The Little Duchess

Photograph - Alex Waterhouse-Hayward

The little duchess sat on her aluminum throne at the dinner table, in the wondrous light of a candle. She had aged, certainly, and could have been puffed with cortisone, but she had on the same lipstick she wore at seven, the same red smear, when she was Scarlett O’Hara on her elocution class. He offered her the white rose.

“Carleton, “she said, never bothering to shake his hand, ”that’s rather daring of you.” Her voice had the same old fiddler’s ring. That sound fired up his loins. He was her prisoner after a single sentence.

Lorelei from Jerome Charyn's Bitter Bronx - Thirteen Stories

The electric dark of the King Cole  
The cat lady's kiss
Seducing a cockroach