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A quote: “He who is prudent and lies in wait for an enemy who is not, will be victorious.” ~~ Sun Tzu
I’ll start with a story …
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Climbing the drive in 4-inch heels wasn’t easy. I resisted kicking them off as I was wearing my last pair of stockings. First payment was seeing El-Lay spread out at my feet, the sparkling lights giving lie to daytime grime.
“You look good, baby.” Payment 2.
I felt his breath on the back of my neck, his hand on my bare shoulder. I turned, lights at my back and looked up into the now startled face beneath the fedora.
“For my sister,” I breathed as I slipped the stiletto up under his sternum, angled to the heart. Payment 3.
Jackpot.
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Now, it’s your turn.
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. featured image from Darleen Click, generated with Adobe AI, modified
Dupin says: I saw her from a distance as I jogged the windy road. She’d parked her BMW 840 convertible at the overlook, stepping out dressed for a party or maybe the opera.
As I got closer, I saw her blonde hair shift in the light breeze, lit by the streetlight behind her. She stared off into the distance, looking for something.
I stopped, searching where she looked, but saw nothing, so resumed my jog.
As I approached, she nodded, seeming to have made a decision, and then climbed over the guardrail.
I sprinted, shouting “No,” but she jumped and was gone.
Cameron says: I was surprised to see her. I’ve loved her since elementary school and the sight of her reminded me why. She was out of my league. She was a rich girl from a good family. I was a working class boy who ran a business.
But I had nothing to lose. She turned to me as I walked up to her. My heart hammered in my throat as I said what was on my mind.
“You’re asking me out?” I braced for rejection and simply nodded.
“About damn time,” she said with a smile. We’ve been married five years now.
How different the skyline looked from the observation deck of an airship. Felicity had seen plenty of pictures of New York City, but all of them had been taken from the harbor, at sea level — and in daylight. From her vantage point, still in New Jersey airspace, the buildings and streets shining with fierce white gaslight seemed almost like a fairyland — both beautiful and perilous, as her grandmother’s stories had warned.
San Francisco was still a city of kerosene lamps and candles, although a new company was beginning to lay gas lines in some of the wealthier districts. Those people could afford fixtures and mantles brought across the country by rail from factories out here on the East Coast or in Chicago and St. Louis.
All places full of people who thought a young man from California just another hick from the howling wilderness west of the Mississippi, as if it were still 1849. But it had been New York City that Jonathan had gone, like a moth to a candle.
The crooked cops had looked the other way, claimed it had been an “accident,” — but Felicity knew better, had it on good word from the friend with whom he’d come to this Babylon on the Hudson. Now it was up to Little Sis and her feminine wiles to bring justice to those who’d thought they could prey at will upon those from the other side of the country.
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