Old Flame - 3WW - Jolt, Ribbon, Zeal

I stared at her for a dozen quickening heartbeats after I had opened the door. She was dressed as if fresh from a job interview, her dark clothes blending into the night, but the time of day, not least, made that impossible. The faint light spilling from the muted television in the room behind me was just enough to illuminate her face. I wanted to cry.

"Aren't you going to ask me in?" she asked. It was all I needed to jolt my brain back into gear.

I stammered something, then tried again. "Come in!" She brushed past me, filled my head with her scent. I felt dizzy. After several seconds I closed the door and turned. I jumped. She was standing facing me, her face level with my chest, smiling broadly.

"Boo," she said. Laughing, she went to the couch and sat down, sitting on her side of the seat, just as she always had done.

I flopped into the couch, backed up to the opposite end. "Your father said I'd never see you again." I could remember his every word spat into my face with the zeal of a hellfire preacher, so wrapped up in his hatred that he had forgotten how to be compassionate.

"He never liked you," she said.

Her eyes widened momentarily and she bowed her head. A viscous ribbon of dark yellow vomit trailed from her mouth. She grabbed a cushion from the pile she was leaning on and dropped it onto the mess, then wiped her sleeve across her face. She smiled awkwardly, embarrassed, but when her smile faded I noticed how long it took lethargic skin to fall back into place. I reached out my hands to touch her cheeks but she took my wrists in an icy grip and placed them in her lap. My glance was drawn to the cushion covering the vomit and I saw that worms and tiny, black beetles were already spilling out in exploration.

"Kiss me," she whispered hoarsely.

I looked to her eyes, ignoring the flecks of sick that stained her lips, the grey pallor of her skin and the warmth draining from me into her glacial hands. Her eyes were still as bright and lively as they had ever been and I wondered if I could ignore the rest and fall in love anew with those gorgeous eyes. As her grip tightened painfully on my wrists, I also wondered, oh how I wondered, if it would be my decision to make.

Urban Picnic - 3WW - Drain, Epic, Nibble

Rupert pricked the flesh with his twin-pronged fork and delicately, slowly, carved a waver thin slice away. He raised it over his head, dangling the meat above his lips before sensuously lowering it into his mouth. He loosed a low, contented moan as he chewed, savouring the mastication.

"What's it taste like?" old Tom asked, fingering the strap about his knee.

Rupert cut circles in the air with the tip of his knife, seeking inspiration. "Gamey, like grouse that's been hung just a little too long. Do you want some? Perhaps, just a nibble?"

"No ta, mate!" old Tom exclaimed. "Not my cup of tea, so to speak, chief. What's you fellows again? Epic something?"

"The Chelsea Squires Epicurean Society, Thomas, but if I tell you one more time I'll assume you're showing far too much interest. We wouldn't want that, would we?"

"Just making conversation," Tom muttered.

Rupert carved off another slice. "No discomfort? No pain?"

Tom shook his head. "Haven't felt nothing there for months."

Rupert nodded in sympathy. "I've felt very little of anything for decades."

"So, why ain't you off some place posh eating little birds stuffed inside bigger birds and so on?" Thomas asked.

"Ah, the recession, Thomas. The damned recession. Ill-gotten gains drain away like the pus from a tramp's leg."

"Sorry about that," Thomas said. He cast a yellowed eye over the line of potential diners stretched out of the room, into the corridor and beyond, each with his cutlery in hand. There was good money to be made. He reached out to pinch the meaty part of his other calf between grimy fingers, but winced with pain. Too bad.