Category: Narrative

The next move

~ Christi ~ 6 Comments
MurielStreeter
Copyright Muriel Streeter

Don’t blame the sinner, Joe wrote in his notebook. He sipped his sangria and contemplated the hideous painting in front of him as he plotted.

The sun turned the ice cubes to water and cut the sweetness of his drink as it warmed his back and prickled his scalp.

He jotted in his notebook now and then, planning. When he completed his list he put away his pad and enjoyed the rest of his drink.

At last he saw Lily coming and signaled the waitress for more drinks.

“Hi, there,” she laughed as she dropped her bags and joined him at the bar.

He smirked. She had no idea.

“Did you buy everything that I asked?” he leaned over whispered into Lily’s ear.

“Yes, sweetie,” she said, oblivious to his tone. She tried to reach for the shopping bags at her feet, but Joe stopped her with a firm hand on her arm.

“No, not now,” he said deeply.

Lily looked at Joe’s hand clutching her wrist and laughed ironically. “Okay, then. Whatever you like,” she smiled and reached for her drink. “Cheers,” she laughed, holding her glass in front of his face. He didn’t laugh or clink her glass, but instead flipped open his pad and wrote something down.

“I modeled everything for the salesgirl like you asked,” Lily told him. “The bra, the panties, the dress, all of it,” she prattled on as he wrote. Joe didn’t acknowledge her.

When he finished, he took another long look at the colorful painting on the bar in front of them and grimaced. He gulped down his glass of sangria. “Okay, let’s go,” he said, standing up and putting his notebook into his bag, which he slung over his shoulder. “Time to see some real art,” he announced.

“But I just got here,” Lily complained.

“Get up,” he growled.

Lily pouted and took one last sip of her sangria. She stood up, then bent down slowly the way he liked to pick up her bags. Joe gave Lily a sidelong appraisal.

“Pay for the drinks,” he ordered.

Lily put the shopping bags on her shoulder and opened her purse. She slowly pulled out a twenty dollar bill, which she slipped under her glass, aware of Joe’s eyes on her the entire time. She pulled her oversized sunglasses out and closed her purse. Joe took her by the arm and led her to the sidewalk. They walked in silence.

Joe pushed Lily ahead of him up the steps to the art gallery. Inside, he ushered her to the ticket desk. “Buy our tickets,” he barked.

Lily set down her bags and opened her purse. “Two, please,” she said pleasantly to the man behind the counter. She exchanged cash for tickets and picked up her bags. “Here you go, sweetie,” she gave Joe his with a touch of sarcasm.

“Let’s stop at the ladies’ room,” Joe said as he steered her over to the bathrooms. “Go change into your new things.”

Lily disappeared into the bathroom with her bags. Joe lurked outside, scribbling a few last-minute thoughts into his notebook. His mom always told him not to blame the sinner. Was seducing the sinner taking it too far? He just couldn’t resist the sting of shame he got from Lily’s dirty money. It made Joe want to own her and he planned to do just that.

“What do you think, baby?” Lily giggled as she emerged from the ladies’ room. She twirled around to show off her new slinky black dress, lace stockings, and black stilettos.

“Nice,” Joe permitted her one word of approval before snatching Lily’s elbow and leading her towards the artwork. He approached a white marble bench. “Sit here,” he pushed her down. She sank down onto the bench and dropped her bags on the floor in front of her.

“Here?” she half-whined. “In front of this?” she pointed at the painting of the chess pieces come to life.

“Yes,” Joe directed. “You wait here while I run an errand.” He bent down and grabbed her purse, then strode out of the gallery and down the street to the jewelry shop.

“Would you like some help, sir?” the salesman asked.

“Yes,” Joe answered. “I need an engagement ring.”

An hour later Joe returned to the gallery, his pocket bulging and his heart swelling at the sirens’ crescendo as his pieces fell into place. He stepped inside and found Lily slumped on her bench, a crowd of pawns admiring his scene. Checkmate, he thought.

 

Plot

~ Christi ~ 7 Comments
Copyright Janet Webbs
Copyright Janet Webb

He sipped his sangria and contemplated the hideous painting in front of him as he plotted.

The sun turned the ice cubes to water and cut the sweetness of his drink as it warmed his back and prickled his scalp.

He jotted in his notebook now and then, planning. When he completed his list he put away his pad and enjoyed the rest of his drink.

At last, he saw her coming and signaled the waitress for more drinks.

“Hi, there,” she laughed as she dropped her bags and joined him at the bar.

He smirked. She had no idea.

friday-fictioneers

The agenda

~ Christi

Kate woke first and watched Dan sleep.

She woke him by ripping the bandage from his thigh. The wound was healing nicely, its red, gaping edges knitting themselves back together along the curve of his muscle. The scar would be faint, Kate thought as she kissed his leg. He gasped and jerked awake, reflexively pushing her away.

“I’m sorry,” she laughed. “I didn’t have the heart to wake you first.”

Dan rubbed his hands over his face but didn’t answer.

“Let me make it up to you,” she murmured, and drew her line of kisses upward slightly, setting about righting her wrong. While she played tricks with her lips and tongue, she ran her index finger lightly around the edges of his wound. After a while she quickened her pace and pressed harder with her fingers. When he cried out, Kate didn’t know if it was from pleasure or pain.

Afterwards, she brought him a fresh bandage then picked up from the night before. The apartment wasn’t quite trashed, but wine glasses and beer bottles still lay here and there. There was a small stain on the rug in the living room, and she laid a wet towel on top of it the way her mom used to do.  When she had cleaned up the worst of the mess, she made a batch of blueberry pancakes.

“Breakfast, baby,” Kate called to Dan from the table. She heard him climb out of bed and pull on his boxers and t-shirt. He staggered out to the table and sat by his plate. She poured him some juice and ran her hand over his shadowy cheek. “Happy V-Day,” she smiled.

Dan scarfed down his pancakes, barely looking up while he ate. When he finished, he moved to the sofa and sank down into it, reaching for the remote. She ate more slowly, listening to the TV announcers enthusiastically discussing the men’s Olympic half-pipe ski competition.

Dan slumped on the sofa, frowning. His bandage stuck out from under his boxers as if it were a gun escaping its holster. “I’d love to feel some of that snow,” Kate said from the table, then, “It’ll heal fine, you know,” she laughed, trying to break the tension. He didn’t answer.

She cleared the table and cleaned up the kitchen. She returned to the bedroom and picked up the bandage wrapper from the bedside table, tossing it in the trash can. She made the bed and showered, slipping on a red sundress.

When Kate returned to the living room, her hair still wet from her shower, she found Dan slumped in the same position, exactly as she had left him except that he had changed the channel. Instead of ski jumpers he was watching two girls mess around on a large bed. She stood behind the sofa for several minutes and watched with him. He didn’t say anything or acknowledge her in any way.

“Baby, I need your help in the garden,” she broke the silence.

Dan turned and glared at her. “You are insane. That’s how you hurt me in the first place,” he growled, then turned back to the hot girls.

Kate abandoned him in favor of pulling weeds and turning the soil with the very same pitchfork that she had accidentally stabbed him with the weekend before. Their fledgling garden was almost ready for seedlings. She occasionally paused to admire her boyfriend’s view through the window.

A little story for Valentine’s Day, inspired by a tweet I saw this week.

Sweet sixteen

~ Christi ~ 9 Comments

The third time they did it, it was Heidi’s turn to draw the design and she did a swirly heart pattern for Valentine’s Day. The girls went straight to Emma’s house after school.

“You first,” Heidi said to Emma, grinning and bouncing on the bed. Both girls were in their panties; Heidi wore a bright red lacy bra that belonged to her older sister and Emma wore her favorite Hello Kitty t-shirt. The door was locked just in case and the music was blaring.

“Wait, put the towel down,” Emma said. She didn’t want her mom finding any stains.

“Okay, okay, silly,” Heidi laughed.

Emma had lined up their tools on her bedside table: the sewing needle from her mom’s strawberry-shaped pincushion, her granddad’s old Army pocketknife, which she swiped from her dad’s basement workroom, a pink plastic lighter for sterilizing the metal, several towels, cleansing pads, Neosporin, band-aids. Last summer Emma had taken a first-aid class so she considered herself an expert.

Heidi reached for Emma’s leg. Emma jumped. “Your hands are freezing!” she giggled.

“Sorry,” Heidi mumbled and rubbed her hands together. She started on the inside of Emma’s right thigh, using the needle to outline her design. With every prick, Emma startled, the pain raising the hair at the nape of her neck and making her nipples poke through the tops of the kitty ears.

“Mmm,” she said every time the needle entered her skin.

When Heidi had finished outlining, she carefully placed the needle on the table and gently dabbed a towel over the specks of blood on Emma’s thigh. She reached for the knife and began to connect the dots. The knife barely hurt at all as it sliced Emma’s soft pale skin – the pain would come later. Emma held her breath, watching the path of the knife along her skin. Heidi’s hand was steady.

“You’re so good at this,” Emma said in awe as Heidi finished up her design. The blood seeped over the knife tracks, obscuring Heidi’s work. Emma felt the pain rising along the cuts, so sharp and pure and perfect. “Ah,” she moaned and lay back on the bed.

Heidi cleaned the tools while Emma chilled on the bed. After a while, Emma sat up and reached for the lighter, using it to heat the needle until it glowed red. “Your turn,” she told Heidi.

Emma’s hands always wavered, even when Heidi went first. She would never be as talented as her friend, she thought sadly. Still, she continued, doing her best. She loved the sight of Heidi’s blood rising along her thigh, she loved her friend’s sighs, she loved and hated how Heidi’s hand slid down into her panties while she worked.

Emma’s thigh throbbed hard under the band-aids as she dabbed away Heidi’s blood with another clean white towel. She sterilized the knife and ran it along the needle pricks, her heart pounding as Heidi began to hum. She worked slowly, with both hands so Heidi’s small thrusts wouldn’t jerk the knife. After a few minutes, Heidi lay silent on the bed. When Emma finished tracing the design, she wiped away the blood and spread Neosporin over her friend’s thigh. She applied three Tinkerbelle band-aids over the cuts.

“It’s time for you to go home,” Emma said. “My mom will be home in twenty minutes. Help me clean up,” she poked Heidi on the shoulder and reached for the pocketknife. She carefully wiped it clean and flipped it closed, then cleaned the needle.

Heidi sat up and grabbed the trash bag, tossing the band-aid wrappers and dirty towels. She tied it shut and shoved it inside her backpack to get rid of on the walk home.

The girls sang along to Counting Stars and danced around the room, thrilled with their matching bandages, their matching wounds, their matching pain.

After they dressed, Emma put all of their supplies in her art box. If anyone saw it, they wouldn’t think twice since it was already full of odds and ends – pencil stubs, dried up erasers, her compass. She stashed the art box under the bed and checked and re-checked her room. No one could ever know what happened here.

“Don’t forget to clean it,” Emma warned Heidi, and gave her friend a quick hug before she left.

Later on, after dinner, Emma’s mom circled the house collecting laundry. She found the blood-speckled towel still spread across Emma’s bed and panicked.

Betrayal

~ Christi ~ 11 Comments

He lay in a cheap hotel bed as she lay in the street, dying.

After they laid him in the morgue and her to rest, they found the truth lying in a drawer.

 

Thirty-three words on love gone wrong, minus love, sad, tears, wept, heart, and pain for this week’s Trifextra. Oh, and this is a true story.

Lost

~ Christi ~ 11 Comments
Copyright Dawn M. Miller
Copyright Dawn M. Miller

Grandpa told them that pirates buried their loot by the water.

The boys spread out the old map on the front porch, beneath Grandma’s lamps. They traced its streets with their fingers, following its maze under train tracks, around erstwhile buildings, through the skeletal neighborhoods to the looming lake.

They used a twig to poke a hole in the spot.

They stuffed the map into a ratty old bag, along with a toy shovel, some of Grandma’s cookies, and a disintegrating can of Sprite.

None of the streets matched the map. No one thought to look for the boys until much, much later.

 

100 words for this week’s Friday Fictioneers. Go check out the rest, or better yet, write your own.

friday-fictioneers

Nasturtiums

~ Christi

The nasturtiums outlived mom by several weeks. After the arrangements were made and the hubbub of the funeral had passed, I returned to pack her things. I found her there waiting in the empty rooms. The moving boxes made her angry and I knew I had to work quickly to dismantle her reality. She cringed while I wrapped her art pieces in newspaper and boxed them for my sister. In the kitchen I rinsed her long-empty water glass before I packed it, catching a glimpse of those flaming petals in the window box.

“They need water,” mom said from the doorway.

Copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields
Copyright Rochelle Wisoff-Fields

 

 

The spelling lesson

~ Christi ~ 38 Comments

Weekends were so relaxing now that their youngest son had gone off to college. Saturdays still had too many chores, but Sundays were perfect.

Shawn woke up early to put on the roast for their dinner. He browned the meat and studded it with bacon, then soaked it in wine. Afterward, he fixed their breakfast: toast and jam, sliced peaches from the garden, and hot coffee. Jenny was already curled up with the style section on the bench at the sunny breakfast nook when he brought the food over. He laid her plate in front of her and then joined her on the bench, reaching for the front page. They languished over their coffee and newspaper until midmorning.

When Jenny rose and walked toward the bedroom, Shawn knew what she wanted. He abandoned the breakfast table with its scattered dishes and followed her. He moved to the closet, no longer locked now that James had left home, and removed the ropes. He laid them out on the bed and a stray thought crossed his mind.

“Hang on a moment,” Shawn said to Jenny and returned to the kitchen. He brought back a pencil and a pad of paper, which he laid on the bedside table.

Jenny waited obediently on the bed, nightie off.

“Good girl, Jenny,” Shawn murmured. He reached for the ropes and began tying Jenny’s arms together behind her back. He worked for a while, encasing her in rope, creating an elaborate pattern even more beautiful than the one he had tied the Sunday before.

“I want you to spell something for me, Jenny,” he announced to his wife gently.

“What?” she asked, smirking. They both knew that she was a terrible speller.

“Spell torment,” darling, Shawn replied, tightening the final knot.

Jenny winced a little and began to spell. “Torment. T-O-U-R-M-I-N-T,” she said.

“No, Jenny, that’s not correct,” Shawn told her firmly, and picked up the pencil. He moved to the closet and retrieved a large knife. He stood directly in front of his wife and began to sharpen the pencil with the knife. The wood shavings dropped onto the ropes where they held her legs spread apart.

When he had sharpened the pencil, he lifted the pad of paper and wrote on it. He tore out the page and used the knife to pin it to the wall directly in front of Jenny. Shawn loved that he could do that kind of thing now that the kids were away. He pondered a few minutes, and then used the last bit of rope to rig up a suspension device for the pencil. He set it hanging just an inch or so from her eye, so that if she shifted too much the pencil would surely poke her eye out.

“You need to study, darling,” Shawn told Jenny kindly. “When I get back I expect you to be able to spell torment for me,” and he pointed toward his note, which showed the word in large capital letters. He showered, dressed, and paused to admire his wife before straightening up the kitchen. Around lunchtime, he headed out to the movies. He always enjoyed his Sunday afternoon matinee.

After the movie, he stopped at the bakery for a pie for their dessert. He returned home, greeted by the delicious smells of red wine and roast emerging from the kitchen and happily spent the rest of the afternoon tormenting his lovely wife.

Later, as evening descended, Shawn laid the table for dinner and poured Jenny’s wine as she emerged from the bedroom, freshly showered and dressed for dinner. “You were an excellent student today,” he praised her, kissing her lightly on the head as she sat down to dinner.

“Thanks, honey,” she laughed.

 

Creep

~ Christi ~ 10 Comments

He always felt guilty about it afterward.

“Here, Chloe, let’s get you into the cart,” he said calmly as he lifted her up. Nothing strange about that, he thought as he began his shopping. One by one, he put orange juice, cereal, granola bars into his cart, stocking up. His heart pounded.

He meandered to the other side of the store, eyeing the cheap sandals and colorful towels.

“Chloe, sit down please,” he said distractedly. “Chloe, want to pick out a doll?” he said brightly. He quickened his pace, nearly rushing toward the toy section. Finally, he thought. Calm down, he thought.

He slowed down as he neared the doll aisle. He lurked, wishing that he didn’t feel like such a creep for being here. He peered down the aisle, thrilled to find it empty.

“Okay, Chloe, Daddy’s going to buy you a doll. Any doll you want, okay?” he smiled at his four-year-old daughter. He moved slowly down the aisle, as if in a trance, and straightened each doll. He neatened their clothes and caressed their hair. He used one finger to manipulate their moveable eyelids, opening each lovely eye so that every doll was looking at him.

“Daddy, I want to get out!” Chloe screamed from the cart.

“No, no, Chloe, you have to stay in the cart,” he barked, too loud. He was so close. He snatched up a box of granola bars from the cart and tore it open. “Here, have a snack.” He thrust the wrapped granola bar into her hands.

“Open it, Daddy!” she wailed.

“Yes, dear,” he mumbled. He looked desperately up and down the aisle. No one yet, he thought, relieved. He ripped open the granola bar and handed it to Chloe. He scanned the dolls, all neat, tidy, and looking at him with their loving eyes. He pulled out his phone and snapped a photo, trying to keep his hands from shaking. He smiled at the photo.

“Which one do you want, Chloe?”

My submission, including the third definition of manipulate: to change by artful or unfair means in order to serve one’s purpose: to doctor, for this week’s Trifecta challenge.

Escape artist

~ Christi ~ 12 Comments

Copyright Claire Fuller
Copyright Claire Fuller

There was a time when things were different. Not so long ago, she could not possibly have imagined the joy she would feel after locking herself back into a cell.

When she was little, her grandpa taught her magic – real magic, not potions and spells. He taught her to manipulate perceptions, to create illusion. “You have to get the sun in their eyes, kid. The rest is easy,” he told her with a sidelong glance. Grandpa’s magic was gritty and real.

As she pressed the heavy lever on the drill, making hole after hole, she remembered the day he taught her to pick a lock, out on the front porch, the sun glinting off chrome bumpers on the street and the heat gathering under the shingled roof. She started on Grandpa’s old treasure chest, where he kept his cards, trick knives, and his fake parrot. When she mastered the small keyhole, they moved on to the deadbolt on the front door. Within a few hours she could open it quick.

“You could work your way out of anything, kid,” Grandpa announced proudly.

Grandpa’s magic skills proved worthwhile in prison. She had an uncanny way of showing people what they wanted to see. Good behavior got her where she was today, here at this workshop out in the middle of nowhere. She worked through the afternoon, time seeping in a slow drip and the heavy air wrapping itself around the benches, spliced through with the electric jolts of the power tools. Her hands burned where they held the hot lever of the drill. The sun slanted low in the sky as they cleaned up their tools and wiped down their benches. Grandpa would have liked it here, she thought.

Before she headed for the dingy white bus, she slipped the sharpened sliver inside her sleeve. Aboard, she sat down near the front, staring at the sun through the window. The older woman’s hand on her wrist jolted her.

“Hi Amy,” the older woman said, as she slipped in beside her on the sticky vinyl seat.

Amy gave her a dry, knowing smile. “Hey, Jill.”

“It’s killer hot today,” Jill said, and ran her hand up Amy’s arm to her shoulder, then her neck, stopping at her hair.

At her touch, Amy got chills. She gave Jill another dry smile and turned back to the window. They rode the rest of the short trip in silence, Jill’s hand twisting Amy’s hair, pulling it.

Back in her cell, Amy shoved the shard of wood into her mattress, hoping that she’d be able to find it later in the dark. Time slowed down again as she waited to make her move. Finally, in the night, after the guards made their last check, she ran her fingers along the seam of her mattress until she felt the familiar prick. It took only seconds for her to pick the lock of her cell, moments for her to scurry silently to Jill’s cell next door and repeat her lock trick. She wove her tool into the waistband of her pants.

Inside the cell, Jill stood, waiting. Neither of them spoke. The older woman lifted Amy’s shirt over her head and dropped it to the ground. She pushed Amy back, hard, against the wall and ran her hands over her breasts, her belly, and down. She pinned Amy’s arms to the wall and silently went to work, driving Amy over the edge again and again. Afterwards, after Amy had returned the favors, she snatched up her shirt, retrieved the sliver from her pants, and slipped back to her own cell, grinning now.

Grandpa had been wrong about magic, Amy thought. You don’t always have to get out to escape. She stashed the shard in the seam of her mattress for next time and slept.

I picked up where I left off on this post for my submission to the Speakeasy this week. All the great feedback on my snippet really got me wondering about how much trouble this girl was getting herself into.