fiction

Four Star Blues

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 4 Comments

“Oh, it’s my pleasure, absolutely,” she said with a tinny, manufactured brightness as she cleared away the strangely-soiled sheets from the bathroom floor while a portly couple in hotel bathrobes sat at the table on the terrace, eating what looked to have been a whole roast chicken, making sounds that made her uncomfortable as she worked.

As soon as she could, she got herself out of the room, cursing for the umpteenth time having to do this job.

Once on the other side of the door, she sighed with relief, looking forward to the end of her shift and the bottle of wine awaiting her at home.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Post: pleasure

A Wrinkle in Time

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 1 Comment

“Why darling, it’s perfectly natural, it happens to everyone now and then,” she said in a soothing tone, hoping to diffuse the tension that had settled into the folds of the bedsheets that now lay crumpled across their naked bodies.

It took her a few moments to realize that he wasn’t turned away from her in shame, but that he’d actually fallen asleep and was looking annoyingly peaceful.

It was then that she realized that the tension she’d felt was all her own.

Inspired by The Daily Post Word Prompt: natural

Sure Thing

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“Don’t you think you are being a bit premature in your calculations?” she asked rather tongue-in-cheek of the unbelievably tan and unbearably attractive man who had just ordered a martini for her from the bartender without so much as a hello to her first: “And another for the lovely lady, shaken, not stirred.”

Of course, they both knew that he was actually totally on track.

He’d had her at “martini.”

Paillard Tendencies

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“Don’t make me take a mallet to you,” she said wickedly as she began to prepare the chicken breast she’d bought for her dinner.

It was little exchanges like this that made her apartment feel a little less lonely at night.

With a giggle followed by an almost imperceptible sigh, she rinsed the breast in water and patted it dry with a paper towel, and returned to the task at hand.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: mallet

Herbal Reverie

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“Allow me to speak candidly,” she said with earnestness to no one in particular before finding herself poised halfway between the kitchen and the veranda staring out the window.

And just like that, the realization that had prompted the remark in the first place drifted out of her consciousness and on to wherever such realizations go when unattended.

And so it was that she sat down once again to a cup of camomile tea and a romance novel to while away a long day’s afternoon.

Inspired by The Daily Word Prompt: candid

Snubbed

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 3 Comments

“As if,” she said to no one in particular, never entertaining for one second that she would try even one of Bitsy Devoe’s shortbread sweets as they were passed by on delicately-doilied silver trays by somber, tight-lipped staff in impossibly-starched black uniforms.

Bitsy had conveniently forgotten that the recipe that she was now widely known for had actually been hers once upon a time, given innocently and generously on loan, for goodness sakes, for an event for which Bitsy’s originally-planned recipe had miserably failed, and for which Bitsy had since become quite famous for making.

As if to punctuate her resentment, she put her cigarette out in vase of delphiniums that sat on the foyer table, and with a wry smile of self-approval, proceeded back to the bar area to partake of a third Gin Gimlet.

Inspired by The Daily Word Prompt: entertain

Night Manager

Aside ~ ~ lifeontheskinnybranches ~ 2 Comments

Drains the last of the bottle

Looking out into the blue-black bruise of night

No trains coming through ’til morning

In a blackout he meets his own dark soul

But he won’t remember it in the morning

He listens with Jack Daniels’ ears

For something, for anything

He watches the static of the old tv

Waiting for God to speak to him again

And just before he passes out

He has an epiphany, which is then lost

Inspired by The Daily Word Prompt: static

Suppertime

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“Now don’t go thinking I just put this on, willy-nilly,” she said, smoothing out the corner of the tablecloth firmly, as if in doing so she could erase any potential misconception anyone might have about the current state of her dining room table. Mr. Johnson, her 8 pound Siamese, blinked as if to say he was under no such delusions. She gave him a look he knew too well. It was the look that made it clear that he was not welcome at the moment, especially nowhere near the table. He blinked again, this time much more slowly, turned around, and with a flip of the end of his tail, left the room for more serene climes.

Inspired by the Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: willy-nilly and The Five Sentence Story