Brass Lighters and Red Lipstick by Samantha Haven

The brass lighter read “Queenie.” With one smooth roll it was in Jackie’s hand, flicking to life like a well-trained servant, to light her French import. She smoothed the letters over with her thumb, erasing the smudges so she could see her reflection. Mascara was caked around her eyes like a four-year-old after playing with her mother’s make-up and her lipstick was smeared like a Pepto-bismol milk ring around her mouth. She slithered out of bed, attempting to straighten the tight black dress that was hopelessly wrinkled and crushed against her body. Her head weighted her down and her sight gave way for a moment, forcing her to steady herself on the nightstand. Smashing what remained of the cigarette, she lit another and headed for the bar on the other side of her apartment.Jackie reached for a crystal highball glass, filled it with ice, followed by scotch. Collapsing onto the bar stool, Jackie began swigging away until the phone startled her to life, causing her to splatter scotch across her chest. She picked up the receiver with one hand, using the other to sponge herself off with a dirty bar rag.

“Who wants me?”

“It’s me babe. I’m sorry.” The voice brought up her first wave of hang-over induced nausea. She should have known better than to trust that weasely, high-pitched, namby-pamby, son of a bitch. “I’m at the coffee shop, come on down,” he continued as if Jackie were just sitting around waiting for him. As if she didn’t have anything better to do than to cater to his sorry ass.

“We are so over.”

“Please come down.”

“You come up.”

“I come up and you’re gonna’ kill me.”

“Maybe.” Jackie threw the rag behind the bar, unintentionally sending a martini glass off balance and crashing to the floor.

“It was all a mistake. I can explain everything,” the voice begged. She liked it when they begged.

“I have her lighter.” Jackie rolled a stray toothpick around her tongue. She could just picture him at the other end of the phone, shaking. His baby blues must be scanning the street, wondering how his life had turned to this - begging for mercy in a phone booth, outside a coffee shop, on a street in New York. The thought brought an evil form of happiness to Jackie.
“Baby, baby…”

“Cut the crap Johnny!” I saw you fucking her!” Jackie downed the scotch and slammed down the phone. It rang again. She answered it.

“Honey just come see me. I know we can work it out.”

“I don’t want your apologies and I don’t want your explanations. I want you and your bimbo Queenie to get the fuck out of town before I have the both of yous killed. Nobody fucks around on me Johnny, nobody.” The last sentence she forced through her lungs with a practice she had perfected. The words hung in the air; fucks, killed, bimbo – they made-out together– forming a festering cloud of smut. This time she hung up for good and poured herself another glass.

Jackie wandered over to the window and sure enough Johnny was standing below looking for her. They stood that way for a moment, before Johnny took off running. Jackie sauntered back to the bar, clutching her forehead and smiling as a massive headache slowly numbed into a beautiful drunken buzz.

Grabbing her crystal encrusted Tiffany’s telephone dialer, she rang Vinny.

“Jackie baby, is that you?” Vinny barked in the gruff way he always does like a guard dog at a junkyard, smoothing her jangled nerves like calamine.

“Yeah. It’s Johnny,” she said still fingering the lighter, knowing her tone revealed the entire story to Vinny.

“Mother fucker! I told that prick to be careful.”

“Apparently his ears are broken.”

“I’ll have my men on it pronto. Nobody disgraces my baby cousin. Nobody.”

“I’ve got her lighter.” Jackie’s eyes glazed over.

“He’s history baby. Don’t you worry about it.”

“Thanks Vinny. You’re the best.”

“Always.”

As the next morning’s sun pierced through the slit between her curtains, Jackie rolled out of bed and lit a cigarette. Gathering her top sheet around her naked body, she opened her apartment door and picked up the morning paper. Jackie flung it on the kitchen table, and served herself another breakfast of scotch on the rocks. Sitting at the table, glass in hand, Jackie turned straight to the blotter. Sure enough there was the police report - Johnny Ricardo found dead from repeated stab wounds on the docks, late last night. No clues as to motives or persons involved. Good ole Vinny. Jackie took her drink and her sheet back to bed, where she tossed the lighter into a drawer in her nightstand. It disappeared into a stack of lighters all engraved with women’s names.

Jackie woke up Friday morning and slipped on her favorite black funeral dress. She pulled on her black stiletto heels and dug out the black lace shawl her cousin Donna Maria gave her just before she died. She eyed her look in the full-length mirror and cocked a smile the way Donna Maria used to before she snared her next specimen.

She carefully applied her blood red lipstick and touched up her long enameled nails. Once ready, she entered the building’s parking garage and slithered into her black Jaguar with “Jackie” vanity plates.

The funeral had already begun when she arrived. Knowing no one, Jackie hung to the back. While the boring minister droned on, she enjoyed memories of the real side of Johnny, his kinky obsession with women’s lace undergarments and his need to cry out “momma mia” when he came. She thought about Queenie, whip in hand, riding him like a seal as they lolled on his water bed.

The time came for the attendees to approach the grave and say their final good-byes. Jackie snuck behind a six foot two mirror image of Johnny, her body trembling with desire.

“I’m Jackie.” She offered her hand to Mr. Six Foot Two, eyes of blue.

“Michael.”

“It’s nice to meet you…Michael.” Jackie applied her patented prescription combo of sweetness and sex appeal.

Michael looked confused. “I swear I know you from somewhere.”

“Hum,” Jackie shrugged causing her shawl to dance off her shoulder while batting her eyes in the opposite direction. “Funerals are creepy,” she continued, this time allowing the shawl to fall fully away, exposing her creamy white skin, and from Michael’s higher view, a direct shot into her $6,000 size D’s. “I didn’t know Johnny very well,” Jackie turned on the fake tears. “But it’s comforting to be here, to see him lain to rest, you know?” She let her handkerchief fall to the ground.

“Oh!” Jackie bent over before Michael could to pick it up - exposing her breasts to the nipple level as she delicately retrieved the handkerchief with her first finger and thumb. “Wanna go for a cup of coffee? I could sure use some comfort now.” She coyly asked with a wink in her eye.

Michael nodded his head, just like they all did.

They walked to her Jaguar and slid in without saying a word. She placed one extended nail on the sunroof button and it coiled back into the car. She hiked up her skirt so most of her thighs were exposed. Michael adjusted himself. Jackie flashed him a bright red smile, and he twitched. Back they went to the coffee shop, to her apartment, and soon enough… to that drawer of lighters.

(Header Photo Credit: Rebecca Wachtel)

Samantha Haven loves to study the human mind, heart and the body’s sexual organs. Thinking of the way a piece of chocolate melts on a tongue and oozes around teeth gets her typing fingers going. Samantha prefers bondage that involves silk scarves to handcuffs, and always baths in candlelight. She is on a literary quest to find the betwixt and between where fiction ends and erotica begins. Samantha is the Short Stories Editor at Pink Nighties.