Fiction: “Midnight, San Francisco,” by Samuel Marzioli
Stellan slouched against the bar,
hands cradling a shot glass as if he were warming an unhatched egg. For
hours, he’d kept himself to himself, tipping back an assembly line of
shot glasses, not bothering to look up long enough to notice anything
beyond the increasing blur of wood grain on the counter-top.
So when a stranger sidled up beside him and whispered “Hi” into his
ear, his arms jerked and the contents of his glass doused his hands in
whiskey.
“Sorry,” the stranger said. “I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
He looked up. Irritation painted a scowl on his face for both the
interruption and the loss of four bucks worth of liquid apathy. But the
moment he saw the stranger clearly, his expression shifted into
wide-eyed awe. She wasn’t just hot; she was goddamn beautiful, with
creamy skin, eyes the color of amethyst, and lips red as fresh-shed
blood. And her body? The perfection of its curves would have made the
greatest master sculptors of old weep and blush with envy.
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...read the rest of the story...]
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Samuel Marzioli is an Italian-Filipino author of
mostly dark fiction. His work has appeared or is forthcoming in various
publications, including The Best of Apex Magazine (2016), Shock Totem, Intergalactic Medicine Show, and Myriad Lands Vol. 2 (2016). You can find more information about his latest projects at : marzioli.blogspot.com
If you enjoyed this story, you might also want to check out "Smart Money," from very deep in the SHOWCASE archives.
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