Flash Fiction February - A Woman In the Snow
This flashfic is inspired by a prompt posted on 22nd February 2022 by the Writer’s Digest to write “something featuring the phrase ‘the door is open’”. This story is just over 500 words. Enjoy!
I reached for the frost covered door handle, my hand passing under the wayward light of a streetlamp and the stray snowflakes dancing in the void of the night. I tugged it hard, myself a veteran of its sticky ways and an insider on its particular set of quirks – any decent amount of force had it cracking open like a busted safe, locks be damned. But alongside a panicked wobble backwards from me, the door came away light and easy.
Sheepishly, I turned to the woman stood on the sidewalk, puffing out clouds of warm air and rubbing her hands on the elbows of her thick, winter’s jacket. “Uh, hey ma’am, do you want to go inside? Because the door is open.”
She glanced at him from under a woollen, cap-like hat. Dark eyes flitted to the door, long, girlish lashes teasing her pale cheeks. “No, thank you. I’m waiting for someone.”
Cautiously, I let go of the door and rubbed my gloved hands together. “In the middle of the night? What is it now? 12:45?” I approached her slowly and came up beside her with a thorough two arm’s lengths between us. “Look, I’ll wait with you, if that’s OK. I’m not sure I’m comfortable leaving a woman out here alone. Not in this weather at least.”
She gave a shy, awkward smile and turned her shoulder slightly away. “That’s nice of you.”
After a few stretches of cold silence and more than our fair share of icy gusts, I looked back at her, away from the disserted, snow-covered road. “Who are you waiting for, if you don’t mind me asking?”
She shrugged. “Just… let’s call him an old friend.” Her fingers tightened on her elbows.
For a while, she bounced her knee, maybe to fend of some shivers or her awkwardness, but strangely, each crazy bounce pulled her further round towards me. “You know, what makes you so interested in the Paisley Bank tonight anyway? Shouldn’t they be closed?”
“Closed for some. Not for others,” I said with a wolfish grin.
She hummed and stretched out her arms. Her slender fingers stretched her silky, white gloves as hot puffs of air escaped her painted lips.
I did a double take and, despite my efforts to be polite, glanced down at her legs and the pristine tights that clung to them. Was she some kind of show girl? Sex worker? A random ballerina in the middle of snowy nowhere? Beneath her fashionable long coat, it seemed she was wearing some kind of shimmering, red dress and stiletto heels.
She turned to me, smirking as she caught my gaze on its journey back to civilization, and brandished forth one of her elegant hands. “I’m Katarina Clay,” she said, her voice soft and charming.
Stiffly, I shook her hand. “I’m –”
Her fingers clamped around my wrist, yanking me forward. Her other hand braced me by my collarbones right before I collided with her chest. My mind struggled to process, struggled to resist, as she whispered into my ear, “I know you’ve been scoping this place out for a while, and unless you want to go home in a shiny yellow-blue car, you’ll do exactly as I say.”
22/02/2022
To Be Proofread . . .