Short Story Excerpt: Princesses

 

Does anyone remember MSN Groups? The good old days of the internet! One of the groups I belonged to back in the day offered a little bit of everything. I remember there were threads for PSP tutorials, kink talk, horror movie discussions, and paranormal topics. One year, there was a contest for the best Halloween short story.

That’s how this horror story was born. I didn’t even give it much planning or outlining. I just sat down with pen in hand (I used to write everything out and type it up later in Word until I realized how much unnecessary work was involved in that process.) So, I wrote Princesses out in an afternoon.

I won the contest.

Since that first draft, I have revised and added to the story until it became the polished story that I included in Whispers From Hell: An Anthology of Horror and the Supernatural.

Here’s a taste of Princesses:

 

     I find myself reminiscing about our first meeting and their consecutive visits. I imagine it’s similar to a maiden reliving her first meeting with her greatest love. That is how it feels to me; my heart pounds at the merest thought of the Princesses. My life before that first meeting seems like a dream now; vague and distant.

     I was at the farmer's market, mulling about and picking out the week's fruits and vegetables at my leisure. It was so rare for me to leave my living quarters that, once out, I would procrastinate my return until the last possible moment. In fact, the duty of grocery shopping was the only opportunity I had to get out amongst our community and I had chosen to do the shopping on Saturdays for a reason: the market was always bustling with people and activities on the first day of the weekend. Children ran about, chasing one another, and played games, while the fathers and young men browsed through T-shirts, hand-crafted items, and leather goods. Meanwhile, the women spent much of their time groping locally farmed produce, trading recipes, and, of course, catching up on a week's worth of gossip. Some days, the socializing gave me just a taste of a life far more tantalizing than the one I lived six days of the week, but, other Saturdays, I was content just to observe the goings-on and enjoy the fresh air.

     It was one of these days that the Princesses came upon me. I can't say how long they must have watched me for I took no notice of them until they surrounded me, but they must have been watching me for some considerable time. They seemed so focused upon me that I cannot believe they just happened upon me by some random, happy accident. One moment, I was sorting through tomatoes and, the next moment, I was surrounded by the three women I would come to know as the Princesses.

     Before I had even looked up at them, their mere presences had me feeling intimidated and more than a little frightened. The two women standing on either side of me were so close that I found it impossible to relax my arms at my sides. I was forced, by their immovability, to keep my hands dangling over the edge of the bin in front of me, which had been my focus only seconds earlier. Behind me, I could feel the third woman's breasts pressed firmly against my back, while her hot breath's sweet, alluring scent fanned my flushed face.

     I don't think I looked up at any of them throughout the entire encounter; I kept my eyes averted out of fear. I wasn't afraid of them, exactly. It was the fear that these women would see in my eyes the emotions that they aroused within me. My legs quivered and wobbled so fiercely that, had the Princesses not been standing so close, I surely would have stumbled and fallen to the concrete floor. And my heart! It pounded and raced loud enough that, at times, it was all I could hear! My head was in a stupor as well; everything surrounding the four of us seemed hazy and blurred as though I was in the midst of a whirlwind.

Experience all nine stories in Whispers From Hell: An Anthology of Horror & the Supernatural.

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