The prompt for this week’s story (which was issue as a a challenge the same week Fifty Shades of Grey hit theaters) was: Write a story no longer than 150O words that include the following elements: a statuette, a bottle of perfume, and a matchbook.

I fussed around with it all week.
I could see the story in my head but wasn’t sure how to translate it to written words.

“If only this were a movie….” I lamented, finally embracing the notion and letting that phrase lead the way.

The following is where that mantra and 1281 words took me…..

“Shades of Gray”

If this were a movie, it would be in black and white.

One of those moody noir pieces where women wear kitten heels and scarves; pencil skirts to keep from out pacing the men, and are, above all else, very efficient secretaries. 

The ones who are not very efficient secretaries? 

Those women are trouble.

Those are the women who end up in places like this in the evening hours as the pewter gray sun begins to dip below the monochromatic horizon. On cue, rain will begin to fall. Trouble, heading home from some place she never should have been, will seek shelter in a smokey little jazz cafe to wait out the pale gray storm. 

In this kind of film there are two kinds of women. 

There are ladies and there are dames. 

This one?

This one looks the part of the lady but her choice of seating gives her away. 

She bypasses the small, corner table near the safety of the door. 

The one with the window. 

The one with the curtains pulled to keep private the goings on inside the club. 

Curtains she could pull back to fretfully watch for a let up in the downpour. 

The table a lady would have chosen. 

This one has no qualms about venturing over the threshold of such a place.

She is confident and at ease in the smokey haze of this boys’ club. Without a glance at the obvious table choice she makes a beeline for the bar. Not so much the bar as the handsome man in the smart suit seated at the bar nursing his first drink in what promises to be a very long night.

Before sliding gracefully onto the stool next to him, she sets her black attache case onto the floor. Looking up she catches his eye and remarks that he has good taste, as his case is identical to hers. 

The ice is broken. 

In this kind of film, in this kind of place, there are no drinks with umbrellas. 

Here Scotch is neat.

Gin tangos with tonic.

Martinis are shaken, not stirred.

If this were a movie it would be in black and white.

Deep red lips translate to black on film.

Pre-modern goth.

Blue eyes are slate.

Dapper legs fold one on top of the other, stockings threatening to ignite from the friction of the cross. 

Long tresses fall in seductive peekaboo waves covering her left eye. 

Hiding her devil side. 

She orders a drink.

Gin dances with tonic as she remarks about the weather. 

“Bad luck” she will comment.

He is not so sure. 

The rain brought her in after all.

Into this place. 

This club. 

This bar. 

This stool to the right, to the angel side of him. 

His heart has been broken. 

He has sworn off the ladies. 

But as we have established, this ain’t no lady. 

So maybe he will soften. 

Another Scotch, neat, and he may let down his guard.

Begin to tell her things. 

Reckless things.

Things he shouldn’t tell. 

He is an art dealer he would confide. Working on the side procuring items of beauty and value for men with very specific tastes. He has a little something on hand right now. A statuette from a bygone era tucked safely away in his attache case on the floor awaiting delivery. 

Would she like to see it?

“Not now”, she would decline.

“Buy me another?” she would ask, nodding to her near empty glass.

To which he would oblige. 

If this were a movie it would be in black and white.

He would want to know her story.

Where she is during the day and what brings her out at night.

She would answer him coyly. 

Play hard to get.

Opening her pocketbook she would produce a cigarette from a silver case that clicks with finality when she closes it shut. 

“Got a light?” she would rasp. To which he would proffer a matchbook from the bowl on the bar. Cupping her hand as she inhales their eyes would lock and the camera would hold tight on the shot of her visible right eye and we would know by the unwavering focus of that union-membered camera man, that she was hiding something. 

A secret. 

Our guy at the bar? The one we are rooting for. The one with the broken heart and a penchant for the strong stuff; he will feel himself beginning to relax. Thoughts of forbidden things will cross his mind as he gazes into her one visible eye. His heart will begin to quicken just enough to cause him to sweat just a bit beneath his fedora. He is feeling out of his element. He has always been a ladies man but this is his first time dealing with a dame and…

She has him a little unsure.

She has him a little rattled. 

She has him right where she wants him.  

Our guy at the bar?

He thinks his luck is about to change.

He thinks this might be his night.

He thinks this might be a love story.

He thinks wrong.

A horn beckons from the street outside the bar.

A sedan with blackened windows idles near the curb.

This is her cue. 

She reaches for her purse to pay off her tab.

He tells her not to be silly. He has it covered. In exchange, of course, for her number.

He hands her a pen and the matchbook; meant to strike and burn and set things on fire.

The original Tinder.

She writes down her name (Chanel) and shrugs into her coat.

Another impatient honk.

She was the bait, now for the switch. 

She gathers up her case from the floor and whispers something the audience is not privy to into his ear. He gives her elbow a squeeze and wishes her a good night and watches with longing as she strides out the door and into the waiting car. 

He orders another as she is whisked away.

This was supposed to be a love story.

But not the one we were led to believe.

The guy at the bar?
He was not the only one she crossed.

We believed her too.

We thought this was a love story.

Turns out it was a caper.

The sedan is detoured from its course by a generous tip offered the driver

by the dame in the back seat.

Hooded eye meeting his in the rear view.

Double his rate to bypass the rendezvous spot and take her straight to the airport.

She boards the prop plane alone.

Makes up an excuse and taxis the runway solo.

She has taken this from a love story to a caper to something we have not seen up until this point.

For far too long she has been an object of beauty and value to men with very specific tastes. 

Turns out she has been playing them all. Waiting until the time was right. 

This girl is no Girl Friday.

She is the lead they never saw coming.

This is her film.

Her lover is waiting at the hotel for her to return with the case.

You know, the one she switched.

The one our guy at the bar knows nothing about. 

Not yet.

Not until he brings the case to his client and discovers a bottle of perfume, perfectly proportioned and weighted to match and mimic and impersonate that priceless piece of art. 

Only then will he realize the true gravity of dealing with a dame.

For now Scotch burns warm in his belly and his heart and loins burn hot with possibility. 

To him, for now, this is still a love story.