than four more of these drinks….

He stood up, stumbled, and mumbled something to Sam about having one more before heading into the bathroom again. Again, the moment he started doing his business, he heard more women’s voices. Unfortunately, he had so much to drink he had to take his time, and once again when he made his way back into the bar, it was empty. This time, however, he saw the bookcase moving. He didn’t even say anything to Sam, just charged at the bookcase. It didn’t move. He started pulling books off, until finally he discovered a secret book that opened the bookcase like a proper door. It *was* a door! A door to a room full of women! What an excellent bar this Iron Heart place was. He was just reminding himself to stay in town a few extra days when he realized what he was actually looking at, because this was no book club. 

“HARLOTS! BULLDAGGERS!” he yelled at the women, who jumped apart and turned in surprise to see the interruption of this random man into their private space. Jane, was that her name? Jean? Joan? Whoever she was, she leapt off the lap of another woman and smoothed her skirt and hair as she walked over to Bob. “Sir, this is a women-only private party. Please do us the courtesy of leaving.” Bob started laughing. “I could tell Sam was one of you; I knew it, but I didn’t think women who looked like you would be like THIS!” “Who’s Sam?” Joan asked, confused. Bob ignored her. “This goes against nature! You all just need a real man to show you the truth and what you’re missing!” The blonde and brunette he’d seen walk in together earlier continued to quietly kiss in the corner. The brunette gave him the finger as he continued to rant. The rest of the women were quietly moving in on him, closer, and closer. Bob wasn’t afraid, though; they were just women, and queer ones at that! No threat at all. “I’m going to report you to the authorities. This is a den of sin! Disgusting!” That’s when he felt a sharp pain on the back of his head, his vision went dark, and he crumpled forward onto the floor.

The sunlight woke him up. Blinking, feeling like he’d been run over by several trucks, Bob opened his eyes. He was on his side, a pillow under his head, a blanket on him, a glass of water nearby, and a bucket next to that glass. The hangover and the blow to the head combined to give him an absolutely blinding headache, and he sat up gingerly to drink the water. That’s when he realized he wasn’t in his motel room. He was in the back room of … what was this place called? The bar he went to last night, the room where the women had been, ick, together. But the couches and chairs and tables were all gone. The bookcase that formed a door? No sign of it. The room was spinning, but Bob had to get up, because this was all wrong. He stood up quickly, heaved, and kept moving. He went into the smaller bar room, but it was completely empty. Bob was perplexed. What the hell happened here? He checked the stock room with its swinging doors; empty. The bar and stools and bottles of liquor were all gone. He paced around between the two rooms, completely confused. Finally, he went into the men’s room, and that’s where he saw the note on the bathroom mirror, written in red lipstick: “It takes an Iron Heart, Bob. Xoxo, ‘Sam’” 

Scent Notes: Think of a sweeter take on a strong Old Fashioned cocktail: Kentucky bourbon, high-quality vanilla, and brown sugar combined in a steel cocktail shaker.