If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you may already have read this one when it was posted at the late, lamented Dark Valentine online magazine. Since Dark Valentine is no longer with us, I posted the first of the stories they published from me a couple of weeks ago, and the other one this week. As always, more free stories can be found on this here blog’s Free Reads page.

This one was is way creepy, so be warned.

Dry As Dust
by Marian Allen

Lisette had lost count of the men she had met at the pool, at the beach, on the river. This latest one, Hayden, she had run across at Cumberland Falls. She was alone, of course, and he was with his parents and their other grown children. It hadn’t been difficult to make eye contact with him, to giggle and flirt without his family interfering, to get his address and make a date.

His basement apartment was a bonus. She drew in a deep breath of damp and mold and licked her lips.

“It ain’t much,” Hayden said, opening the door to her. “May kept the house and I got the car. I wish you’d have let me pick you up at your place.”

“But I don’t have a place,” she said. “I’m a citizen of the world.”

“Yeah. Whatever. Say, how about a beer, before we take off?”

“Where are we going?”

“Uh…. Out to dinner?”

“I’d rather have something here.”

“Well…. I guess I could rustle something up. It won’t be anything special.”

“Yes, it will.” Lisette ran her hands up Hayden’s chest. “It will be very, very special.”

She pulled him to her and kissed him deeply. “Mmmm,” she crooned. “I’m parched.”

“I’ll get that beer.”

“I don’t want beer.”

“Oh, party girl!” He grinned, massaging her shoulders. “Whiskey for you, eh? Jack Daniels?”

Lisette shook her head. “I don’t want whiskey.” She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him again, smelling his sweat, tasting the wetness in his mouth. “I just want you. I just want you.”

His voice was hoarse when he said, “Let’s get down to business, then.”

“Oh, yes.”

He led her into the bedroom, but she had no intention of getting on the bed, where mattresses and bed linen would absorb her joy.

“Here,” she said.

“Like, on the floor, party girl?”

“Right here. Right here.”

He turned to face her, but she stepped away. She wanted to see his face. She plunged a crimson fingernail into the soft hollow at the base of Hayden’s throat. His eyes widened and glistened delectably as she opened him, clothes and all, from neck to abdomen. His viscera tumbled out, and all the lovely, lovely blood burst free, drenching her, coating her.

Hayden’s body collapsed on the floor, and Lisette sank down next to him, scooping up his life’s fluid and rubbing it on her body, in her hair. All too soon, the beautiful liquid coagulated and dried. She sopped the last of it from his interior with a handkerchief from one of the dresser drawer. Then, at last, it was gone. All gone.

With a sigh, Lisette pushed herself up and meandered, already nostalgic for the pleasure just past, into the bathroom. She stepped into the shower stall and turned on the taps. Blood , skin, hair, bone, clothes and flesh dissolved in the warm steam. Lisette returned to the water, and the only living things in the apartment were the flies on Hayden’s corpse.

Lisette had lost count of the men she had met at the pool, at the beach, on the river.

I did warn you.

WRITING PROMPT: A blind date or pick-up goes bad when the viewpoint character’s partner disapproves of the viewpoint character’s choice of food.

MA