Stories

“I’m glad you’re broken too.” The murmured words linger in her ears just like the sticky sweat covering both their bodies, its wet horny smell slowly fading into a memory of itself as the little room’s littler AC unit struggled to catch up with the heat. The room smells like sex, like her body and theirs, like all the gasps and touches and shuddering moments of release they’d filled each other with all through the movie murmuring its background noise from her laptop’s little speakers and long past its end— ...

Ever since the prince’s new tutor arrived at the castle, everything has been just humming along. It’s really almost uncanny! It’s like someone’s filled off all the edges that used to cause so much friction; the chefs haven’t bitten anyone’s head off, let alone snapped at them, and the scullery maids have grown so quiet and efficient that you almost wouldn’t know they’re there. The footmen move in well-rehearsed motions, the horses kneel down to be mounted …

a response to this prompt. It’s not quite your first day, but she makes it feel like it is. Everywhere you go in the tiny, crowded kitchen you can feel her eyes on you, the heat radiating from her bulk as she slides in next to you (or behind you, with the weight of her arms reaching around your too-slender body) to correct some perceived flaw in what you know is exactly what you were told to do just a few days before. ...

a response to this prompt She first met them in the summer, when their strong arms and broad thighs and sturdy chest were covered with a thick coat of fresh growth—a dozen shades of vibrant green sprouting from the rough bark of their skin, little rivulets of life like spreading moss sheltered beneath delicate leaves and the thorny flowers that adorned their head. They were everywhere, then, always waiting for her to venture out into the forested hills so close behind her home; up and up along the merest hints of hiking paths and deer trails winding between the last traces of decaying industry, up into the fresh-born wilderness blossoming with life— ...

“Just try your best, okay dear? It’s fine if it takes a few tries.” Abigail’s eyes jump between the cleaver Cloth Mother has just wrapped her fingers around and the too-small body spread out on the table. Outside the pool of light, Wire Mother grins and blows smoke into the air. “Don’t waste time, dear.” Wire Mother draws the word out, makes it into an insult as it hisses between its glass-shard teeth. “It needs to die.” ...

Drip. Drip. Drip. There’s been something wrong with the showerhead all week, the valve not quite sealing no matter how tight you turn the knob. Not a big issue, not really, the landlord pays for the water, but … It just keeps on dripping. And dripping. Drip. Drops falling down to splatter on the tile floor, little bursts of watery noise echoing out through the closed door, falling and hitting and falling and hitting and— ...

“Be a dear and fetch my dancing body, will you? I feel like going out tonight.” Cam doesn’t bother to reply to his nameless mxtress, not with his mainspring as deteriorated as it is; he just opens the closet and carefully pulls out the shell they want. Each shell is different, dozens of bodies for every purpose they might possibly need: bodies for strength and speed and stealth, bodies for all the quiet arts of the courtroom and boudoir, bodies they haven’t worn in years and bodies worn thin from overuse. ...

The Witch of Forgotten Sounds (such an unwieldy title! She preferred to go by “Terri, with an i”) woke to find a doll in her bed. An everyday occurrence for many witches, of course, but Terri made a point of not keeping dolls (“they’re always so busy, I can’t stand it!”). She didn’t scream. Witches are made of better stuff than that. Instead she carefully untangled the doll’s limbs from her own, slipped out of bed, and stepped into her screaming room (a converted closet) to scream herself hoarse. ...

Precious little witch-to-be, caught in a trap— Cold iron teeth cling to her ankle, slowly warming in her blood’s heat; she doesn’t have the strength to move, can’t drag herself across the smiling tiles. The door’s right there: those few feet might as well be miles. She can’t think how this happened. Just moments ago she was out on the street, wandering through autumn’s dripping red and yellow, just enjoying the season. Cold, crisp air filling her lungs and the warmth of her oversized caterpillar of a familiar around her neck. ...

(This story is also featured in my collection Joyous/Decay) For the last few months she’s asked you the same question every week. “Are you sure you don’t want it to be a tattoo instead? Something permanent?” Each time you answer more or less the same way. You’re sure, you really are; she doesn’t need to ask. You’d tell her if … You’d tell her. But you won’t need to. You’re more sure of that than you’ve been of anything except the need which first led you to her, back in those dreary days you can hardly remember now; back before you were really a person, just an empty shell pretending. ...