Something tastes delicious from Sue Harding - February Femme Fatale

February Femmes Fatales - 
February 22nd

And so we enter the final week of the February Femmes Fatales showcase, and what a journey it's been with some extraordinary talent and deliciously dark fiction and poetry. And there's more to come.

To kick off the next seven days, Sue Harding returns with a tasty platter of chilling goodies. Sue is so good at spelling out revenge that I want her as a friend for life.

So tuck into A Dish Best Served Cold; I hope you're hungry...

A Dish Best Served Cold by Sue Harding

Chefs quaked at the mention of her name. Sommeliers swooned at the thought of her presence descending unannounced upon their domains. Even the stoniest faced Maitre d’ had been known to shut themselves in the toilets passing square ones at the suggestion of receiving her in their premises.

Yet now, Erin Stacey, could think only of tomorrow’s headlines announcing the demise of Regan O’Nais, the nemesis of restaurant critics.

Erin poured herself another cognac, swirling it gently around the balloon glass, smelling the vapours it released warmed by the gentle heat of her hand. A self-satisfied grin flooded her face at her mind’s imagination of Ms O’Nais’ current dilemma.

The woman had gone a step too far. Her disastrous and vindictive critique of Erin’s restaurant, ‘Little Red Hen’, had caused her not only financial ruin, but had also resulted in her father suffering a fatal heart attack.

There was no doubt in Erin’s mind that Regan’s vitriolic onslaught was precipitated by the fact that she had recently parted from Erin’s father, Edwin. Determined to inflict unnecessary pain, the virago had swept into Erin’s restaurant and proceeded to exude charm to all and sundry, lulling them into a false sense of security. Only after she had returned to her office and penned her review of fulminating spite and malice, did the effluent really hit the air circulation system.

In three brief paragraphs, Little Red Hen’s goose was cooked. Bookings evaporated overnight and drop-in ‘traffic’ took their cue from the lack of occupied tables and moved onwards towards other purveyors of fine cuisine.

Edwin had taken the financial hit extremely hard. It was his collateral that had funded Erin’s venture, the last dregs of his personal fortune after the acrimonious divorce from Regan that had seen her pillage his finances and strip him of most of his assets. The shock stopped his heart.

Three nights after her father’s funeral, Erin had closed the doors of her darkened and empty restaurant for the last time and vowed revenge on her ex-stepmother. As she’d turned the key in the lock her mind had already been formulating her plan. She would strike back and the revenge would be deliciously piquant, appropriately tailored to suit her adversary. She’d smiled for the first time in weeks and galloped the flight of stairs that led to her apartment above the restaurant, taking the steps two at a time.

In the days and weeks that had passed, she’d immersed herself in books and study and the internet, researching her new culinary adventure. With the restaurant leased out as a sandwich bar she’d been able to eke out enough money to keep the apartment and more importantly the use of the kitchen after hours.

She’d been careful to keep her cooking experiments under wraps, often staying up until the wee small hours to clean and air the place to ensure that no tell-tale aromas would alert her tenants.

The art work and advertising had been a challenge, but once again the internet had brought salvation as she’d set up a very professional looking website. The countdown to the launch of her new venture had been Facebooked and Tweeted to within an inch of its life, drawing in unprecedented hits from the glitterati of the culinary world, eager to know about her elite door-to-door gourmet service.

Trying hard not to throw up, she’d obsequiously ingratiated herself into Regan’s confidence, with emails flitting back and forth. Of course, she’d written, she’d be honoured if Ms O’Nais would deign to review her work. Erin had gushed that she would be delighted to inform Ms O’Nais that she was to be the first customer of the new venture. In fact, she’d had to turn down several A-list candidates, including a number of Hollywood ‘names’, as she’d felt that the culinary nature of her business demanded only the best food critic should be granted the cachet of being her premiere client. It was an exclusivity that had ensnared Regan O’Nais’ ego.

All lies of course. The accolades and messages on Erin’s website had been written by herself. The flaming gold calligraphy of “Montezuma’s” had given the website an air of sumptuousness and the menu options were a gastronomic delight. Such a pity really, she’d thought latterly, that it would be a one-night stand.

Now, she took another gulp of brandy, feeling it course around her mouth, enjoying the taste as it melted towards her throat. She looked at the clock on the mantelpiece. Counting back the hours since she’d arrived, disguised, at Regan’s apartment and heard a barely suppressed squeal of self-satisfied delight as the gilded tray of elegant food had been handed over, she mused on Ms O’Nais’ current predicament.

She imagined the food critic savouring the delights and tastes created by Erin’s own hands. She licked her lips, much as her client would have done at the choice tastes and textures that had been baked and poached and marinated to perfection.

It would have taken perhaps forty minutes for the first signs to manifest themselves. A deep, drawing sensation in the gut would herald the ignominy that would follow. She wondered how elegant Ms O’Nais would be in her scramble for the bathroom.

The careful concoction of herbs and spices and plant extracts that Erin had suffused into each dish would ensure that her adversary would now be enthroned in splendour. As the bottom had fallen out of Erin’s world so now the high and mighty doyenne of all things culinary, the great Regan O’Nais, would feel that the world had dropped out of her bottom.

Diarrhoea, of course, was only the first manifestation. Heart palpitations would inflict their own sense of fear and pulmonary oedema would take its toll as the stomach lining would begin to disintegrate, creating a liquor that would quickly dissolve the internal organs.

Erin smiled and reached forward to her laptop, pressing the key that would delete “Montezuma’s” from digital existence.

Revenge was, indeed, so sweet.

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Bio: 

Sue Harding worked in public libraries for eleven years. Her great joy was introducing customers to new books and authors and also discovering them for herself. Having taken early retirement the intention now is to knuckle down to serious writing. Perhaps one day her colleagues will be shelving her books!

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Sue Harding says it's cold outside - a frosty February Femme Fatale

February Femmes Fatales -
February 15th

Sue Harding has a very mischievous side. Her writing is often tinged with a unique humour, and her second Femmes Fatales piece, Frosty Relations is no exception.

I love the matter-of-fact delivery of this story as it unashamedly details Mandy's gruesome acts, making me laugh out loud.

With no further ado, wrap up warm and turn up the heat...


Frosty Relations by Sue Harding

Mandy couldn’t close the freezer. Each time she tried a hand or foot popped out. Exasperated, she snapped them off.

“Damn you, Kevin,” she thought, “Fighting to the last!”

She slammed the freezer lid down defiantly. It popped up again, just an inch or two. Finally on the third attempt it clicked shut and stayed that way.

She heaved a sigh of satisfied relief and waddled out of the garage and back to the kitchen, defiantly turning the key in the lock as if to underline the fact that Kevin was very much a part of her past.

Frizz, the cat, weaved around her ankles, raising a delicate pink nose and sniffing the air. Her eyes were big and bright as a familiar aroma teased at her nostrils. Mandy bent down and gathered the adoring feline to her more than ample bust, sinking her nose into the black, silky fur.

“Hmmm,” she whispered. “I know you’d like to see Daddy again, but it’s just not going to happen!”

She thought back to the last time. She’d been out to the freezer a few hours later to see how Kevin was doing. A few judicious prods had told her that although the body was cold, it wasn’t quite solid. She’d turned aside to pick up the bucket of ice cubes she’d gathered from the domestic freezer in the kitchen, intending to add them to speed up the process and when she’d straightened up she’d seen that Frizz had found her way into the garage. The cat had jumped up into the open freezer and was gently chewing on one of Kevin’s toes.

Holding the cat closely to her, Mandy walked back into the lounge and sat down. That had been six weeks ago. Kevin, minus the last inch or so of one of his left foot toes, was now much more friable, evidenced by the fact that she’d been able to snap off the offending appendages with relative ease.

She’d been putting off the question of what to do with Kevin’s body for a while now. At least storing him in the freezer had taken care of the odour issue, even if it had been a marathon event to manoeuvre his body down the stairs and haul him into his frigid sarcophagus. She’d surprised herself with what she could do when she put her mind, not to mention her own considerable poundage, to removing him from his initial resting place in the bathroom.

His prone position, with his head down the toilet, had made his demise all the easier to achieve. As he’d been bracing himself with his hands on the rim of the toilet bowl, throwing up the delightful meal she’d spent all day carefully preparing, it was not an arduous task for her to push his head down with the toilet lid and then sit on it.

True, his retaliatory bucking had had made for an uncomfortable ride as she’d tried to maintain a balanced posture but his already weakened state, from the debilitating reaction to the emetics she’d concealed in the spicy cuisine, was combined with the physical crushing on his windpipe and all she had to do was sit tight and wait and try not to breathe through her nose.

Finally dragging his body to the top of the stairs, she’d sunk to her massive haunches and sat down with her back braced to the wall. Pushing for all her worth, her feet made contact with the small of Kevin’s back and forced his body forward over the top step. She’d watched as the momentum carried the dead weight of his body to the foot of the stairs, falling over and over like some strange rag doll, to land in an untidy heap by the front door.

From there to the internal door that opened into the garage, it was a matter of pushing, dragging and rolling until she’d managed to reach the freezer. She’d propped him against the tumble dryer, letting the top half of his torso bend over into semi-repose, whilst she opened the freezer and stared briefly into the icy, cavernous opening. It had given her a few seconds to catch her breath, then she’d grabbed hold of a handful of Kevin’s shirt and propelled him sidewards into the waiting cabinet.

Although the disparity between his lean athletic figure and her more rotund curves had been the spark that had ignited the rift had driven them apart in the first place, she’d been glad that he’d slimmed down. Even if he had suffered some sort of mid-life crisis and found her ample figure less appealing as he’d shed several pounds acquired by her good home cooking, it had at least made the job of moving his body a little easier.

Now, as she sat still stroking Frizz, her thoughts came back to the present. Tracking down his ‘bit on the side’, that skinny girl he’d met at the gym, had been difficult. Only when Mandy had finally cracked Kevin’s password was she able to access his emails and there the full treachery of his betrayal was sordidly set out. It had taken her a full twenty-four hours to regain her composure after reading the cruel things he’d said about her. They were more hurtful, it seemed, than the sleazy details of his affair.

However, this was her only way to ensnare Miss Stick Insect and so she had entered into a fabrication, pretending to be Kevin. With email contact substituting for the real thing she’d had to invent a reason for his physical absence from the gym. That had been easy: Mandy simply detailed the same lie she’d fed to inquisitive neighbours – Kevin had undertaken some short term contract work abroad.

She’d strung Miss Waif-like along for a while before finally reeling her in. Yesterday’s email message had announced Kevin’s arrival back in the UK. It was a simple matter for ‘him’ to arrange a quiet, romantic meal for the two of them, especially as his ‘lard-tub’ of a wife was away visiting the dragon, otherwise known as his mother-in-law. So, he’d meet her at the house and they’d go on from there. Or maybe not, depending on how the mood took them. Mandy physically retched as she typed the last words, full of innuendo.

Miss Stick-thin had arrived on cue and having received no answer to her insistent doorbell ringing, had found the key in the planter by the front door as per Kevin’s instructions.

Mandy had lain in wait, concealing herself awkwardly in the folds of the heavy door –curtain. She savoured the startled look of disbelief that met her cold, hard gaze before despatching her love-rival with one of Kevin’s fitness dumbbells. The smack of weighted rubber making contact with teeth and bone had been like music to Mandy’s ears but it was merely the overture to a lengthy performance. It had reached its crescendo when her fury had abated and she’d looked down at the pulverised and eviscerated flesh that lay at her feet. It resembled well-tenderised steak, with a hint of blonde streaked hair splayed out like a rough halo around what had once been a dainty little face with a charming snub-nose and sensuous lips.

Mandy stroked Frizz again, as she recalled how much easier it had been to remove Miss Rake to her final resting place; she supposed there was something to be said for all this dieting lark. Still, it had been quite difficult making room for her. Manipulating Kevin’s limbs had proved awkward, but she’d finally managed to get the lid closed and then left the garage. It had seemed appropriate to let the two lovers have some time together on their own.

Sitting in the lounge with Frizz purring like a little generator on her lap, she lifted the travel brochure from the coffee table beside her and flicked through the pages. A nice long holiday was what she needed. Somewhere nice and warm. After all, she thought, imagining the icy repository in the garage and its occupants, two’s company and three’s most definitely a crowd.

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Bio:
Sue Harding worked in public libraries for eleven years. Her great joy was introducing customers to new books and authors and also discovering them for herself. Having taken early retirement the intention now is to knuckle down to serious writing. Perhaps one day her colleagues will be shelving her books!

Sue blogs at http://irefusetogoquietly.blogspot.com

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The Library of Sue Harding - February Femme Fatale

February Femmes Fatales - February 9th

It was a Thrillers Killers 'n' Chillers thing, as it so often is, when I first met the marvellous Mrs Sue H. She likes her noir, her crime and her blood - and I like everything she has to say about it. Her writing is clever, and hard-hitting. It's also humorous, and twists like cat gut.

When Sue began contributing to my weekly Friday Prediction challenge, I saw a whole different side to this highly-talented writer. Her observations touch the soul and more than once her poetry and prose have brought a tear to my eye.

We've got a few things in common, me and Sue - and I am very proud that she has accepted to be a February Femme Fatale. Be Careful What You Wish For is the darkest of her three spots this month - please take your seats, the show is about to begin.

Be Careful What You Wish For by Sue Harding

The reveal was coming soon. Another few bars and in one swift movement his true features would be laid bare.

Christopher LeGrande eyed the faces as he glanced out in the darkness but there was no time to watch for their reaction.

Now came her hand, reaching up and pushing away the mask. He heard the collective sharp intake of breath as the audience caught their first brief glimpse of his grotesque, misshapen face.

He turned away, recoiling from her touch. All part of the act, a well rehearsed scene that he’d performed for so many months.

He continued in his role but it was almost as if he were on auto-pilot. His voice, his stage presence and bearing had been honed and crafted over the months until he could almost do it in his sleep. Where once there had been joy in his soul, was now pain and loss.

At last, he escaped from the stage as the scene changed and folded himself away within the hushed but busy wings. Actors and stage-crew jockeyed for position, miming signals and cues as the performance continued and Christopher sank thankfully onto a waiting chair.

Now his mind had time to reflect. This role was his big breakthrough, a passport to fame and success. As the lead in the ‘Phantom of the Opera’, he had earned stunning plaudits from even the least generous and hard to please theatre critics. But he knew deep inside that he was trapped.

He looked at his reflection in the mirror, hung nearby to afford the actors a last chance to check their attire before they stepped out onto the stage.

The white half-mask stared back at him in an evil grin, concealing a secret irony. He realised it was too late now; that he’d reached the point of no return and thought back to that day all those months ago, when he’d celebrated not only his birthday but the announcement that he’d landed the part.

“Be careful what you wish for!”

It had been said jokingly at the time, but now he realised the truth and wisdom of those words. Closing his eyes, he’d made his wish - to become the greatest Phantom the show had ever seen. He’d held his breath and then blown out the candles. All but one. A single flame had defied his efforts and winked back at him, tauntingly, as if echoing that warning. As he’d silently repeated his wish, promising to sell his soul for the chance he’d been given, the flame guttered and finally went out.

As the weeks and months had progressed he had worked hard and immersed himself in refining the songs, the moves and the magic. The box office tills had rung in celebration of his skill and the critics had fallen at his feet.

“Christopher LeGrande IS the Phantom!” the reviews stated.

How little they knew.

It had been a few weeks into the production before he’d realised the full enormity of the bargain he had struck, resigned to the fact that this was a role he was destined to play. The only role.

Now, as he sat in the dimness hearing the orchestra beyond his view, he raised his hand and lifted the mask from his face. The air felt deliciously cool on his skin. The rippled and puckered flesh felt rough to the touch of his fingers as they traced the bloated and misshaped lower lip. There were no smudges, no smears that needed to be attended to before he strode back out into the auditorium.

With each performance his face had become more and more distorted. First it was a slight droop of his smile, then a darkening redness to his skin. He’d begun taking concealer home from the make-up cupboard, in an effort to mask the reality that was slowly becoming apparent, but soon he was forced to employ more refined techniques as the changes gathered momentum. He’d become adept with creams and colours and hairpieces as he’d desperately tried to hide the growing deformities that stared back at him each morning in the bathroom mirror.

Now, the crossover was complete. Months had passed into the current living nightmare he inhabited and he was thankful for the sanctuary of a private dressing room. Each day he arrived and attended to his make-up alone, removing the lie he carried about on his face, wiping away the attractive features that he’d come to perfect to reveal the vile truth beneath.

The music jarred in his ears, calling him back to his own private hell, where illusion and reality danced a sinister and macabre tango.

“Be careful what you wish for!”

The words echoed again in his head as he stood up and headed out into the footlights’ glow ready to continue the masquerade and he knew that later, when ‘Christine’ chose ‘Raoul’ over him, the tears he shed would be no act.

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Bio:
Sue Harding worked in public libraries for eleven years, where her greatest joy was introducing customers to new books and authors and also discovering them for herself. Having taken early retirement, the intention now is to knuckle down to serious writing - perhaps one day her former colleagues will be shelving her books!

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