Fleeing the Clowns

He sat with her at the bar. Perhaps her beauty had lost some of its sparkle since her glory days, but she was a fetching woman. And yes, she was fickle regarding her beliefs and convictions, but that night, her convictions were of little interest. He sought something lower.

He was surprised the next morning that he had no urge to bolt through the fog of the morning after. They chatted, and he very much enjoyed their pillow talk. She was a decade older, but in the soft morning light, he saw nary a wrinkle on her face. He felt utterly spent from the previous night's horizontal frenzy, but he felt a stirring nevertheless, a feeling that she wasn't just a one night stand.

He used the bathroom, returned to her, wrote down her number, and offered a goodbye kiss. He began walking through the living room. He froze. Hundreds of framed pictures of clowns covered her walls. How had he missed that as they walked through to the bedroom? He tried to tell himself that it was funny, but the gnawing pit in his stomach insisted otherwise. They looked at him. They accused him.

He let himself out, and sprinted across her apartment complex parking lot to his car, and his escape.

At home, he stood in the shower until the hot water abandoned him, trying to wash her off of his body, and out of his soul.






Prompted by Thom G's Three Word Wednesday. Today's words are fickle, sparkle, and wrinkle.