I signed up for the Indie Ink writing challenge. It’s been a long time! So, my challenge came from Snippets and Scraps. I was told to write about a fatal attraction to something that isn’t human. I had this story started in my archives and thought I should dust it off and snazz it up a bit…
Also, check out the challenge I issued to Whiteboard Philosophy which was to write about the first time you ever felt dispensable.
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Muffled noises and drunk laughter coming from her mothers tiny room woke Ellis, much like they always did. She wasn’t a heavy sleeper to begin with, so even the slightest of noises have a tendency to rouse her. Glowing orange, the digital clock above the oven let her know it was 3:14 am. She grabbed her pack of Parliment Lights and her lucky Betty Boop Zippo that were lying on the tattered armrest of the shabby garage sale couch that doubled as her bed and walked toward the front door.
Wrapping herself in a ratty, oversized sweatshirt, she propped herself on the railing of what masqueraded as a front porch and lit her cigarette. Ellis was sure that the noises her mom was making, which, inside the trailer were barely softened by the tiny bit of insulation, were surely reverberating throughout the Pink Flamingo Trailer Park, home of drag queens, hookers, lost souls and a combination thereof. Some of them, somehow, were raising kids here, too.
Ellis was one of them. An innocent by-product of a life gone wrong, like the rest of the kids that lived in a trailer park. She was, according to the rich kids at the high school she had just graduated from, no better than the woman who birthed her. God knows if her father was even better, she’d never met him and she’d be willing to bet that her mother only knew him for an hour and fifty dollars.
She sucked the smoke in deeply and held the cigarette at attention for the next drag. Briefly she thought of giving up this nasty habit but what would trailer trash be without chain smoking? If she was going to be it, she might as well do it right.
The sex noises coming from her mothers room were deafening to Ellis, even in the dark quietness of the surroundings. “Mom, shut your freaking window.” she yelled through the open screen, which was by her perch.
“Wha? Shut the fuck up and go back to bed you worthless sack of shit. I’ve told you not to bother me while I’m working.” shouted her mom who immediately went back to making her animal sounds.
“Ugh, looks who is calling WHOM worthless.”
Ellis knew she had to get out of this dump. Somehow. Trapped here in this hell with her mom and thrown into a school of mostly wealthy kids, she felt lost and out of her element. School was never her thing, neither was being the daughter of a whore. She lived with a constant sense of unfulfilled desperation.
Writing her songs and singing. That was her life. Her calling, her obsession. She knew she was destined for greatness, but then again, didn’t everyone think that of themselves? What she wouldn’t give to get there. She’d sell her soul, without second thought in order to live the rock star life she knew she was meant to have. And to be able to get the hell out of this vile place she had lived for so long in.
“If there was a devil, I’d give you a giant trade. I’d whore my soul to get my star.” quietly, the words escaped, hung in the air and flew off into the night.
The trailer got quite, obviously the deed was done and the guy would throw some wadded up money at her mom and vacate shortly and then Ellis would be able to crawl back under the covers of her bumpy hideaway bed. Ellis wondered, for a moment, who the flavor of the hour was that her mother was doing. Probably the manager of the park, he’d been coming around a lot lately, even leering at her and making crude comments. Ellis made him very aware that she was nothing like her mother. NOTHING like her.
Ellis stubbed out the bit of cigarette that was left and flicked it toward the street lamp where it hit with a soft twang and lay smoldering in the grass. The smoke curling into the thick air gave off an eerie appearance. Ellis stared at it for a moment, watching the the smoke taper off to wisps, to make sure she hadn’t started a fire; although nothing could destroy this trailer park except a tornado. In the haze, she saw the shadowy figure of a large, obviously well built man walking toward her trailer.
“Probably another paying customer;” Ellis harumphed. Mom was a busy little worker bee, apparently. She needed the money for rent and bar bills. This dude better get out before the next one went in. Literally.
Ellis yawned and decided to light another cigarette before going back into the hell-hole house of ill-repute. Man, how did she get such an unlucky lot in life, she wondered, trying to get the Zippo to catch.
“Damn!” she cursed out loud and shook the lighter in frustration.
“That stuff will kill ya anyways.” A deep male voice announced. Without looking up, she assumed the sexy voice belonged to the shadowy figure she had noticed.
“If you’re here for my mom, she’ll be with you soon. She’s just, um, finishing up some work stuff.” She rolled her eyes in the darkness.
“For your mom? No, I’m here because you called me.”
Ellis looked up from inspecting her unlit cigarette and gave the stranger a hard stare.
“Called you? I don’t even know who you are!”
Ellis looked him up and down with a sneer. She couldn’t help but notice how incredibly beautiful he was. Thick black hair, light eyes, large frame. He looked like an action hero movie star, what was he doing in a trailer park in the midwest? All she knew was suddenly her mind filled with lascivious acts and, despite the cool air, she felt warm.
“Yes Ellis, you called me. Ah, you don’t recall. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Luc and I’m here to discuss a little deal you wanted to strike with me.”
The Devil?
All Ellis could do was open and close her mouth. Oh, and gape. First of all, she did not expect that the Devil would be so freaking gorgeous and second, she did not expect the Devil, at all.
Luc gave Ellis a charming smile that indicated to her that he, most likely, could read her mind and was enjoying doing so.
“So Ellis, what do you have in mind?”
This man-demon who emanated all the hotness in hell looked at her with a cocked brow, waiting on her answer, a half smile playing at the side of his full-lipped mouth. Desire swept over her and she tried to shrug it off.
Ellis met his gaze, masked by the haze of the early morning.
She wanted to do more than sell her soul to this guy.
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Zach shivered gently as he Googled his name, hardness growing inside his pants. He didn’t need to do drugs, this was his high. Seeing his name on pages and pages of every search engine caused a type of narcissistic euphoria, the likes of which he had never known. His release was immediate and explosive.
He wasn’t an A-lister, he was THE A-lister. The one to watch, the one to follow. He was beating out big, established names for lead role in blockbuster films. Zach was hotter than the hottest in Hollywood. Epic acting abilities with looks to match. No one could touch him, they were too busy choking on his dust.
He had no idea how he got here. The propelling was meteoric. One minute he was in the locker room of a high school gym in Iowa, about to get the shit beaten out of him for losing what would have been the winning touchdown and then, the next thing he knew, he was here.
Hollywood.
The only thing before his almost shit-kicking he really remembered was the man. The way he had just shown up like a genie from a bottle. Only, he had made a wish in his mind into the night sky and this man appeared from the fog and promised to make his wish come true. With a small price.
And he did.
But he owned him now. Not in a financial way, the money he made was all his. The man owned him, his soul. It was fine though, as long as Zach did the occasional deed that the man cursed him with, Zach was free to live his incredible life. Zach didn’t find it to be such a curse though.
Googling his name was, not only his turn on, it was the way he found his “sacrifice”. Girls loved him, they wrote about him all over the internet. Blog posts, Facebook posts, Twitter, you name it. They were wet for him.
He met the first ones on Twitter. You could almost hear them shrieking when he responded to their tweets, which turned into DM’s and then phone calls and then, them.
They gave themselves so willingly. They fed the beast that grew within him making it larger and stronger. It was an insatiable hunger. He needed their juices, their sex. And finally, their souls. He swallowed them the way they swallowed him. But he lived to talk about it. Only, he kept quiet. Another secret that Google wouldn’t never find out.
Somehow, no one ever suspected Zach as the number one reason all these girls, all over the world, were going missing. The earth seemed to cover up all clues. Searches for the missing girls led to dead ends. Zach briefly considered setting up a non-profit to help locate the missing women but he wondered if that would be a slip.
Zach poured through Google, looking for something different this time. He needed something different. Someone who was going to be more difficult, a challenge. The others were always so sweet, so delicious yet so easy.
Many of the listings he had seen already but new ones popped up daily on search engines. So many sad, desperate women, he thought. All of them tossing some sort of virtual plea to be noticed, out there into the world wide web. “Well ladies, I’m listening.”
“Ah,” he said aloud,”This one. She’s different.” He was looking at an article that compared the out of nowhere rise of the country singing phenomenon, Ellis to his fast ball rise to fame.
“Oh yeah. We’d be a GREAT pair. The paparazzi would eat us up.” He grinned, the stirring beginning again in his groin. “Her, it’s her.” He could feel the beast moving excitedly inside of him in anticipation.
He found her on Twitter and followed her, sending her a public message saying @Ellis_country hey you. congrats on the fame. -Zach
She responded almost immediately with a return follow and tweet. Soon dialogue was flowing, 140 characters at a time. Both public and private.
He was a tad bit disappointed, she seemed as easy as the rest of them. Only, more famous.
After a few weeks of Twitter stalking and texting, Zach told Ellis that he must meet her. She, of course, agreed. He knew, without a doubt, she wanted him as badly as all the other women. He hoped that she would fight harder though.
Since both of them were in L.A, the decided to meet at Venice Beach, walk around and have a slice of pizza and a beer by the ocean. He was actually looking more forward to this meeting than any of the others. Could it be that he actually liked her? He enjoyed their conversations, she was smart and funny on the phone and online, qualities that attracted him to people. He hoped that real life wouldn’t make her giggly and shy, which so often happened.
Meeting time, he was slightly nervous and he didn’t understand why. He kept glancing at his watch and checking for a tweet from her on his iPhone. She had mentioned that she was running late due to traffic but she should be close to on time.
Fricking traffic, that was one major downfall of L.A. And the smog.
Why was he so nervous? He could feel the beast, lurching, restless within him, which made him even more on edge.
He saw her before she noticed him. Her black hair flowing like a cape behind her, she was a vision. Her pretty made his handsome humble. She finally noticed him and lifted her hand in greeting. He smiled and nodded in acknowledgement.
“Hi!” She was gorgeous, he couldn’t take his eyes off her. “Sorry so late. God, I hate the traffic here! I’d move back to the country if I didn’t HAVE to be here.”
“Ugh, I know. It sucks hard.” and so was he, so hard. Thankfully he chose loose fitting linen slacks and paired it with a shirt that remained untucked for the whole comfy, casual, expensive look that he was known for.
They eyed each other for a moment, “I was thinking, there’s this little place down the strip here that has the best. Pizza. Ever. If you like the Bar-B-Q Chicken Pizza type.”
“Love it!” her smile reached her blue, dancing eyes.
He led her to the place and ordered for the both of them. Conversation was flowing and easy.
She was different. He would have to keep the beast at bay. Find another way, after the date, to take care of it. A hooker probably, there were so many of those to be found on the streets of Hollywood.
They found a quiet bench where they planted themselves. Hungrily eating, drinking and talking, the hours passed quickly.
Midnight.
They laughed, neither could believe how long they had been sitting there.
“This night has been one of the best I can remember. In a long time.” Sincerity, an unusual tone for him, came as a masked surprise.
“Yeah, me too. The guys I’ve been meeting…” She looked off toward the ocean, where a thick mist was rolling in.
The mist…looked familiar. Thick, ominous. They both noticed it, both had seen it before.
A familiar form crept toward them, seen only by the two potential lovers.
It was him, the man.
Everything made sense now. The extreme gravitational pull he had felt toward her. The way her star shone as bright as his.
She was the same as Zach?
They were both one his?
They stared at each other, wordlessly.
The man approached, blowing his cigarette smoke at them and gave them a devilish smile.
Another great one. I need to know what happens next.
Jennifer´s last blog post ..Share Your Awesome
Great story. I really enjoyed the juxtaposition between the two main characters and how they found their fame.
I loved this line: Her pretty made his handsome humble
Carrie´s last blog post ..Indie Ink: Office Queen
Imaginative work. Very well done.
Kurt´s last blog post ..If I Had Any Further to Fall.
You tell the best stories!
Tara R.´s last blog post ..A bushel of apples