three sentence story

Four Star Blues

Aside ~ ~ Beyond the Skinny Branches ~ 4 Comments

“Oh, it’s my pleasure, absolutely,” she said with a tinny, manufactured brightness as she cleared away the strangely-soiled sheets from the bathroom floor while a portly couple in hotel bathrobes sat at the table on the terrace, eating what looked to have been a whole roast chicken, making sounds that made her uncomfortable as she worked.

As soon as she could, she got herself out of the room, cursing for the umpteenth time having to do this job.

Once on the other side of the door, she sighed with relief, looking forward to the end of her shift and the bottle of wine awaiting her at home.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Post: pleasure

A Wrinkle in Time

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“Why darling, it’s perfectly natural, it happens to everyone now and then,” she said in a soothing tone, hoping to diffuse the tension that had settled into the folds of the bedsheets that now lay crumpled across their naked bodies.

It took her a few moments to realize that he wasn’t turned away from her in shame, but that he’d actually fallen asleep and was looking annoyingly peaceful.

It was then that she realized that the tension she’d felt was all her own.

Inspired by The Daily Post Word Prompt: natural

Sure Thing

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“Don’t you think you are being a bit premature in your calculations?” she asked rather tongue-in-cheek of the unbelievably tan and unbearably attractive man who had just ordered a martini for her from the bartender without so much as a hello to her first: “And another for the lovely lady, shaken, not stirred.”

Of course, they both knew that he was actually totally on track.

He’d had her at “martini.”

Miss Demeaner

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“I don’t have the slightest idea what you are talking about,” she said in a high-pitched voice that she barely recognized as her own as she grasped her dignity and her purse tighter and proceeded to leave the department store before anyone tried to detain her further.

Heart beating wildly, she willed herself to walk with a calm gait and not to look back, as she felt a flush of perspiration begin to bead above her lip.

It wasn’t until the subway cars closed and the car pulled away from the platform that she let herself begin to relax, followed by a rush of adrenaline as she felt her bag for the outline of the lipstick she had managed to nick in her first-ever taste of a life of crime.

Inspired by TheDaily Post Word Prompt: slight

Personal Inventory

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“If you’ve got, flaunt it,” she purred to her own reflection as she carefully loosened her highly teased and sprayed-within-an-inch-of-its-life curls with a hair pick, attempting to encourage it back to its peak height.

She was proud to still have all her own hair and was determined to make the most of it as it had been one of her best beauty features since birth.

She took one last appreciative glance of herself in the bathroom mirror and gave herself a wink before refreshing her Deep Coral Rose lipstick, adjusting the bosom of her blouse to fall just a bit lower and heading back out onto the floor for the remainder of her shift.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: flaunt

Paillard Tendencies

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“Don’t make me take a mallet to you,” she said wickedly as she began to prepare the chicken breast she’d bought for her dinner.

It was little exchanges like this that made her apartment feel a little less lonely at night.

With a giggle followed by an almost imperceptible sigh, she rinsed the breast in water and patted it dry with a paper towel, and returned to the task at hand.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: mallet

Perfectionista Blues

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“You don’t have to get all frantic about it,” she said to herself soothingly as she realized that the gel manicured nail of her right forefinger had just come un-gelled and fallen off.

“Life will go on. It is not the end of the world,” she continued, though somewhere inside was a part that did indeed experience such an event as life and death, and no amount of coaxing was ever going to change that part of her mind.

And so it was that she stopped the car and ran into CVS pharmacy to buy a box of Bandaids to use one to cover the naked nail, and to appease that part that simply could not move forward without it.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: frantic

Reliable Sources

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“What?! No!” she desperately exclaimed just after two of the three bank tellers suddenly and without warning flourished “Next Teller, Please” signs and left to do Heaven-knows-what.

This, just after the debacle at Starbuck’s whereupon she stood waiting at the register for five agonizing moments -watching all six employees do whatever the hell they do other than deal with the customers (which is why she had banned going there years ago until in a moment of weakness she decided to give them one last try) – before raising her voice in an attempt to get service, which was a humiliating, abysmal failure.

Taking these events as signs she was just not meant to be in the world today, she scurried back to her apartment, back to safety and the surety of the attention of her cats, both of whom adored her unremittingly and vied to be in her presence 24/7.

Inspired by The Daily Post Daily Word Prompt: suddenly