A photo prompt and four words…. 🖊 … became a piece of thriller flash fiction ⚙️

Today on the Fiction Cafe Writer’s Group this photo prompt appeared along with some words which ideally they wanted as the first few words He wanted her job and it would be easy enough …

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I enjoyed sipping a coffee during a break from the rug room activities and came up with the following 742 words. I decided to share it with you – especially you Patti, as I know you like a creepy tale from me 🔪xxx

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Happy reading folks and keep writing

🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊🖊

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He wanted her job and it would be easy enough to achieve if he was subtle. Eight years he’d been overlooked as each new high-flying and well-spoken graduate came in to look after the collection.

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‘No-one knows the pieces like we do, do they?’ Mason snarled his upper lip while his huge hands flattened the static fur of the old cat on his lap. Its bony frame felt good beneath his touch and he pressed a little harder, but still the cat purred, the sound vibrating through the small cellar room where he kept all the tools for his caretaker role beneath the museum.

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A light flashed on his call box which he knew meant she had arrived. He stood and the cat rolled off, scrabbling to hold on to his trousers with extended claws, one embedding itself in his flesh.

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‘Geroff!’ Mason flicked the paw away and re-opened the email photo. Just one more look. His pupils reduced to pin holes as the light from the screen gave her delicious face to him. He licked his lips at her sweet smile, the angle of her neck rising from a cream dress which showed her collarbones. His heart quickened as he imagined running a finger along one. It would snap delightfully between his strong fingers.

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The cat curled around his ankles and he shook out some food from a box onto the floor and watched the animal crouch over it before he opened the door and locked it behind him.

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* * *

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‘Good morning! You must be Arabella, do please come this way.’ Mason stepped back to allow her through.

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‘Thank you so much, and for agreeing to my request. I always like to start a day early to get to know the place so I feel more at ease when the public come through, you know?’ she smiled at him, her teeth a perfect row of ivory. 

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‘I couldn’t agree more. So many curators do not understand the lie of the land when they start and concentrate only on the most valuable items, but I say it’s the building, its infrastructure which can hold all the fascination.’

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He kept his hands behind his back and the brown tweed three-piece suit he wore camouflaged the raging need within his limbs to pull her to one side, into the dark corridors.

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She was wearing the same cream dress and as she shrugged off her coat, he noticed how the material hugged her petit frame. ‘Oh, you’re so right! I love architecture and have always admired this building. How long have you worked here?’

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‘Eight years now.’ They strolled up the stone stairway to the main hall, away from the side door which she’d been advised to use today while the museum was closed, when all other staff were home playing happy families. Mason had been delighted to have been asked to show her in, show her round. It gave him a chance to size her up.

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He pulled the half moon glasses from an inside pocket and perched them on the end of his nose. ‘These stained glass windows? On Mondays and Tuesdays, I clean each pane. Very carefully, with very gentle movements using soft cloths.’ 

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‘Wow! No wonder they still look so brilliant.’ She was so enraptured by their colour, she did not realise her mouth was open while she looked up through the dust motes circling in the air above them. She was oblivious to Mason’s eyes upon her throat, or the vein throbbing fast in his neck.

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‘Yes, you have to handle them with the most delicate of touches because they will break very easily and cannot ever be replaced, and that would be a tragedy.’ did her smile just falter, had he pushed his luck and scared her off as he so often did.

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‘Can we see my office if that’s ok?’ 

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‘Yes, of course, forgive me. This way.’ And he gestured for her to walk along the west wing, across the black and white tiled floor he polished on Wednesdays and towards the row of mahogany doors with brass handles.

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‘Oh look!’ she turned to him, her tiny hand over her mouth like a child in awe of a coveted gift, ‘This must be me!’

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He nodded at her excitement and opened the door with Curator on a brass plaque. ‘Yes, this is you, and on the desk is a green button. Anything you need, I’m always on the other end. You only have to call.’

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‘It’s amazing! Thank you … Mason, isn’t it?’ her heels clicked back to where he stood taking up the whole doorway and offered to shake his hand. ‘I look forward to working with you.’

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His hand engulfed hers. ‘The pleasure is all mine.’