The Ladies of Horror
Picture-Prompt Writing Challenge!

The Mirror of Men
by Donna J. W. Munro

“Come on, Laurel,” He said, cheeks red and his eyes swimming but full of interest.

I’d worn the red dress to catch his eye, sure. I tipped my head shyly but smiled into my compact mirror knowing exactly how this was going to go.

“I don’t know.” I edged closer so his arms might entwine me. What I imagined, what I hoped for seemed so close. “Do we really have to go to another bar? There’s always your place.”

He smirked the universal signal to his primate friends that he’d won. I leaned into the drape of his arm as he said his good-byes and good lucks to his friends. We wove through the Friday night crowd of co-eds and young professionals trying to remind themselves of life before the 9-to-5.

“I’ll call an Uber,” I said, texting Julia, my bestie who’d have her own turn next Friday.

While we waited, I let him give me sloppy kisses while My hands ran across his hot, sweaty skin.

“Hey, get a room!”

He roared something back at the less wasted, less ensnared young man with his own lady attached to his arm.

I nodded to her. Professional courtesy after all.

“Ignore them,” I said as Julia pulled up in her latest chariot, a four-door Toyota just big enough for a little heavy petting in the small backseat. “What’s your address?”

“20 Washington Ave.” His hand was on my thigh and his breathy words muffled against my neck.

Julia heard and turned into the directions, her eyes catching mine through the rearview. My bestie couldn’t really be hungry. Not yet. She’d had her turn last Saturday, but that didn’t mean she didn’t appreciate the looks of a snack like he was.

When they pulled up to his apartment building, he fumbled with his wallet but I smiled and pushed his hand away.

“I’ve got this, hon.”

Julia smiled as I pulled him to his feet, all 6 ft four, 220 pounds of him. Getting him upstairs without waking the whole building took much of my muscle. As strong as I was, he was loud and stumbly. I hoped his neighbors were used to him moaning and groaning.

“This one’s me.” He fumbled with his pocket for keys.

Inside was a matchstick existence: expensive gaming chair and crappy dining table, fridge full of beer and old lunchmeat, bathroom so splattered with urine it was more a litter box, and bed with thin sheets, unwashed as long as he’d been living on his own. The thought of all the women who’d come before me staining the cotton threads with their essence thrilled me, even as he fell across the bed.

“Dance for me, baby,” he mumbles, fingers tangling in his belt and buckle.

“Soon, babe,” I said, pulling ropes from my Hermes bag. It doesn’t take long truss up a drunk pig when they think that it’s part of foreplay. He giggled with the tying of each knot until he was spread eagled on the bed, only his boxers between him and the world.

He grinned though I knew it wouldn’t last. Guys like him have never been out of control. They expect their muscles, their beauty, their maleness to keep them out of trouble and usually, it works.

“Don’t leave me hanging.” His voice was less bleary, more lusty. Good. I preferred my men aware even if it meant they were louder.

How did these beings come to dominate the world? I snickered as I thought about all they’d done and not done. I didn’t feel like I owed him my “men are really from Mars and women are an entirely different species” speech. He wouldn’t believe it anyway. Not with so much history to reinforce his belief that we, women that is, were made for his consumption and not vice versa.

I did owe him something though, didn’t I?

“There’s a spark in us,” I told him as I unbuttoned my top. “Most women are told that something shameful burns in us.”

Once my buttons were loosed, I let the shirt fall away and started in on the bra underneath.

“Yeah baby. Shameful,” he growled, eyes full of my skin.

When the bra dropped away, I began to tug at my seams. The seal was tricky, but it began to soften as I circled him.

“We aren’t of you. We are your natural mirror, even if you’ve forgotten.”

Clearly, it didn’t matter what I was saying because he liked the look of my bare breasts more than the meaning of my explanation. Too bad. There was something so satisfying about the apex predator realizing that he’s the prey. He was swimming in his own lust, frustrated by the wait to take the prize he’d wanted so desperately. When my false breast vest fell open at the seam revealing the surgical weaponry I’d stowed within, something in him cracked. He laughed.

“What the hell?”

Poor dumb animal. How could they know? Every time we stared in a mirror we shared information with our entire sex. Every single time one of us achieved the true burn, releasing from the shackles of Eve, we were there to arm, train, and celebrate our sister in her liberation. Our advanced empathetic weaponry paired with our innate ability to camouflage our dominance serve us well.

Why wouldn’t we eat the lesser predator?

The knifes glinted in my vest brightly, winking at him as he finally understood. He screamed as I pulled out the bone saw.

###

The red dress hid the stains of my work when Julia came to get me and my bags of groceries.

“Saved you some.” I handed her a piece of his liver I’d fried to hold me over.

“Yum,” she said, popping it in her mouth and turning the car back toward home. She smiled at me through a glance in the mirror. I smiled back. We all smiled.

More from author Donna J. W. Munro:

Revelation: Poppet Cycle Book One

In a dark future, people with money live in doomed cities and use the recently deceased as
repurposed servants and workers called poppets. Ellie DesLoge is the teen heiress of the
company that makes and distributes poppets–your basic reprogrammed flesh robot complete
with training chips and kill switches. If Ellie does everything her Aunt Cordelia says, she’ll have a
life of wealth and power. If she chooses to be what is planned for her, life will be perfect.
Everything she ever dreamed. But something about her sweet poppet Thom goes against what
Aunt Cordelia and tradition have taught her. Will she choose to believe what everyone knows is
true or will she follow what her heart tells her about Thom? Her choice will change the world.

Available on Amazon!