The Last Stall

The tattooed lady is the last stop on the sideshow. Jay finds her in a lone stall, behind a curtain shimmering like nacre. She stands naked, body long and lean and unadorned but for the black-ink snaked winding sinuously from the bird-boned curve of her left ankle to her right shoulder blade.

Jay watches it detach its diamond shaped head from her scapula, ribbon thin tongue tasting the air, the wriggling mouse she holds over her shoulder.

A smooth jaw-snapping lunge and the snake flattens back into ink, the lump of mouse now a strange, wiggling growth beneath her skin.

 

For this week’s 100 Word Challenge: Snake.