I dressed sharp. Suit and heels. Skirt short but not too short. Classy but available. If you're lucky.
I checked the outfit against The Wall. My office wall, festooned with pictures, grainy printouts from security camera stills, all attractive women, all filmed in bars or clubs, or on the street. All dressed the same way I was.
I tore the photos down, but I lingered over the last one, the only photo of a male. In fifteen seconds I had memorised his face.
I burned the photos in the fireplace and went out to get some food.
I found the man by the waterfront, strolling alone amongst the last of the day-trippers and the first of the nightclubbers. With a flick of my thumb I lit a cigarette and followed him, a hundred yards behind.
He went into a pub with ideas above its station. I took a moment to fix my make-up and followed him in.
I found a corner in the shadows and watched as he worked the room. His easy, greasy smile did not fool the women he tried it on.
Until, of course, it did.
The blonde was a little too young and a little too drunk. The man bought her a drink, a double, and before she had finished it he bought her another. He made the girl laugh, and her head rolled back a little more loosely than it should, and when he asked her a question and she nodded and reached for her coat, I stepped out of the alcove, and was on them before they'd left the table.
"You don't want her, you want me," I said.
"What?" said the blonde, but the man had registered my looks. They always do.
"Really?" he smiled.
"Fuckin' prick," said the blonde, getting the picture. I didn't even look at her.
"Sorry, love," I said, "but I'm taking this one for the girls".
The blonde stalked off.
"I'm..." he began, but I cut him off.
"I don't care. Come with me."
I turned and walked away, trusting that he'd follow.
He did.
We walked together, without talking, back to my apartment. I let him in, took his coat, and showed him to the living-room. He took in the view over the city, but when he turned (the words "nice place" were, I was sure, on his lips, the unoriginal bastard) I cut him off by putting the music on. It doesn't matter what music. It was sweet, it was sexy, but most important of all, it was loud.
I slipped out of my jacket and walked towards him, swinging my hips.
"Dance?" I said, and he nodded, held out his hands, and we danced.
To my surprise, he wasn't bad. A little stiff, but he knew the moves, and I let him lead me around the floor for a few minutes that I could almost have described as... enjoyable. But the hunger overtook me, and I moved closer to him, arms around his waist, and I managed not to shudder as his hands slid down my back, towards...
"You've been bad, haven't you?" I whispered.
He barely heard me. "Mm-hmm?"
"I know what you've been doing," I said.
"Mm-what?"
He was starting to listen.
"I know what you did to all those girls," I said, louder now. "I can see it in your soul."
"You fucking what?!" he cried, realising that the seduction was over, or, at least, that it had not been the seduction he had intended. He tried to push away, but my arms were locked tight. And I am very, very strong.
"Get the fuck off me," he hissed, and I tightened my grip.
"LOOK AT ME!" I growled, and he heard the change in my voice as I let go, giving in to the animal inside, and his anger turned to fear.
A lock of hair fell over one of my eyes, but he looked in the other, and I gave him the glint, the fire in my eye, that tiny window to the very me. And as he gazed, the spark became a flame, as of a single candle burning bright, and he was transfixed.
"Who are you?" he gibbered.
"I AM YOUR DEATH," I said, and I knew my voice now seemed to him to come from the abyss, and he realised even as the oxygen in his brain ran low that he had heard me speak but I had not moved my lips.
I allowed the change to happen in me. I let go. My skin blackened, then cracked, revealing not flesh but flame within, and the fire burst through the cracks and engulfed me, and I held him tight in my embrace as first his clothes and then his skin burned, and he fought to break free, shrieking, but the screams died quickly as he ran out of air.
He slumped against me, and I knew that he was gone, this bad man, this hater of women, and I summoned the will to put the fire out. The flames died away, and I lowered the charred corpse to the floor. This time I had been able to keep the fire under control. But it had been harder. It was progressive. Some day I would lose it. After three thousand years living this way, a forgotten god alone amongst mortals, scraping a living amongst the pigs and the assholes, the fire was become more and more difficult to command. Soon the glory of it would consume me, and then the whole world would burn with me.
But not tonight. That magnificence would have to wait.
I strode to the fireproof closet and put on a robe, left the man smouldering, and went to the kitchen.
I came back with an electric carving knife and a silver platter. I stopped by the man's jacket, retrieved his wallet from an inside pocket. I flicked it open as I walked back to the middle of the room and stood over the carcass. The man's name was Nigel.
I threw the wallet away, kneeled on the floor, placed the platter down beside what was once Nigel, turned on the carving knife, and went to work.
"Sorry, Nigel," I said. "But a girl's gotta eat."
