Word Count: 388
She felt she gave plenty of warning. When she painted her lips flaming red it was a good sign that that day, someone would die.
A middle-aged man in a vague gray wrinkled suit like her father. Or a woman with bunned hair and a jacket still creased from the drycleaners that she’d picked up the previous night.
Her killings followed the sun coming into her bedroom each morning. If she lay there awake to await it or it tapped its warm fingers on her face. The nightmares provoked, awoke her. The dreams made the world appear halfway all right.
On this morning, this Friday morning in an October chill that the quilt couldn’t keep away, she shivered and rolled onto her side. Scrunching into as much of a fetal position as her thirty year-old body could mimic. Still, the dusky dark morning and the shreds of a sweet dream turned to nightmare left her still running, her heart still screaming from strain.
The coffee tasted bitter. The hot shower felt cold. Her eyes stared back at her in the mirror with a smoky residue of the night. She drew lips on her mouth in a bold vivid red.
It was at the bar at the restaurant where she picked him out, though he probably thought he’d picked her. He was good-looking, with odd auburn-black hair and eyes so dark brown they were black. He bought her a drink, then another. They talked about mundane things. He laughed easily and she made a decision.
He made love to her twice, more gently than she’d expected. But it left her exhausted and weak. She got up and went into the bathroom, still naked, knowing he watched her walk away.
She looked at the face in the mirror and opened a drawer. Painted her lips striking ruby. Fingered the blade of a knife. His eyes were closed when she came back, stood for a moment watching him and he slowly opened his eyes. But he caught her hand as she raised it, lost her grip on the knife. He pulled her down on the bed and beneath him.
Her last thought as he tightened his fingers to press out her breath, admitted she hadn’t looked closely enough at her prey. Hadn’t noticed his lucky blue tie.
