Beauty Kills the Beast

by Marie Anderson

About the Author: Marie Anderson's short stories have appeared in about 50 publications, including The Saturday Evening Post, Woman's World, Guilty Crime Magazine, and Lamplight.

Excerpt

Fairy tales hardly ever come true for quiet girls. But Floria had at last found her Prince Charming. Her quiet days were over. It was time to make things happen.

First she had to dispatch Baboon. Her husband. Her rich, old, beastly husband.

“Ouch! God Bless America!” Floria yelled as she ripped off the bandage. There was no one to hear her. She was alone in her dressing room. But being loud felt liberating even though yelling did nothing to lessen the pain. The patch of skin where he’d bitten her neck still burned like a vexatious cold sore. She’d slathered it last night with antibiotic cream and Vitamin E ointment. She touched it now, Baboon’s bite mark an ugly tattoo on her otherwise creamy skin.

Well, she wouldn’t hide it under a fresh bandage. A bandage would never mesh with the look of sophistication she would achieve tonight. And forget concealing the wound under makeup. He’d sniff the scent, lick it off, he would. He liked marking her, branding her like a rancher brands cows and horses.

She shuddered. That’s what she’d felt like married to the Baboon these past 13 months: living meat for Baboon to lick and bite and brand.

Floria draped her mother-in-law’s pearls around her neck. The pearls covered part of the wound. That would help. The old crone had given the pearls to Floria for her 25th birthday last month. Lent them actually. The pearls wouldn’t really belong to Floria until the crone joined Baboon’s father on the fireplace mantle.

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