Cherry's Jubilee

 

            I have to confess, I never thought that ensnaring you would be this easy. As a matter of fact it's almost criminal. One should not fall so willingly into another's trap. I think of your face as we came to the end of our brief affair. How surprised you were. I nearly laughed as your eyes grew wide, and round. You truly had no idea, none what so ever, of my plan. You were so easy. That simple touch pulled you in without question. Ha. When I think of the work I had taken with so many others, it almost seems a shame that you're gone. I have taken women far weaker then you though, you should not feel ashamed. I remember some nearly begging for my eye, oh, but not you. No, you begged for nothing, you demanded. You were truly magnificent that night. You finest wares, rogued face, glittering bangles, you were a vision of beauty. You demanded all eyes that evening. I imagine you always did.

            I never did need to approach you for you came to me. I remember the feel of your skin against my finger tips. So smooth, so warm, so soft. Your lovely long red hair that shined in the light. Your brilliant smile. Your luscious red lips. That look that told all that was in your soul. The world will surely miss your presences in it. I should feel so very guilty, how sad for you that I don't. I can still smell you on my skin. The thought of your last dance still waltzes across my memory. How happy you were, how warm. You were so young, so fresh. You could have had any man, how unfortunate that you chose me. The world will miss you, you young bright thing you. Too bad.

Rumpelstiltskin

            He crept up very slow. It was all in the surprise, if you got that right then everything else was easy. The mood was already sufficiently ominous. A dark and stormy night, she was home alone, the entire neighborhood was silent save for the howling winds, it was perfect. Her silhouette flickered across the living room wall as she sat before the fireplace. Silently he made his way to stand right behind her.

            “You really don’t have to go through all that trouble.”

            He was deflated, “How did you know I was here?”

            “You breathe like a boar and your steps are louder than a cavalry horse on Flag Day.”

            He collapsed onto the ottoman next to her, exasperated. She really took the fun out of everything.

            She was puffing on a cigarette. She didn’t look over at him, just continued to stare intently into the flames. It had been some years since he had last seen her, but she looked so very ragged. It was as though she was worn through in places and the raw nerves were showing. There was such a bitter look on her face, not like the first time he had seen her. Back then she had been young and fresh and desperate. Now she was a withered husk. Had it really been so long?

            “I’ve come to collect what’s mine,” he whispered into her ear.

            “You’re late then,” she said flicking the last of her cigarette into the flames. She shoved herself off the seat and walked out of sight. He quickly jumped up to follow.  

            “I did you a very special service, and now the payment is due…”

            “He died,” she said as she pulled another cigarette out of her pocket, “My first born died.”

            “Pardon?”

            “Rumpelstiltskin, marker of bargains, your prize… your fee… has passed. You made a bad investment, deal with it.”

            She lit up as she leaned against the kitchen sink. Her eyes were drawn out the window and she stayed there transfixed.

            “I’ll have the next then?” he said matter of factly.

            “The next also died, and so did the one after.”

            The little man stared at her curious as she stared dreamily out the window into the black night. Now her terrible transformation seemed less outlandish, to have lost so many children.

            “I did you a great service, and I expect to be repaid.”

            “Yeah, some service,” she sneered as her jaw set harshly.

            He crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the sink next to her. He scoffed at how little his service seemed to mean to her.

            “I plucked you from death’s very hands. I saved your life.”

            She turned to him, her eyes dark with anger. “And let’s take a look at that life shall we? First, you say you’re going to take my first born child. I had no plans to even have children or get married, or any of that so I thought I was safe. But no, not even a week later I meet the man of my dreams. Great, right? Wrong. The first baby was still born not even the first year after we got married. I worked hard to do everything right after that. I wasn’t going to lose another. I treat myself right, I do everything the doctors tell me, does that help? No, lost the second one. After that my husband started blaming me, it was my fault that they died. I was doing something wrong. So for the third one I quite work, I went on a strict regiment, I did everything right, everything. Lost him in the second trimester. After that my husband left me without even the courteously of divorcing me properly before running off with some sweet piece of ass he’d met at work. I couldn’t get my old job back. I have to work part time at a convenience store because that was the only work I could get. I lost the house because I couldn’t keep up with the payments. I’m drowning in debt, I have no husband, I have no children, I have no house, but thank you for saving me and giving me all this. It was really too kind of you. In fact I insist that you take some of it back, it really is too much.”

            He couldn’t help but shrink away from her ire. She oozed hatred for him. And why shouldn’t she? Her life had been terrible since he last saw her. Usually damsels’ lives got better after he made deals with them. Hers only seemed to take a fast train to hell. He thought for a moment.

            “Still… a deal was made my dear and it is time for payment in full.”

            “The deal was for the first born, and he was born dead,” she hissed as she leaned back to the sink.

            He thought a moment longer. There had to be a way to salvage the situation? He stroked his beard as he thought. That was when he took notice of her long luscious figure. Even as old and dried up as she had become she was still a lovely looking woman. He twirled his finger in his well groomed whiskers. A brilliant idea had occurred to him.

            “Still, I never walk away from an investment,” he chided. She faced him ready to wither him with further furry only to find him on bent knee.

            “Madame, I have left you in a poorer state then I found you. Allow me, please, to make amends,” he said extending his hand.

            She stood in shocked silence at first, staring down at his hand as though it were the poised head of a cobra. Then she took another puff from her cigarette.

            Shrugging her shoulders she said, “Fuck it.”

            She placed her hand in his and together they both disappeared out of the dark stormy night to places unknown. The dealer took his prize and the lady took leave of her troubled life.

Love Nip

“Will it hurt?” she asked.

            He sighed. He pulled away and looked her sternly in the eye. She wasn't trying to be difficult, really she wasn't.

            He thought for a moment. “It's like getting a shot. Just little pin pricks.”

            She shivered in mock fear. She really didn't like shots, but that wasn't enough to dissuade her.

            She nodded and took a deep breath. She was ready. He was tired. He just wanted to get this over with.

            He again made his approach. He gently moved away some hair that had fallen on to her neck. He breathed in her fragrant taste. He silently parted his lips. He gently pressed his mouth to the surface of her neck.

            “How will it feel after, when it happens?”

            He pushed away as he threw his hands into the air. “You aren't serious about this. You don't really want it.”

            She shook her head frantically. “No, no, I want it, really. I'm sorry. I'm just nervous.”

            He looked at her from the corner of his eye. She played with a piece of her short hair without looking at him. He sighed again. She was such a tiresome girl.

            “Listen Love, afterwards there will be some pain, but I'll be with you, and we'll be together forever. So what have you got to be worried about?”

            He made his approach again. He pulled her hands to her waist. He paused for a moment expecting some other imbecilic question.

            “Love,” she said in a dreamy far off sort of way.

            He almost laughed at how pathetic she sounded. “Love.”

            He pushed away the hair from her neck. He parted his lips ever so much. He breathed deeply her fresh virgin scent.

            “Love,” she breathed again.

            He smiled to her slender pale neck. Gently he kissed the nape of her neck. Her heart fluttered like a little butterfly in her chest. His smile widened. She was almost too easy. He opened his jaws wider. She did not move, too entranced by love. He licked the skin over the carotid. Still she did not move. He paused for a moment, waiting for terror, or second guessing, but still she did not move.

            His next move was lightning fast. He clamped down upon her neck, sinking in is fangs. She squeaked in surprise and pain. It wasn't like getting a shot, not at all. She wanted very much for him to stop, but he didn't. She told herself, 'soon it'll be time and he'll stop,' but he didn't. She began to panic. She started to try and pull away but every attempt only made his grip tighter. She kept struggling until she had no strength to fight any more. She wanted to get away, but her limbs wouldn't cooperate. She couldn't move at all.

            She started to feel very warm. Everything was fuzzy. Her whole body was numb. Her thoughts floated on a sea of cotton. His bite stopped hurting. The light around her began to blur and sway. Soon she couldn't really see anything at all. She felt very strange. She couldn't really explain it. It was a feeling of complete comfort. She felt warm and safe and comfortable in her sea of fuzz. She started to forget everything, because there was nothing but the fuzziness. She was happy. She didn't really have 'thought' any more. Only fuzziness. She couldn't remember her own name. Just the fuzziness and then the world went black.

"The stroke of death is as a lovers pinch, Which hurts and is dersired" ~Shakespeare

Death, and Other Past Lovers

            I was already running late. I stepped off the curb and made it about halfway when I heard the tires squeal. I saw the big silver ram’s head blocking out the world. That emblem gets really shinny when it’s only three inches from you face. I’m not usually one for flipping people off but I threw both fingers up when my foot hit the curb. Fucking jerk.

            I didn’t have time to linger though. I kept running to class hoping that the professor hadn’t taken attendance yet. It was halfway across campus but I made it just in time. The room was too full to sit up close, which was alright. I slipped into the back and dropped my backpack silently to the floor. Leaning against the back wall, I prepared myself for another hour of painful drudgery. My chin rested on my fist and I began to nod.

            “You hear that some girl got hit by a car on the other side of campus?” asked the boy next to me.

            My gaze swiveled towards him. I hadn’t noticed anyone sitting by me when I sat down, but I nod off so easily.

            “It was probably the same jerk that nearly hit me,” I told him, “Jack-ass in a big ass truck.”

            “Could be,” he smiled back at me.

            “Is she alright?”

            “Not sure yet.”

            He was wearing a big black trench coat. His eyes were dark and deep set as he looked at me. I couldn’t remember if I had seen him in the class before. It seemed like I would remember if I had, he was quite hot. He was leaning towards me so he could whisper.

             “My names Sam, by the way,” he said as he offered up his hand.

            I shook it happily, “Carol.”

            “Do you understand what he’s talking about?” he asked gesturing to the professor.

            “Forces and vector manipulation, I think.”

            We both cocked our head to look at the notes up on the board. It was a definite possibility at least.

            “You want to get out of here?” he asked.

            I tried to focus on the scribbles on the board, but it was really no use. So, I looked at him and gave a quick nod.

            We slipped out the back door and the air felt so much better. It was calm and quiet and lite. We walked together down the sidewalk. He had a sturdy walking stick that clicked against the concrete with every step. He wasn’t leaning on it, and while I find such pageantry rather obnoxious, on him it seemed natural, almost pleasant. I held his hand for a long while before I realized I was doing it. Normally I would have pulled my hand away, but it felt right to be holding on to him, so I just let it be.

            “So where are you from, Sam?”

            He smiled for a bit, “Around.”

            “Cryptic answer… interesting.”

            His hand was cold. I liked it, it was solid and comfortable clenched in mine. His smile was warm and inviting. He was pleasantness.

            I reflexive pushed at the nose of my glasses, and he paused in his stride. He looked at the wire frames on my face and gently snatched them away.

            “I can take care of this for you,” he said holding up the lenses.

            “Give me back my eyes!” I said trying to grab them away.

            I leapt into his chest and he smiled down at me. I scoffed at him, what gave him the right?

            “I can’t see, give them back.”

            “Can’t you?”

            I blinked at him. His face did seem clearer. I took a look at the world around me and realized that I could see everything perfectly well. It was better than when I had the glasses on, because I didn’t have to look through my own eyes.

            “Wow.”

            “Yeah, I’m that good,” he said as he wrapped his arm around my shoulders.

I felt like pulling away out of spite, but I gave up. I put my arm around his hip under his long black coat and we walk a little further. It was bizarre seeing the world this way. I hadn’t been without glasses since before elementary school. It was silly but I rested my head against his shoulder. It was the right thing to do, I could just feel it.

            I could have stayed there with him forever. He was a safe warm harbor in a painful and shifting sea. He was sunshine after a long, cold night. He was the rainbow after a storm. He was cliché worthy, and that was a beautiful thing.

            “You want to get out of here with me?” he asked.

            “Sure,” I said into his chest.

            He stopped and turned towards me. His arms wrapped around me.  I hooked mine up around his neck and rose up on my tippy toes to kiss him because it just felt so right.

            That was when I heard someone calling my name. I turned to look but couldn’t see anyone. Still someone was very insistently calling my name.

            Sam looked sadly towards the sound of the call, “What’s the matter.”

            “Someone’s calling for me,” I told him taking a step towards the sound trying to figure out where it was coming from. “I’m sure it’s nothing.”

            I looked back at Sam and he had his hands in his pockets. His shoulders had hunched and he had become very down cast.

            “I’m sure it will only take a minute. Will you wait for me?”

            “For eternity, my dear,” he smiled weakly.

            I smiled back at him before taking a few steps back towards the shouts. I stopped a moment and turned around. I ran back and kissed him.

            “So I can make sure you’ll still be here,” I said before jogging back towards the calling.

            I kept running trying to find the source of my summons, but it was hard, it would get louder and quieter at random. I took me forever to make it to the curb I had stepped off of earlier that very. There was an ambulance parked there now. An EMT was leaning over the body splayed out on the ground. A crowd of people were gathered around taking pictures with their phones. I leaned over the EMT and looked down at my own battered face. He was holding a stethoscope to my chest and listening very intently.

            “I’ve got a heartbeat, let’s get ready to roll.”

            That ambulance ride was the longest fifteen minutes of my life. I had to sit and watch the technician breath for me with that squeeze bag the entire way. It was a long wait outside the ER after that, then several days in ICU before I closed my eye on one side of the room and opened them in a hell of a lot of pain on the other side.

            It’s when the full force of getting hit head-on by a very large truck comes back to you that you realize how much you preferred being dead. I spent several weeks not able to move, than I gradually worked my way through just about every piece of medical equipment that they make.

            When I could finally walk again I went back to where I had left him. He wasn’t waiting there, and that made me terribly sad. I went to that spot every day until the day I graduated, but he was never there. I looked pitiful just standing in the middle of the sidewalk, but he promised to he would wait for me. After I graduated, I went back at least once a year hoping to find him. It became a pilgrimage that I took first with my husband, and then our kids.

            Years I returned to that place and watched the world change around it. Buildings were put up, buildings were knocked down. The streets moved. The Students got younger and younger, but I stayed the same. Soon it was just a stop when we were visiting the kids at school. Then I was alone for the longest time. Then very suddenly I got too old to take myself, so my children wheeled me out to sit for a few hours while they visited their kids at school.

            It was one of these times sitting in my wheel chair alone waiting for someone to come back for me that I saw him. I could see his face as he knelt down next to me. He hadn’t changed at all. His smile was still warm and inviting.

            “You did wait,” was the sound my shaky weak voice.

            “I promised you I would wait for eternity if I had to,” he told me as he took hold of my hand.

            He guided me up out of my chair. All the aching was gone, and my legs were strong and held my weight again. He took out a pair of glasses and set them on top of my head. I had forgotten he was holding them for me it had been so long since I needed them. He wrapped his arms around me and I hooked mine around his neck. I pulled myself up and he gave me the deep kiss he meant give back then.

Five Hundred

“I traded my soul to the devil for five hundred years added to the middle of my life,” she said quite seriously. She watched the horizon bob up and down in the distance. I looked at her with the same careful concentration that she gave to nothing. She was lost in the space of many centuries worth of memories searching through the faces and the days that left no real mark on so long a life.

“You trade your soul to the devil for five hundred years?” I repeated slowly, “Why?”

She looked at me, or rather in my direction, but her mind was still lost in recollection. “Because God wouldn’t give them to me, and the devil would.”

I shook my head trying to straighten out my thoughts, “yes, but why five hundred years, why not 100? Why not 1000? Why five hundred years? What did you need to do that would take so long?”

She began to hover just below the surface of her memories nearly touching the surface and returning to our current time. “I had to find what could be done with enough time. I had to find if it was merely time that limited one from having a full life. One hundred years is only one life time, and one thousand was more than the devil was willing to offer.”

I watched her face as she ran again the nearly endless memories contain within her mind. “And is it time that has limited you?”

She shook her head solemnly. She looked up at the stars, one of the few things that had remained constant in her extended life. “I never found what I was looking for. I searched so very hard, but I never found what I needed to find.”

“Surely you still have time? How many of your five hundred years have you used?”

She looked squarely at me, at last returning to our present, “Five hundred and ten this past August,” she smiled sorrowfully.

She didn’t look a day past thirty, yet so many years were clearly visible in her eyes. A depth of wisdom was there that could not be confused.

“I have lived long enough to learn every language, see every country, even the founding of most of them. I’ve lived long enough to see the march of progress crush the old world into the dust, see the modern world come and then be made obsolete. I have lived long enough to learn every instrument, and every song every written. I have seen and done everything a hundred times over. I have done all these things, and yet I still have not found what I have been searching for. In fact, I’ve been searching for so long I don’t think I can even remember what it might have been that I sought.”

The Goblin King's Bride

            Carrie stood over the crib staring down at the twist of empty blankets. That child was going to get such a tanning. How many times had she told that kid not to wish away her little brother? Tammy just didn’t understand the consequences of her actions. Carrie looked around the room, carefully searching the shadows and creeping darkness.

            “Show yourself,” she called. Only stillness answered at first. But then there were the quick darting disturbances that gave proof they were there.

Goblins.

Why was it always goblins?

“I demand audience with your king.”

The chorus of laughter was more than a little unsettling. She hated goblins, since their ferocity was so variable. Some species were mere pranksters and pests, some were truly terrifying. All of them were trouble, though.

“Show me Coren!”

The silence was deafening. She searched the room again, but the little twitches ceased their diversion. Goblins could not stand to hear their names. The underlings probably feared what would happen having heard their king’s name. She waited knowing he would come when summoned. It was the goblin way.

“You are cheeky aren’t you?” slithered the words right out of a stream of moonlight. His body seemed to materialize from the sound. First his shimmering spider silk hair, then two ruby red eyes, jaundice yellow skin, long lanky limbs and torso all wrapped in long purple velvet trappings. A crown of spires sat stark straight atop his head creating a level plain from which his face could pour forth. He was of course in no way malformed, and other then his obvious wrong complexion and strange slightness. It was also the way of the goblins to imitate human kind the best they could. For their royalty that meant years of cross breeding between the two races. Which was evident in Coren’s near attractiveness of face.

“How do you know my name, girl?”

“A friend told me,” she said since it was true enough, “Where is the child?”

“What concern is it of yours? You did not wish him away.”

He was stalling. It wasn’t going to work. Carrie was more powerful than he was, and she knew it.

“The girl has no part in this.”

“She was the one that wished me to take her brother away. I should be dealing with her.”

“Tammy is ten,” was all Carrie had to say about it.

He walked a circle around her, sizing her up. Apparently he wasn’t very impressed because he seemed quiet bored by the time he finished.

“I suppose you want to make some sort of bargain to get the child back.”

“Yes,” she curtly replied.

“I will only offer a deal to the girl… Tammy. It is her wish, she should have to deal with the consequences.”

There the cacophonous laughter leapt up again. He was being unreasonable. Here, Carrie was ready to play any game that he had to offer and he wasn’t going to bite. He stood next to her jutting out his chin.

“You can’t have her. Anything you want you’ll have to get from me.”

“I have what I want,” he said leaning toward her ear, “I have the baby.”

At that the laughter set to braying once more. He was serious about keeping the baby. All the rest was just cake. She was starting to run out of options. If he lost interest he would just go, and then she’d never get the kid back. Then a most revolting and ingenious thought occurred to her. It’s not like she really had anything to lose. No job, no close friends, other than Jamie who probably wouldn’t stay friends with her if she lost his baby, no close family to miss her.

“Why steal someone else’s baby when you could have one of your own?”

He looked into her eyes, which wasn’t too hard since he was just about her same height. Her seriousness must have been plain because he stepped back and gave her another look over.

“That’s not how this game is played,” he said pulling his palm over his chin.

“Well, then I’m changing the game.”

“You would really trade yourself, your very body for the child?”

“It was my responsibility to keep him safe. I would never be forgiven if I didn’t do everything possible to make that happen.”

He stepped forward and he suddenly seemed much taller, a full head even then he had been only a moment before. His fingers pulled gently though her hair. His yellowing diminished to a natural, yet pail shade and his eyes darkened to a solid black iris. He was a changeling. She looked up at him but he seemed lost in thought. As attractive as his strange goblin guise had been, he was ten times more so now. He had become lean and healthy with smooth chiseled features.

“You want to be saved from this ordinary life?” he whispered.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

“So be it.”

 

In a flash of purple fabric the pair disappeared into the moonlight leaving the room empty save for the kicking feet of Tammy’s little brother in his crib.

Second to the Devil

“What do you think?”

The Count set the glass on the table. He narrowed his eyes at cup like it had just insulted him. Josette watched as he pushed the shot away.

“I think you’re trying too hard.”

“You use to like it when I tried hard.”

His lip turned up slightly for a moment. It was the rare smile from the devil. The hundreds of years they had spent together it had only been seen maybe four times. She felt truly blessed. She pulled the shot towards her and finished it off. Waste not, want not her mother would have said. At least she was pretty sure someone’s mother probably said it, once, maybe.

“I thought you were quitting the hard stuff?” he said, giving her a scrutinizing eye.

She gave a slight sneer at the empty glass, “I thought you weren’t?”

Things hadn’t always been this way. There had been a time when they were gods or maybe monsters, or maybe both. Once there had been no need for such niceties as glasses, no use for the subtlety of human games, but that time was long ago.

“You’re clinging to the past, Josette.”

The past?

She could remember it to the beginning. The very first day still clung newly to her mind.

 

The year 1458 Josette was twenty-five years old...