The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

My Perfect Lover 
by Marge Simon 

We met through a friend, and really hit it off. After just one date, we were having dinner at his place. He made quite a fuss about the wine being very special, a fruity bottle of Chateau Ste. Michelle Gewurztremainer. He had picked it partly because it had my name, but also because he said it was “light and sweet, like you, my dear.”

Of course, I’d thought that was so clever, everything about him was perfect in my eyes. Surely, he felt the same about me – well, almost. There were a few things he felt I should do, if I really wanted to please him. He was so gentle, so loving when he mentioned he would prefer I had red hair instead of “that shade of mud”, which meant dishwater blonde, I guess. So I died my hair bright red (he picked the shade himself). I hated it and broke out in a rash, an allergy to the dye. But anything to please him, anything.

The following weeks, he romanced me, wined and dined me until I thought it would never end. But came a call one afternoon. He wanted me to help move two big overstuffed chairs to the basement. He said he was tired of looking at them. I cheerfully helped cart them down the steps. The basement was cold and damp. “Are you sure you want to do this? It’s not a good place for the upholstery,” I began, but he cut me off, scowling. “You’re quite right, Michelle, but it’s a good place for you! You’re no longer light and sweet. You’ve been putting on the pounds. And I decided that shade of red doesn’t help your personality at all. With that, he ran back upstairs. Before closing and locking the door, he said “I’m off to Florida for a few weeks. Au revoir!”

I slumped into the biggest chair and cried. I should have known he couldn’t be a totally perfect lover. Maybe I’ll have shed those extra pounds by the time he returns. My head itched.

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Fiction © Copyright Marge Simon
Image courtesy of Pixabay.com 

More from Marge Simon:

Victims
by Marge Simon and‎ Mary Turzillo

The title of this collection sets you up for the surprise of lyrical stories of victimizations with unexpected endings for the villains. Be ready to have your heart opened and cheer for perceived victims, human (made and unmade) and other life forms, victorious in the hands of these two award-winning poets. —Linda D. Addison, award-winning author, HWA Lifetime Achievement Award recipient and SFPA Grand Master.

Across histories and cultures and from Auschwitz to Babylon this book leaves you questioning who are the victims, and regardless of your conclusion you’re likely to get throat-punched. This is horror where everyone has a knife, and is ready to deliver this message: “Remember, you are always guilty. —Herb Kauderer, author of Fragments from the Book of the After-Dead.

Simon and Turzillo have only gone and startled me again. What a collection! Brutal. Beautiful. This quiver of poems strikes with the unflinching truth of persecution and oppression as seen through the lens of feminism. Prepare to come away bruised and yet strangely bolstered by Victims, a symphony of sadness orchestrated by two masters of dark poetry. —Lee Murray, Bram Stoker and Shirley Jackson Award-winner.

This is one of the braver dark poetry collections I’ve seen in a while. Horror poets generally employ victims in their work, but the focus is generally on the Evil. Turning the camera the other way is unusual, unsettling, emotionally risky, and surprisingly effective. From their stark opening take on Pygmalion, to the ending poem about the wasted life of Stateira of Persia, this powerful collection teases apart an impressive number of the threads of victimhood. Some are the usual cases, but quite a few are surprises, or reversals, or cases with unexpected layers. There is nothing repetitive about this collection. —Timons Esaias, winner of the Asimov’s Readers’ Award and the Winter Anthology Contest

Available on Amazon!