This week, I'm participating in "February with a Twist" a project +Becket Moorby has organized through the +Flash Fiction Project on Google+. These pieces are supposed to feature a twist of some kind. Thanks for reading!
Image courtesy of Lisa Quinn2 on Flickr Creative Commons (attribution link)
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With Any Luck
She staged the scene so carefully. She wasn't very good at this really, but she wanted to try to make something nice, hoping for a bit of luck. One red rose lying on the table, champagne icing in the snowbank just outside the door, soft sultry music playing low enough that they'd be able to talk. Her dress wasn't new, but it still looked new and he'd never seen her wear it before. It was soft and feminine. It fit her well, emphasizing the smallness of her waist compared to the fullness of her hips. She felt pretty. It was about as perfect as she could afford.
If he had only come to the door with a paper heart-shaped box of chocolates and a smile, it might have ended differently. She didn't really think it would have been happily ever after, but it might have been a very nice evening. There could have been kisses and that happy breathless feeling and resistance overcome without too much struggle. He'd have gotten lucky. There could have been laughter over small buttons. Some good times to remember later, when things turned bad.
Of course, he'd arrived drunk and laughed at her not-really-champagne in its golden paper. Just her luck. He'd smelled of smoke and sweat and something greasy. His shirt was stained. The good looking ones were always so awful. He said she looked like a Sunday school teacher in her dress.
With any luck, when the ambulance arrived, she could sell the story of his sliding in a wet spot on the floor and hitting his head on the coffee table. With any luck, no one would notice that the dent in his head matched the bottom of the bottle she was drinking from now.
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