Ink Stains, Volume I
Page 1
About Ink Stains
Death. A permanent end. Termination of life.
Some embrace death as if reuniting with a long-missing old friend. Others fear it, try to outwit it, hide from it. And then there are those who are fascinated by it, mesmerized by it, chasing it down, taunting it, challenging it.
In Ink Stains, Volume 1, eight authors explore death in all its facets in a collection of short stories that range from fantastical to gritty to supernaturally creepy. Join them in a journey through the darker side of fiction.
Ink Stains, Volume 1 features stories by Michelle K. Bujnowski , Eddie Cantrell, John S. McFarland, Steph Minns, A. O’Neal Tamela J. Ritter, Aaron Vlek, and J. S. Watts.
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Licensing
The stories in this anthology are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. This book, and parts thereof, may not be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without express written permission. For information, email info@vagabondagepress.com.
Ink Stains Anthology
Volume 1
© 2016 by Dark Alley Press
Individual stories copyright by authors
“A Grave Tale” @ Eddie Cantrell
“Eden” @ A. O’Neal
“Phoenix” @ J. S. Watts
“Pretty Little Ironies” @ Tamela J. Ritter
“The Art of Living” @ Michelle K. Bujnowski
“The Red Shawl” @ Steph Minns
“The Dark Walk” @ John McFarland
“Twice Per Annum” @ Aaron Vlek
Dark Alley Press
https://www.darkalleypress.com
An imprint of Vagabondage Press LLC
PO Box 3563
Apollo Beach, Florida 33572
https://www.vagabondagepress.com
First edition printed in the United States of America and the United Kingdom, March 2016
Front cover art by Black Blood. Cover designed by Maggie Ward.
Ink Stains
A Dark Fiction literary anthology
Volume 1
Edited by
N. Apythia Morges
Dark Alley Press
Table of Contents
“Pretty Little Ironies” by Tamela J. Ritter
“A Grave Tale” by Eddie Cantrell
“The Red Shawl” by Steph Minns
“Phoenix” by J.S. Watts
“Art of the Living” by Michelle K. Bujnowski
“Twice Per Annum” by Aaron Vlek
“The Dark Walk Forward” by John S. McFarland
“Eden” by A. O’Neal
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Pretty Little Ironies
Tamela J. Ritter
She likes pretty things. He knows this. Knows it as well as he knows there is nothing about him that is pretty. Pretty isn’t really a requirement he’s ever needed. Pickled Punk’s Menagerie of Oddities didn’t have much use for dainty or for precious in their performers. This is why she stands out as unique. She is seven feet of silks, satins, and things he can’t name that make her sparkle and shimmer. He is rough, calloused, and has entirely too much hair. He knows this too. Yet, his want for her makes him yearn for things he thought he’d never have. Most of these yearnings are for companionship, someone who understands him, who has similar experiences with the horror that is most of the human race.
There is another yearning though. To be touched by hands that have force enough to permeate past the matted fur, the top layer of tough, thick skin, to touch someone who would appreciate his roughened fingers. Someone he doesn’t have to worry about breaking with the force of his need.
They take walks together, and she lets him loop his arm through hers. They share meals, and she listens with big sad eyes to his stories of cruelty and isolation. Later, when he walks her back to her tent, she allows him to kiss her good night. All the while, he waits.
After months of this leisurely courtship, she invites him to dinner in her personal space. No one has ever invited him into her home before. He breaks twelve combs preparing for the evening. She said she wanted to show him something. Something she’s never shared before. He thinks this is his chance to share something of his own.
Dinner is rather a glamorous affair with candles and big, bold flowers, and she is nervous in her taffeta and pearls, her eyes mixed with anxiety and need as she giggles loudly at everything. He watches her flick her gaze to the back room from time to time, and that, along with the heady scents of meat cooking and the cut flowers dying, makes his palms sweat and his heart beat irregularly.
They are dancing after dinner. He marvels at the size of her space, that the two of them, both monsters, could sway back and forth without tearing the fabric walls down around them. His hand flat against the small of her back, he pulls her close to him, resting his head on her chest, feeling the fleshy softness and the beat of her rapidly pulsing heart. He marvels at her size all over again, that he found someone who towers over him—he’d never met anyone larger than him—and yet still smells sweet and is kind about his clumsy attempts at suaveness. He slides his hand up her back in between her shoulder blades, where he circles and massages in rough swipes that cause her breath to hitch. He wonders if it’s been hard for her too, finding someone who can satisfy her giant wants and needs. He knows he can, as he moves his lips to whisper nonsense up her chest, her neck, and, finally, her ear.
She pulls back and looks scandalized, and he knows he has said too much. He has laid his desire bare, and she is horrified by it. But then, she takes his hand, pulls him gently to the back of the tent to the place where the hanging fabric walls meet, looking at him through her eyelashes, a blush faint on her cheeks. She tells him she has never trusted anyone with what she wants to show him. He swallows, nods, and follows, matching her shuffle, fighting the urge to tackle her through the door and ravish her. Before she opens it, she looks at him again, and he sees her silent plea: Understand me! Accept me! Love me! His heart expands painfully against his rib cage. Not forgetting that she is also a victim of cruelty, someone who has developed her rough edges to avoid pain, he sees that the look also says: Or I will crush you with my thighs as I scoop your heart out of your chest and eat it, while you watch! He doesn’t know which part entices him more.
He stops when he sees the hazy dream of a room. His jaw drops, and his eyes flit around trying to find one thing that feels solid and familiar. It is a fruitless search. He has walked into a cloud of pouf and pastels, and he feels as if he’s soiling it with his mere presence. She turns to smile at him, and he swallows his uneasiness and allows her to pull him further in. And then she’s opening a door to a large wardrobe, and he’s overcome all over again. Inside are row after perfect row of lifeless eyes, candied lips and rosy cheeks. There are girls in lace and silks, hair in curls and ribbons; boys in velvet knee pants, buckle shoes, ruffled shirts. The dolls are perfect and well cared for, and his whole body shivers with confused arousal and revulsion.
She is talking, but he doesn’t hear what she says as she takes his hand and pulls him closer. The faces on the dolls are too lifelike; he can see in them the boys and girls who point and laugh, who scream, cry, and run from him on the midway when he dares to venture out. He finds himself holding his breath waiting to hear theirs. She reaches out and touches one of the girls, and then she is holding it and bringing it to him, and she’s nervous and shy, but he sees something in her eyes that is both anxious and wanton. She brings the dol
l, past him to the mirrored table in the corner of the room. His nose is assaulted by rose and lavender and something that makes his hair curl. She sits the doll at the vanity and begins taking the bobby pins out of the doll’s hair.
He doesn’t know what possesses him to do it, but he goes up behind her and begins taking the bobby pins out of her hair, and she sighs, leaning into him.
“My perfect porcelain doll,” he calls her, and she reaches for his hand, still at her hair, and brings it to her lips. She kisses his rough, meaty palm delicately; he moans. Then she takes each finger and kisses it wet and loud before taking his thumb, wetting it with her tongue, taking it in her mouth and sucking.
So overcome, he clutches her and tries to pull her to him. She holds her own and protectively wraps her hand around the doll before her. She tells him he must be careful and that the one thing dolls teach is that being delicate and precise is its own reward. If he were delicate with her and the things she loved, he too would be rewarded, she says. With a blush, he nods and swallows. Waiting.
Then she sits down and pulls out a large brush, which she hands to him, and a smaller brush that she begins to run through the doll’s hair. Watching the care she takes, he mimics her, and her contented sigh tells him she likes it. After a while, he pulls out a chair to sit behind her, putting her long hair in one hand and bringing the brush through it over and over until the hair shines. Just when he starts to wonder where his prize is, he feels her slowly moving back and readjusting herself in between his legs. All the time, she continues to care for the doll, and he continues to primp her and massage her scalp as she gets closer. He knows this pleases her because she moans and leans into him further.
Finally she puts down her toy. She is sitting on his lap now, arm around him, but still looking at the doll. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands anymore, so he wraps one around her waist and nervously places the other on her thigh, waiting to be slapped away. She doesn’t even seem to notice.
“Isn’t she beautiful?” she asks.
He looks at the woman on his lap, the doll all but forgotten. “The most beautiful,” he whispers.