She kept twirling incessantly in the opposite direction of Earth’s rotation.

She couldn’t stop. Exhausted, she breathed in the sour hospital smells.

Stopping meant giving in to the direction and pace of Earth’s rotational pull.

She wouldn’t give in. Light-headed, she struggled to maintain her balance.

Giving in, meant surrendering to life’s scripted path.

Following that path, meant facing the diagnosis. Nauseous, she battled the rising bile.

Facing the diagnosis, meant facing death.

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Line items 5, 33, 46, 62 and 78 were the ones he had to authorize. He had checked and double-checked each fabricated payee and its payment details.

These would be the final transactions. He would then reinvest the funds in stable bonds—boring bonds, as his wife would say.

They had married in their early thirties, taking out a considerable loan to satisfy her desire for a grand wedding in a historic building with a large garden, abundant flower decorations, and an open bar for their 500 guests.

In the following years, his thrill-seeking wife regularly cheated on him. At least one instance involved a lower-ranking colleague whom she seduced during a company retreat. That time, he made sure the guy got fired over some other triviality.

Dependability was what he was known for, trusted for, continuously promoted for. It didn’t grant him a faithful wife, but it did provide him with ample payment authorization limits at the company.

He knew she wouldn’t leave him. She thrived on the attention that came with being a pillar of society. A lifestyle funded entirely by his dependability.

He could not leave her because the tremor in his hands and the numbness in his left leg were getting worse every morning.

He had overinvested in the tropical hardwood investment project, silencing the warnings of his inner voice. He had been swept up in the “gung-ho” fervor of the carefully curated group of premium investors. A group so carefully curated, that except for him, all had one thing in common: they had been in on the scam.

Line items 5, 33, 46, 62, and 78.

As long as there was money, the prenup guaranteed her presence until his final, wheezing breath.

He clicked ‘Approve’.

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She’s not a monster.

She feeds me, though she also feeds on my kind.

When she leaves, I escape my watery cage and expand my limbs.

I sit on her balcony.

The sunlight warms my scaled skin.

I gossip with the pigeons. We laugh.

At dusk, I splash back home.

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“Tyler, right?” the recruiter asked.

Tyler nodded. “Yes.”

“We do a background check during the resume screening. You passed the identity verification and the AI assisted plagiarism check.” The recruiter paused.

She continued: “We monitor you during the next recruitment steps.”

Tyler glanced at the ceiling camera.

“We analyze your physical and online activity while on our premises, including your phone usage.”

Tyler dried his sweaty palms on his legs.

“Our AI identified inconsistencies between your recent writing samples that you wrote while at our office and those online, as well as discrepancies in your physical appearance in meetings with us, compared to photos and videos previously posted online.”

Tyler swallowed, tasting bile in his mouth.

The recruiter leaned forward. “Finally, our generative speech analysis compared your online voice to your demeanor here. We combined and analyzed the data. Let’s start over. Who are you?”

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The pool of blood under the metal butcher’s block is the only physical reminder left of her. A sigh escapes my lips. In the end, she had died too quickly for my liking. Thankfully, her pleading whimpers and terrified shrieks still echo around in my playroom, much like a soothing, background music.

I’ve already cleaned the fully tiled walls with a pressure-washer. My hooks, tongs, boning knives, even my favorite mandolin for my work on the skin of the extremities, are all meticulously clean. I’ve cleared the floor drain of any leftover hairs, bone fragments and other bodily remains.

Feeling increasingly satisfied, I can’t help but hum the opening lines of my favorite song by ‘The Temptations’. My humming quickly turns into giddy singing: “I’ve got sunshine,… on a cloudy day….” The familiar tingling in my body starts, and before I know it, I am performing the ‘Temptation Walk’, swaying to the tune of this song that I know so well from my youth.

My dad and I would dance to this song in our living room, every time after he had told me, with wide-open sparkling eyes, that another one of the many ‘auntie’s’ he brought home wouldn’t be visiting us anymore.

He was the one who taught me that expressing my interest in a girl with a well-timed reference to this timeless classic song would almost always make her let her guard down.

All set! I’m ready to hit the bars tonight. I can’t wait to meet my next girl and, soon, welcome her into my playroom.

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Sonja still felt stunned that she had managed to slip away from her regular grocery store, her full cart left abandoned. She had gone to the other, pricier store. Finishing up, and finally at ease, Sonja warmly greeted the cashier.

Suddenly, a familiar silhouette grabbed her attention. The woman’s preying eyes immediately locked on Sonja. Sonja froze as the woman hurried straight towards her. She was stuck between the next person in line and the guy packing her groceries.

The woman, now blocking her passageway, hissed menacingly, “Sonja, there you are. Why aren’t you answering my messages?”

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Slowly, I licked the inside of her underarm, from her wrist up to her elbow. I pressed my tongue firmly against her skin, savoring every inch. I could feel her blood pounding in her arteries.

I glanced at her face: nostrils flaring, her skin soaked with sweat, tears and blood. Through the gag, I could hear her whimper. The sounds sent waves of delight up my spine.

She looked at me with her remaining eye, the brown pupil fully dilated in a bloodshot eyeball.

The closer I got to the elbow joint, the more she shook, her body trembling violently. She had quickly learned the rules of my game. She knew my next cut would be right below the joint.

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The enormous effort to cross the Atlantic had been worth it. His exhausted, pain-ridden body relaxed in anticipation.

The sea displayed the dark blue and aquamarine hues he fondly remembered from his youth.

The sun burned on his paper-thin skin.

The hospice nurse carefully helped him into the water.

Soon, the sea embraced him.

He was ready to let go.

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Shirma loved her waitressing job at the restaurant. It was just dealing with the kitchen crew, that proudly addressed themselves as the “white brigade”, and more in particular, Chef Logan, that posed a challenge.

Just tonight, Shirma hurried to grab a bag of frozen fruit from the walk-in freezer. The bag wasn’t on the usual shelf, so she had to go deeper into the freezer.

Suddenly, the freezer door slammed shut, instantly cutting off the light. Feeling her way to the freezer door with her free arm, she pushed against it, but it wouldn’t budge. She pounded on the door.

“Hey! Let me out!”

Logan answered sneeringly. “What’s that? Did a black brigade rat enter my freezer without my approval?” Logan never hid his contempt for the waiting staff, the so-called “black brigade”.

“Don’t be such an obnoxious jerk, Logan!” Shirma shouted. She kept pounding on the door. “Open the damn door!”

“Ask politely!” Logan hissed back.

Shirma felt her pulse speeding. “Let me out now!”

She pushed against the door with all her weight, but it didn’t budge.

Just as she attempted a second push, the door flew open.

Shirma blinked. The entire white brigade stood in a semi-circle facing the freezer, Logan at the center, hands on his hips.

“Shirma my dear, were you locked in the freezer?” He smirked at her. “It was cold in there, eh?” His eyes fixated on her breasts. “Shit,” Shirma thought, realizing she wasn’t wearing a padded bra.

“Fuck you,” she hissed angrily and stormed out of the kitchen, leaving the bad jokes and laughter behind.

Mara, the bartender, looked at her questioningly. “You okay?”

“Yeah” Shirma answered, “It’s just Logan, he is such a jerk. Sure, he’s a great Chef. But why couldn’t he be a great, mute Chef?”

Mara laughed uncontrollably. “Good one, Shirms!”

Shirma couldn’t help but laugh as well. Still, one day, someone had to make Logan stop.

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Terri gazed sadly at her friend Chrystel, sitting across the table.

‘I was at his place and he put on some music. As I tried to remember the songs’ title, he started singing. He broke up with me singing the lyrics to ‘All the girls I’ve loved before’! Basically, he told me I could travel out his door. It was so humiliating!’

Chrystel nodded empathetically.

‘I just don’t understand. We got along well….’

‘Yes, you did. But maybe you guys were only intended to be friends?’

‘Nooo, the chemistry was real! He did things to me….’ Terri blushed. Chrystel felt her stomach harden.

Tears welled up again in Terri’s eyes. ‘I thought that we were open and comfortable with each other. He says that we’re too comfortable with each other. He is not feeling a thrill anymore.’ Sobbing, she continued: ‘How is feeling comfortable and safe together, a bad thing?!’

Chrystel sighed. ‘I don’t now Terri. It just sounds like his mind is made up.’

Terri faced her friend. ‘Do you think there’s someone else?’

Taken aback, Chrystel averted her eyes and took a sip of coffee. ‘No,’ she said decisively, ‘He’s not that kind of guy.’

‘I don’t know what’s worse,’ Terri whispered, ‘To be replaced or to hear that you are not enough…’ She shook her head. ‘I am going to wash my face’.

As soon as Terri left, Chrystel grabbed her phone to text.

‘Am I too going to be just another girl you’ve loved before?’

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