{"id":145,"date":"2011-01-25T17:25:00","date_gmt":"2011-01-25T17:25:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ink.verticalplus.co.uk\/archive\/?p=145"},"modified":"2011-01-25T17:25:00","modified_gmt":"2011-01-25T17:25:00","slug":"new-flash-fiction-mari-binx-asks-can-i-take-your-picture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/new-flash-fiction-mari-binx-asks-can-i-take-your-picture\/","title":{"rendered":"New flash fiction: Mari Binx asks can I take your picture?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Pretty As a Picture<\/span>


\u201cCan I take your picture?\u201d he asked, a cigarette sticking to his lip through the words.  The girl seated on the step didn\u2019t respond. She was skinny, he noted with the clinical eye of a professional photographer. He wasn\u2019t trained to see beauty, but instead flaws. He noted the broken doll look of long legs clad in torn nylons,  legs too long and too skinny  to be really good looking. She held herself awkwardly, the slender stretch of one arm around her knee and the other resting beside her seemed to disappear into the infinity of exposed flesh. Bruises were nestled into the crook of both arms. She must be new to this, he mused, to not be hiding the track marks on her feet or anywhere else that wasn\u2019t at first sight. \u201cMiss,\u201d he said, almost choking on the word. As if this specimen of the sludge of humanity qualified as a miss. \u201cYou\u2019re pretty, can I take your picture?\u201d <\/span>

She looked up, startled at his words. Now he had the chance to see the bruise that marked her face, obviously from a fist. Makeup was caked over the top, but she didn\u2019t have the delicate hand or eye to apply it in any workable fashion.  Her hair was clean, though a very bad dye job had the bottom an unnatural platinum with black roots grown out to 4 inches at least and her body was narrow for lack of meals, collar bones sticking out above the flimsy tank top like handles. She had no bra on, but not enough breasts to make that matter really.  She was already miles of bad road, and he was certain she wasn\u2019t even old enough to buy a smoke yet.<\/span>

\u201cMiss,\u201d he said in a more demanding tone, \u201cCan I take your picture? I\u2019ll give you as much as you charge for a handjob.\u201d<\/span>

She blinked, the street light obscuring eyes the color of emeralds. She smiled, the garish red lipstick parting to show front teeth stained with the same color. She needed braces. She needed a bath. She probably needed the money for whatever asshole beat the shit out of her or for more drugs to shove into her veins.<\/span>

\u201cYou really think I\u2019m pretty?\u201d she asked. Her voice surprised him. It was low and melodic, bringing to mind images of those old black and white movies with the woman in the tight dress that spelled trouble. He wondered for a moment if she\u2019d ever had a chance to see those movies. Not now, surely.<\/span>

\u201cSure, whatever. Can I take your picture?\u201d he flicked ten bucks down to glass littered ground by the too-large sneakers she wore. She picked it up and looked at him. \u201cYou really think I\u2019m pretty?\u201d<\/span>

He sighed. Obviously she was as smart as she was pretty. Her IQ matched her shoe size. She wasn\u2019t playing with a full deck. More phrases danced through his mind as he forced a smile. \u201cYeah.\u201d<\/span>

She returned the smile and he flashed the picture of her sitting there, the money still in one hand. \u201cNo one calls me pretty\u2026 not anymore. Jack used to but\u2026\u201d her voice faded, or he ignored it, did it really matter in the end? He snapped a picture. This time she had the look he was going for. Desperation, sadness, the sort of things a hooker should look like.<\/span>

\u201cDo you really think I\u2019m pretty?\u201d she called out, tears were dragging the mascara down her cheeks. She rubbed at it with the back of her hand, smearing it across her skin.  He didn\u2019t answer. He walked away, leaving her already forgotten, already searching for the next picture that would scream anguish enough to propel him to fame<\/span>



<\/font> * Mari Binx<\/span>
\n is a 23 year old who began telling stories the moment she could speak,
\nand writing them down as soon as stubby hands could hold oversize
\npencils. Her blog is at http:\/\/harmoniousexpressions.blogspot.com\/<\/a>
<\/font>
<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Pretty As a Picture\u201cCan I take your picture?\u201d he asked, a cigarette sticking to his lip through the words.  The girl seated on the step didn\u2019t respond. She was skinny, he noted with the clinical eye of a professional photographer. He wasn\u2019t trained to see beauty, but instead flaws. He noted the broken doll look […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-prose-poetry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/inksweatandtears.co.uk\/archive\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}