The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

Violet 
by Elaine Pascale

I say my name is violet, like the flower.

I say I am fifteen; I play the flute.

He says he likes my braces. He tells me I look younger.

“Late bloomer,” I reply, enjoying the extended metaphor.

He can’t see the real me behind the words on the screen. He can’t see the real me as he wants so much for this fantasy to be true.

He asks for pics. He says I am probably “fresh as a daisy.” I can hear him salivating as he types. That is not a lie. I am that close, only he does not know it.

“Violet,” I correct. If he could see me, his lust would dry up and he would die of fright.

He tells me he knows me; he says he goes to my school, and he watches me in the hallway. He is trying to sow seeds of curiosity. The generation he believes I belong to loves this type of game. He has not been a student in grade school in at least twenty years.

“Maybe we could hang out,” I say. He doesn’t know that he was messaging me a week ago. I had used the name Rose then. We had exchanged many of the same banal flower-inspired quips. He targets so many “girls” that he has to reuse the same material. He had told me I could come over (with the ruse that his “parents were away”). I confirmed that he was inviting me into his home, and he replied, “yeah.”

That was all I needed.

I didn’t want him last week. Tonight, I do. “I am kind of lonely,” I say, hoping that takes root.

I am dishonest like he is. I am 40 times the age I claim. I don’t want to talk to him or watch movies. I want to bathe in his blood.

I can smell his arousal shifting. I can see over his shoulder that he has opened another browser to chat with someone else. He believes he is the predator in this relationship.

I nip this in the bud. I am tired of waiting. I emerge from the shadows to take what I crave.

.

Fiction © Copyright Elaine Pascale
Image courtesy of Pixaby.com

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