Michael Brookes has started a monthly flash fiction competition on his blog (The Cult Of Me) where a new image is selected each month. It’s good fun – if you want to have a go, here is the July competition. The image on the right was used for the June competition (see winning entries), and here below was my submission.
Devilish Rogues
‘’Tis an excellent costume, sir.’
‘Why thank you, dear fellow. I find it commands a certain respect – although it is a little tight at the rear.’
‘I dare say! I remember when tailors still cut for tails.’
‘Indeed! A quite forgotten art, alas. So, what can I do for you, old boy?’
‘To business…’
‘To business! Cheers!’
‘Cheers! An excellent vintage. Very refined on the palate.’
‘Taken in the very throws of passion, by Madame Sal herself.’
‘I did wonder at the “O” on the bottle. Madame Sal’s reputation for procurement is fully deserved.’
‘She’s a saucy wench for sure, and takes great pride and joy in her work. Look here on the label: “Putting the ‘O’ in women for over two hundred years.”’
‘If I may say so, that’s an awful lot of –’
‘I’d rather you didn’t, dear fellow.’
‘I was merely going to say that’s an awful lot of “Type O”.’
‘I see your wit is as sharp as ever!’
‘Not as sharp as Madame’s teeth.’
‘No, quite! Certainly not as sharp as her tongue.’
‘I hesitate to ask… Have you suffered under its lash?’
‘I? No. But did you ever meet that young fellow Kellar?’
‘But how remarkable! It is in respect of that very rogue that I have sought you out today.’
‘Do tell! This story grows more delightful with each passing day.’
‘Well, you know Bella di Notte?’
‘Mistress of the House of Pain? Intimately!’
‘Most excellent fellow – so the rumours are true! I would die for just a hope to feel her whips, but her lies are ever a treachery.’
‘Her serpent’s tongue has other gifts than speech, else Lucifer would have banished her an age ago.’
‘His tolerance of her could not be explained otherwise. They say she worships him.’
‘As do we all.’
‘Of course! Of course! But you know what I mean!’
‘I do indeed. Go on with your tale.’
‘Two nights past she charged screaming into his palace, accusing him of being a liar and a thief, of being the very devil himself.’
‘Which of course he is – guilty on all three counts a thousand times and more.’
‘But not in this one case. She accuses him of taking her by force, promising her a pardon and the riches of a king, only to sneak off in the middle of the night with her jewel.’
‘The Star of Siya?’
‘Exactly that.’
‘I doubt she was taken by force. Even Lucifer himself fears her whips.’
‘Or fears their absence.’
‘I’m sure you’re right. He denies it was he who ravished her?’
‘He does, and there is only one of our brethren with the skill to mimic the Prince in all his grand particulars.’
‘Kellar.’
‘The man’s a vile seducer.’
‘And all the more admirable for it. Why, it was only last week that he bragged he could make any woman kneel before him, and so incurred the formidable wrath of Madame Sal.’
‘Well, now he has the proof of it!’
Francis James Franklin (Alina Meridon) 