Delivery of a secret fantasy

‘It’s a smallish nuisance, yes.’

In her world that meant catastrophic. Instant dismissal for the culprit. For some crime as heinous as the wrong choice of cup for her afternoon tea.

But she wasn’t in her world. And those five words, hinting at an unspeakable problem, confirming an unavoidable and regrettably indefinable absence, the last she’d say.

Smut-dusted fingers seized her phone. Scarlet mouth, in a face the more barbaric for its creases being grimed with black smiled wetly.

‘Sweetling, you should’ve known the best place to come for more than fifty shades of grey would be a charcoal-burner’s hut.’ 

Duplicity

Summer mornings, spine unwilling to support me, knuckles galled but brain bright as ever I dictate my novels from the chaise longue beside the French windows. (Wintertime I transfer to its twin, beside the fireplace.)

‘A cat!’ you cry, occasioning a hiatus in my concentration. Together we watched it stalk and fail to catch its quarry. My next sentence lacks precision.

‘Scrub that,’ (an ugly phrase I learned from you). I watch as you apparently obey, unaware you expect me to die before your perfidy becomes known.

Before this latest book is published. My words. Your name upon the cover.

Acquiescence

In a voice soft as a lullaby, sung by a mother tip-toeing  from the pastel-painted room wherein, spread-eagled, lay her sleeping babe, tiny fingers folded and sucking blister still anointed with a gleaming drop of bluish milk, he said, ‘You will.’

I too spread-eagled, but not from choice: wrists and ankles tethered with coarse strips of chemical-impregnated sacking which irritated my already-chafed-to-rawness tender skin.

My voice just as muted. My screams had been silenced with breath-taking brutality, as evidenced from the grape-sized bruises to my throat, if not my now fear-flaccid lungs.

And because I knew I had no choice.

Pause for thought

The apricot horizon – a peeping edge of silk beneath a sky the colour of a two-day bruise, evidence of a punch dealt by a man who swore he loved you – put me in mind of a petticoat, worn beneath a frayed and mud-thrawn skirt ferreted from a bin  by a long-unwashed bag lady.

Perhaps a souvenir from a past life of material luxury whose constraints – parental inquisitions – she found unbearable.

Wishful thinking? That the high can fall as far as I who, almost, had to climb to reach even here? Whatever, the edge  – The End – was where I headed now. 

Test match

Like many men who worship cricket he rhapsodised about the crack of leather on willow and spent much of that summer trying to convert me. It being necessary to attend daily, and stay until the stumps were drawn, he was sensitive enough to keep me sweet by providing hampers and champagne, by introducing me to his friends confident, in spite of their much better looks, their more sparkling conversation, I’d not stray.

And knowing, in the coolness of the evening, I knew no-one else so deliciously, efficiently capable of applying leather, raising puckered weals on this Willow as did he. 

Map reading

He was the second man to appreciate.

Most commented on the cost. Made some remark which incorporated, in intent if not actuality, words such as ‘spendthrift’ and ‘narcissist’; their revulsion stemming from being forced to contemplate – come face to face with – their ignorance, their inadequacy and the fear they had left it far too late.

He knew to translate the tiny script of circled rubrics. To trace, with tongue and fingertip, touch sparse as exhaled breath of sleeping babe, the fine-inked lines that  led inexorably to the places where pleasure was most intense.

And understood the tattooist had been first. 

Swaddled

He was a teller of tales, a fabricator of fables, a sewer of stories, ever needing to build ramparts to protect me from the outer world.

He was my teacher, of all I ever needed to know; my preacher when I questioned how to live, my chastiser when I contravened his rules. He tended me when I fell ill, argued against what he termed the unreason of my objections. Taught me to be loved and to love in return.
Brought me to bloom, to bloat, to bear his child. And made me promise to tell no-one he was my father.

From the Humber

I did not plan to spoil your homecoming but word came yesterday the Caroline had been early-sighted off Spurn Point. Within the hour I shall make my way to the high point of your land. From fields still corduroy-ploughed, sheltered by hawthorn  salt-scoured from winter black to jute, I shall watch for you, before returning home to await you.

For a man returned from a thirteen-month voyage should not be publicly greeted by an eight-months-gone wife. I know your flensing knife will peel me as the flux is peeled from wire,   releasing copper-stinking blood and exposing the bastard babe beneath. 

Realism

When we were together  her post-coital drawings were executed large, in charcoal; on whatever paper was already on the easel. Fast because she’d then return to bed, splaying grimy fingerprints across my chest.

Now she uses pastels, paper-wrapped to keep her fingers clean. Renders you in earth colours: burnt sienna, raw umber, sanguine. I doubt you’d let her lay so much as a lone finger on those expensive  linen sheets.

Worry no more.  Having dealt with you, having newly-patterned your  sheets, I’ll shred those tender drawings to better replicate the scene before me.

Then I’ll go in search of her.

'If music be the food of love -'

He claimed not to know his crochets from his quavers. When I commented on the elegant length of his fingers, said he never played; had no instrument on which to do so.

I believed him until the night I, having escaped from Peregrine’s roadster, camisole unbuttoned but virginity intact, passed by the Lodge and heard him playing.

On a whim I knocked at the stout door. Music ceased, bolts were drawn. He was not pleased to see me.  ‘Milady –‘

I thought appeasing  would be easy. But in praising length had failed to appreciate their strength. Or his sexual bent.

Prediction Fiction - 13 participants, 195 comments

An astonishing response to my first week as Prediction host!!  The last time comments went into treble figures was June 2013, although those on Lily Childs Friday Prediction often exceeded 200.
Not only were pieces of startlingly vivid writing submitted but almost everyone, knowing how we writers crave recognition from our peers, took time to comment on others.

Judging was hard, because, above all else it was the imagery evoked that grabbed me, beginning with blue-eyed rats and ending with careening space ships - both from first-timers to the site.

Next week’s words are:  cost, exquisite, slow

Entries by midnight Thursday 18th June, new words and winners will be posted on Friday 19th

Usual rules: 100 words maximum (excluding title) of flash fiction or poetry using all of the three words above in the genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir. Serialized fiction is, as always, welcome. All variants and use of the words and stems are fine.

Prediction Fiction

My first Prediction post was in February 2011.  Overawed by the standard of entries, and feeling more than a bit of a fraud, since I didn’t write in the required genres of horror, fantasy, science fiction or noir, my participation was intermittent.  Did a dozen in 2012, and was thereafter hooked.

The need to tell a story in 100 words, incorporating three prompt words forced me to tighten my prose, make sure each word fully merited its place and sharpened my vocabulary.

I also found I am a serial serialiser - from this grew The Blacksmith’s Wife, and several other serials, the tale necessarily twisting back and forth each week so as to include the prompts.

The other thing is that the majority of participants READ what others write, comment on it.

And as Host I get to choose the best each week.

This weeks words are ‘army’, ‘break’ and ‘blue’ and I’d be delighted if some of you could make it part of your weekly writing routine.

Entries, this week, by no later than Saturday.  Next week I’ll be a bit more organised.

It’s at http://predictionfiction.blogspot.co.uk/2015/06/five-minutes-into-job.html

Post mortem

Me unlocking his front door a first: he’d always known when I drew near, claiming sixth sense: proof of how much he loved me. 

It didn’t work in reverse, though I taught myself to recognise his particular aroma.  Linseed oil, Balkan Sobranie and the whifflings of whatever else he’d been handling that day; the ragged cuffs of the dirty-blue cotton jumper he always wore thoroughly impregnated.  Me making token complaint as he enfolded me tightly to his chest.

In the otherwise silent house, a humming.

Another open door.

The fridge, its interior solid blocked with ice.

Just like my heart.

Unheeding

At first, little more than a whispering, loosening the last of the autumn-clenched leaves, stirring the palest of the ashes.

‘It’s coming’

‘Hours yet.’

Silent, she held her knowledge within.

Two hours passed.  A drift had formed, grey against centuries of soot.  Roof slates stirred, tapping a finger-bone tune.  She whispered another warning.  His eyes stayed shut, his breathing steady.

Time passed.

Air shifted, maybe five degrees, setting up a whistle ‘twixt wood and wall.

From nowhere, howling harshness, flinging an upward torrent of the largest of them.  Feathered and malevolent.

His eyes opened.  ‘Crows?’

‘Aye. A murdering of them.’

[This week's words for Prediction Fiction:  torrent, ashes, whistle]

Seedy contemplation

Gave pebble-dash a whole new meaning.  (In Scotland they add a concrete skim and call it harling.  Likely hurts no less but the blood-spots not so well-defined.)

Gave my back what looked like a nasty case of measles (except where the cord wound round me, tying arms to torso, added stripes.)

My old man.

Don’t need to tell me the drugs don’t work; old before his time with his never-ending quest to tame the butterfly he’d caught.

My mum.

Who’d said one day he weren’t my Dad, adding to his life, his love for her, a black and bittersweet symphony.

[Another offering for Prediction Fiction, this time a stand-alone, with thanks, of course, to The Verve]

Dish of the day?

The shape of his head, more visible as my eyes became accustomed to the gloom, was reminiscent of an Elisabeth Frink – stone Tribute rather than bronze Aggressor.

Solid column of throat the same for either.  His sweat-varnished, black against soft white cotton.

I stepped inside. 

Behind me, a collective intake of breath, part-suppressed;  a single eruption of protest, immediately silenced.  From Julian, who I hadn’t yet learned to trust. 

His hands lifted slightly, a thin rattle of a chain. 

He whispered again, lips rimed with light, eyes lignite glittering.

My blood ran cold.

From behind me silence.  Avidly awaiting entertainment.

One of this week's entries for Prediction Fiction, prompt words varnish, erupt, cold. 

Threshold

From the doorway all that could be seen was the gleam of his cotton shirt and the whites of his eyes.  The rest of him was in shadow.   Unsurprising: boarded-up windows allowed only a thin-drawn rectangle of light.  He’d backed himself into the corner, somehow levered himself to standing, the bulk of him merging into the shadows.  I had to trust the shackles held.

Had to trust them too.   I didn’t know why they’d sent me to fetch him.  Didn’t know why they laughed behind me nor, when he saw me, why his teeth gleamed too, whispering, ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’

One of my 100 word pieces for this week's Predction Fiction - using  flatter, cotton, shackle

Four o’clock

She wasn’t easy to pigeonhole.  Which made it all so difficult.   If they’d been able to be certain, the solution would be easy – bullet in the head, burial in the closest cement-poured project.  All the evidence indicated... timing, sightings, her bank accounts’ steady acquisitions of cash.

But face to face felt like a setback:  genteel parlour, doves cooing, latticed windows curtained with William Morris ‘Golden Lily’, velvet settee protected with pampas-grass embroidered antimacassar and arm-covers, India tea served in fragile Royal Pembroke bone china...

...it was the tea, of course.  And, after strenuous chopping, she found them very easily pigeonholed. 

One of two entries for this week's Prediction Fiction,  prompt words:  pigeon, cover, setback.

Woke with an opening in my head ...

"Merk arrived as they were leaving, the distinctive nose of his car blocking the end of the drive.   Had David been driving he’d’ve backed down but Viv was made of sterner stuff. "

I've extended it to a drabble for a Prediction Fiction challenge, subsequently incorporating  'alto', histrionic' and 'ticking', as a first part of a holiday-themed horror serial, each episode to be dictated by the week's prompts, and yet to be sent to Colleen, but what a gift of  early-morning words.