Alpheus Williams

Bait

 

This man has hunted here before. He knows this place, the smells of cheap perfume of hookers on the street, the flashy fedoras, the two toned saddle shoed strut of pimps.  The slow knowing eyes summing him up, thinking him a wimp, nerd, an easy mark.  A mistake. They don’t know how quick his knife, how cunning, how secret.  
 

The woman in the black dress can smell the taste of a man’s fancy from his sweat, his breath, feel it in his heart beat, can read desires behind his eyes.  

 

This man wants something he can subdue, conquer, control.  This man doesn’t seek challenge. He wants a butterfly, frail, delicate, damaged. He wants to send it off with slow pain. He wants to spend the evening in a dark dank seedy hotel room plucking the wings. Slowly.  

 

He’s a sad little morsel.  Bullied by his schoolmates as a kid, bullied by his boss as an adult, belittled by his wife and ignored by his children.  She almost feels sorry for him. Almost. The humiliation and suffering has made a monster of him. He’s special, has special needs. Things his wife and kids can’t be privy to.  Things no one can know.  But the woman in the black dress knows. The woman in the black dress knows monsters.

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She leads him to her room, dimly lit, shadowy.  The smell of burning incense, thick and sweet to deaden smells. He uses her bathroom, locks the door.  Slips on latex gloves, cable ties, knife quick and sharp.  He’s ready.  Opens the door. Something’s changed. The room is empty.  No woman in black dress.  Sees something in the mirror on the wardrobe.  It’s not him.  

 

She floats through the mirror, nets him in sticky silk.  Wrapped and trapped. So beautiful. So lovely. Her lips part with black fangs.  She pushes him to the wall, teeth sink into his shoulder, slowly sucks the life from him. His eyes water with the pleasure of it. His heart races with the fear of it. He feels himself dissolving into a husk. So erotic. He sees her reflection in the mirror leaning over him.  A thing. Long segmented legs, insectile, spider like. His heart flutters for the last time. He descends into a nightmare death.  Drops to the floor, empty, dust, blown away with a gust of breeze from the window.

 

She’s on the street this night, swinging her hips in rhythm with the city.  Inhales the smells of men’s desires.  Smiles.  She knows monsters.

 

Alpheus Williams, curmudgeon, pagan, pantheist, loves wife, nature, good whisky and dogs. His works have appeared in DM, The Molotov Cocktail, Barren Magazine, Storgy, The Write Launch, The Fabulist Magazine, Shotgun Honey, Bristol Noir, Bath Flash Fiction, Ellipses Zine, Mystery Tribune, Bull, et al.  Push Cart nominee 2021.

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