Love Triangles

This is specially written for the new blog I'm co-moderating with Cormac Brown called Icarus' Flight to Perfection. There was an option of chosing either one of the starter sentences, or a group of four words, well, you've seen what I've done... And hey, if you have time - take a look at some of the other stories gearing up to take flight.
      -Coraline

Love Triangles

It occurred to him just a little too late that a good woman really is worth her weight in gold…

Alice sighed as she closed her book, her finger holding her place as she did so. It was always like that, wasn’t it? Men never really know what they have until it’s gone. Just like Martin in the other room. Of course, Martin wasn’t his real name, he just looked like one, or more like one she knew once. He had no idea how much she was worth, and it was definitely more than the pretty penny he had tried to offer her the other night at the bar.

Alice took a sip of her almost empty martini and thought about what lay ahead of her for the rest of the evening.

Finding the bookmark she placed it in her book, the latest romance novel, for she had to read them all, and downed the rest of her drink.

“Martin, she called, “do you want something to drink? I wouldn’t want you feeling parched or anything!”

She did have a guest after all and all guests require a hostess with manners—even if they are rudimentary at best.

Alice loaded the breakfast tray in the kitchen with a few slices of bread, a glass of water, a tub of butter along with a butter knife and her sharpest paring knife. Before leaving she grabbed some large black trash bags from the closet and stuffed them into her back pocket and an empty milk jug. The rest was all in her nightstand waiting.

Alice pushed on the door with her hip into the bedroom and took the tray straight to the bed where Martin, her Martin, was tied and gaged, naked and waiting.

He flinched away from her as she sat near his hip and laid the tray across his stomach.

“Oh, I’m sorry Martin! It’s probably cold isn’t it?” She seemed genuinely concerned, but beneath her bright friendly smile lay a malicious witch like laugh ready to cackle its way out into the open.

“Are you hungry, Martin?” She watched as he hesitated then nodded his head.

Alice removed his gag and listened to his quick inhales of precious air that he had been denied the last forty-eight hours.

“You’re starting to smell, you know, Martin.” Alice spoke to him while she lathered a piece of bread thickly with butter. “A shower might be well desired unless you’d rather me cover you in my tropical smelling lotion.”

She reached across and carefully held out the bread for his mouth to easily take a bite.

The man nick named Martin coughed as he tried to swallow his bread. Alice gave him a small sip of water then wiped his mouth with her finger.

“Martin, will you be honest with me?” Alice knew he wouldn’t, and that he would only say what he thought would help him to escape, but there was no exit sign for poor Martin, just a trip to the other side. Martin nodded his consent and Alice continued, “Did you think I was a hooker when you saw me for the first time? Was that why you picked me out of all the other women at the bar?”

Martin swallowed hard and seemed to consider his next words carefully.

“No, I just thought you looked like a woman on a mission, maybe a mission I could help you with.” Silence filled the room. His blue eyes stared intently into her dark chocolate ones.

“Martin, I believe you.” Alice finally broke the silence as she shook her said sadly, “Unfortunately, my mind’s already made up.”

She stood and crossed the room to where her dresser was. The top was littered with photographs. Some showed old relatives – or what one might think of as old relatives – the pictures were black and white.

Alice found what she was looking for, a triptych of charcoal sketches.

“He was so beautiful, my Martin, so full of passion and love, but just like you, he didn’t know that I was the prize.”

Alice returned to the bed, a flicker of sadness portrayed on her face. She showed her trifold frame to the man she had taken to punish in Martin’s place.

He watched as Alice caressed the mahogany frame. The sketches when she held them out for him appeared to be water damaged. From tears or from something else, the man wasn’t sure.

“What did your Martin do to you?” he asked the question that had been on his mind since he awoke naked, gagged and bound to Alice’s unfamiliar bed.

“He paraded me around on his arm for everyone to see, promised to marry me, then left me for another woman without so much as an apology or goodbye.”

“And…” he hesitated, “where is Martin now?”

This seemed to snap her out of her reminiscence and she smiled a wicked grin. “You’re right here Martin, don’t you see how you’ve hurt me? You’ve reduced me to a common whore. I knew that’s what it would take for you to notice me again.” Alice held up her paring knife, “Now, I’m going to make sure you never think of another woman and that you remember, even if it is a little too late, that I have always been worth my weight in gold.”

Martin as she called him began to squirm against the restraints.

“You’ll stop unless you want me to gag you again.”

Martin looked at her, fear making his pupils huge.

Alice shook her head, “It’s too bad that this is what always has to go first.” She reached for his manhood. The paring knife smoothly slid through the fleshy layers and came out much too quickly on the other side.

Martin screamed like a girl when his brain combined the image of his detached manhood and the pain he was feeling together.

Alice re-gagged him and said, “I did warn you once, now didn’t I?”

The evening stretched on as Alice finished her slaughter job and bagged each of Martin’s pieces in the large black bags she had taken from the kitchen. The milk jug full of blood would be drained in the ditch in the morning after the bags were thrown out with the rest of the trash.

Alice changed her bedding, showered, and then went back to her reading chair in the living room feeling livelier than she had in weeks. Picking up another book, she pulled out the bookmark and began reading:

He pulled the mask over his face and he whispered, “C’mon, baby needs a new pair of shoes.

Alice looked at her worn heels near the door and thought, you’re right Martin, I’m due for a new pair.