Behind the Curtain: Flash Fiction Contest

So, the lovely Anna Meade provided a flash fiction contest entitled "Behind the Curtain". There was a limit of 400 words and it had to surround the theme "behind the curtain" or the world backstage. Being a theatre junkie and a kid who grew up backstage I jumped at the chance to have a little fun. And with NaNoWriMo just around the corner what better time to stretch my writing mind? So here we go.

He stepped behind her as she bent to adjust her point shoes, admiring the view. “It won’t change if you look away, I promise.” She didn’t look up but neither did she move to obstruct his view.

“It’s just such a nice ass.” He mumbled with a sneer “I’m appreciating the natural beauties in this world.”

“Well stop it; I have a solo to perform.” And she was gone, leaving him only the scent of sweat, blood and deodorant in her wake. The moment she was gone a pair of slender hands came up behind him, snaking around his waist and sliding up his open, silken shirt.

“Oh poor baby, doesn’t she want to play with you?”

“She never wants to play with me.” He held the hands for a moment before squeezing them hard enough to make her hiss. “But I don’t want to play with you.” He turned to face her pouting face and sighed “I’m sorry about your loss but I’m not interested in making you feel better.”

“No,” she whimpered “you only want to make her feel better because she’s the only one who ever turned you down. You just watch out because the last man who made her angry ended up in a gutter outside of town with a belly full of arsenic.”

“Wha-” but she was gone, storming off for the thousandth time since he had joined the company three years ago. The only thing left in her wake was hot, salty tears and a desperation to follow after her.

“He did what?!?!”She went crying to the manager, the round, sausage-like oaf who unfortunately knew what he was doing even if he couldn’t do it himself. When he heard the news that his lead male dancer was once again, upsetting the girls with his rude behavior, the audience gasped as they heard the sound of shattering glass coming from somewhere backstage but the dancers continued to serenade them with their turns and forever arabesques so they forgot all about it as they often do.

The manager quickly ordered a stage-hand to drop everything and clear the glass from the window and had another find him another chair to sit on and soon it was forgotten backstage as the curtain went down and the male lead was called into the manager’s office along with his prima ballerina.

By the end of the night he was dead.

400 Words

Check out the other entries and enter (there's still time): http://yearningforwonderland.blogspot.ca/2012/10/behind-curtain-flash-fiction-contest.html