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Goodbye, Luscious Pretty: A Short Story

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Goodbye, Luscious Pretty

I run the razor lightly across the cheek bone. The flesh pulls against the motion, springing back. The mouth, somehow, stays fixed in the trademark smirk she made famous.
“Couldn’t her hair be a bit more bouncy?”
I check. Maybe. It’s already a bouffant and a half. The hairs are brittle, extensions barely covering the holes in her birds-nest-hair-do.
“She used to have it at least an inch higher, and more blonde in the highlights – shimmer colour-range five rather than sunprime colour-range 8a.” The Aunt taps ash from her cigarette onto the metal gurney.
“I’d really rather you didn’t do that.” I nod at her fag laden fingers.
“Oh forget it, darling, she wouldn’t mind. It was smokes that got her in the end, but then I …show more content…

I ignore her and shove cotton balls in the eyes – feel the stale gristle rub against the sockets. I close the eyelids, run a finger over the cold, plucked brows, smooth them.
“Can we not have a cigarette coming from her mouth, more like this?” Aunt shoves a fag end between the corpse’s glue shot lips. Twists it so it’s just so.
“No. We don’t do cigarettes here. Sorry.” Fuck, I always apologise, even now. “But that’s what she would have wanted. You’ve got her will, right?” I brush my overalls down; a chunk of bone jelly slaps against the floor around my feet. Somewhere in my head I can hear the grinding of teeth. “Yes, and you’ve got our terms, right?” There’s a silence, punctuated only by the dry ticks coming from the wall clock. Aunt Martha purses her wrinkly lips, a sticky sucking sound slapping around the inside of her mouth. She nods. “Fine, no cigarette. If that’s how it has to be. Have her ready for viewing an hour before we’re due to go on. I’ll want to do a final check.” She doesn’t wait for an answer, turning her corseted back to me and clicking away on her seven inch stilettoes. Hopefully she’s hiding varicose veins under the neon pink tights. Gnarled, ready to burst into a torrent of blood down her surgically refined …show more content…

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“What the fuck is this?” She looks in the mirror, first at her reflection, then at mine. “It’s the meeting of forest and water, twigs and glitter, green and fluorescent pink. It’s what you asked for.” I try not to stutter but my mouth dries up as each word wriggles out.
“I’ll tell you what it is.” She smears the lipstick across her mouth on a vaselined Kleenex. “It’s vomit on a face. It’s dog shit in the dinner. It’s a fucking clown parade in finger paint.”
“But you said…”
“I know exactly what I said, and for some reason it obviously failed to engage.” She spins around on her chair, kicking me out of the way and tears welling in her eyes ready to burst over her reddened cheeks. “Aunt Martha, Aunt Martha,” she shrills.
At the rear of the studio Martha looms towards us, silhouetted against the lights flashing against the catwalk

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