Leftovers

Prompted by Inspiration Monday, which I haven’t participated in for a while.

“Smoke?”

He barely acknowledged the white and red pack of smokes that appeared before his eyes. A simple grunt was answer enough. The metallic snick of the lighter drew him from his pensive thoughts long enough to stare at the woman taking up the other half of the cheap double mattress.

Gray smoke curled around her face as she released it from her over glossed lips. High cheeks and full lips, she’d a been a looker ten years ago before the streets swallowed her up. Cigarettes and tanning beds transformed what would’ve been a pretty woman into a weathered, leather-skinned, creased hag. Her heavily made up face couldn’t disguise the hardness in her blue eyes, and something told him her toughness ran deep. Seen too much, done too much, lived too much.

“Hard habit to break,” she rasped with a lazy wink.

Laughter bubbled up the back of his throat, but he choked it back down with a mouth full of smoke. It burned his lungs, coating his insides with tar as black as his thoughts. The yellow of her teeth as she flashed a smile roused something akin to disgust in him; not something he’d cared about last night, but in the light of day he directed it at himself.

She ran a red tipped nail down his stomach, raising a shudder from him. “You ready for another go, tiger?” The attempt at a seductive voice grated along his nerves.

The need to get out, get away and right the mess that was his life clawed at him. He felt caged by another bad decision. His shame a red lipped, leather faced prostitute with a three pack a day habit. Every problem manifested into this woman, this embodiment of everything wrong with his life right now.

If he was smart, he’d get out and fix things while he still could. His wife, his kids, his job…

“One more. I have enough cash.” The words came from a long distance, and he felt the sick curl of self-loathing that matched her red lipped smile of satisfaction perfectly.

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  1. rlherb

    Don’t you love stories of regret and bad decision? Regret is a deep well, with such appeal. We’ve all been there done that and regretted it in some level, what’s masterful in this piece is your point of view, you have the male voice perfect, including the ending. Good job. Good read.

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  2. Stephanie

    Artfully done! Hard-hitting without getting explicit. That he agreed despite being disgusted is so powerful. Sometimes it’s easier to keep digging the hole than to try to climb out.

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  3. elmowrites

    Interesting decision at the end; you don’t go the way the reader expects and that’s a welcome change for this reader! This is a very visceral piece, full of repulsive details, but if I might offer a concrit, the red lips are slightly overdone. Even if that’s free indirect style and we’re seeing the guy’s repulsion in the repetition, I’d suggest taking one or two references to them out. Just a thought though!

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