Every time I participate in a flash fiction event, my friend Wingman suggests at least one noir prompt. The first three are new shorts, and I’ve included the others as reposts.
Short Stacks
Volume XIVb - Noir Edition
~ss.md
Eclipsed by Sirens
I sat in my swivel office chair, sipping a well-earned glass of bourbon. The rain clattering against my window like so much pea gravel made a kaleidoscope of the arc lamps and neon that bathed the city in an electric glow. Wins were few and far between for me these days, but Mrs. Haversham had compensated me well for locating her lost pearls. As such, I’d picked up a bottle from my contact at the local Barrel Syndicate and sent Miss Cunningham home early. I intended to get properly sauced before catching a cab home and shoving the rent into my landlady’s bitter face.
My quiet, barrel-aged reverie was shattered by a commotion outside my office door. Two voices, both of them female, bickered in what were meant to be hushed tones.
“I don’t think he’s in.”
“Then why was the door unlocked?”
“There’s no girl at the desk; maybe he forgot to lock the door.”
“Leave if you want. I’m knocking on that door.”
With a sigh, I drained my glass, stashed the bottle, and opened the door. There were indeed two women intruding on my victorious solitude. A ginger-maned fox and a raven-haired feline. Neither appeared to have missed a meal since the turn of the century. The redhead tested the stitching on a velvet-smooth frock of emerald green under a coat that must have taken half the foxes in England to make. Her companion—or, perhaps, rival—wore an equally tarp-like duster in black leather over a red-sequinned dress. Both young women had surely been stunning beauties at some point in the past, but I doubted now that any butcher, fishmonger, or patisserie within a ten-block radius of their respective homes wanted for business.
“Good evening, ladies. How can I—“
Before I could finish, the redhead said, “I need your help, Mister Slade—“
The lady in red cut her off. “Oh no, you don’t, I was here first!”
“Like hell you were! Mister Slade, my name is Odessa LaRue, and my—“
“Wait your turn, you cow!” Turning to me, the raven-haired hippo said, “I’m Lilith Blake, and my housekeeper is stealing from me—“
Odessa crashed her substantial hip into Lilith, sending the other woman teetering. I noticed for the first time that both women wore improbably tall heels, no doubt doing irreparable damage to my old-growth floors.
“How dare you,“ Lilith gasped. “Just because you’ve got more tits than brains, that’s no excuse for rudeness!”
The cans on Miss LaRue were substantial indeed, though both women carried so much excessive abundance, it was difficult to judge which pair of head-sized knockers was the more substantial.
“Rude?” Odessa snapped. “That’s rich coming from you. I have a real problem only Mister Slade can solve, and you’re whining about some servant? Just fire the cretin and be done with it. Or are you too worried about who will bring you chocolate-covered cherries by the bucketful when she’s gone?”
Lilith’s face reddened to match her cinnamon tresses, and she puffed herself up—even larger, if that were possible—pressing her own abundant curves into those of Miss LaRue. “The nerve! You dare speak to me of chocolate? And I suppose you grew to the size of a ploughhorse by eating carrots, did you?”
Miss LaRue’s cheeks flushed in response, but her lapis eyes held an odd glimmer. “A horse, am I? Well, if I’m a horse, you must be a hippopotamus!”
She grabbed a handful of belly flab in each hand, making Miss Blake gasp, her flush spreading from apple-sized cheeks to cover the ring of fat that was her third chin.
Lilith responded by gripping Miss LaRue’s bosom and driving them both against the office wall. A few framed newspaper articles rattled as the corpulent competitors collided, but mercifully stayed on their hooks.
Odessa and Lilith’s eyes were locked now, but the heat I saw there was something of a cousin to anger, rather than the feeling itself.
“Unhand me, you sow!“
“Apologize first, Tubby!”
Both women were breathing hard, their grip on each other’s bodies drifting, turning into gropes.
“I’ll never apologize to you, you, you, heifer!”
“Pig!”
“Whale!”
Odessa’s grip moved from Lilith’s spare tire to her head, pressing their lips together. I wouldn’t have thought it possible for their faces to meet with all that adipose between them, but soon the two women were a single mass of crushed tits, squashed bellies, and wobbling, clutching arms.
I side-stepped around my receiving room, collecting my coat and hat from the rack. I wasn’t nearly drunk enough to witness a poem by Sappho firsthand. “Key’s on the hook, ladies. Please lock up when you’re done.”
The women ignored me, so I went downstairs to hail a cab in the rain.
Flash fiction based on this prompt:
A Noir dame gets fat to entice a detective, but gets so into gaining that she gives up the plot.
Contains: Weight Gain
Miss Nichols
I turned up my collar against the icy cold blowing through the city. At least it wasn’t raining, for once. I hadn’t taken a case in weeks, and Miss Cunningham was getting a little too gleeful every time she relayed a message from Miss Cynthia Nichols. The lack of business would have been a problem, except that Miss Nichols was so generous after our little rendezvous—chocolates and credit for fashion boutiques for my secretary, and finer tobacco and bourbon than I’d ever afford for myself. At some point, though, I’d have to decline some of Cynthia’s invitations and get some real work done—I couldn’t pay my landlady in contraband cigars, after all.
Unfortunately, Cynthia Nichols had tapped into my one vice like a sniper on the Western Front. Fine, one vice among several. I pushed open the door to the restaurant and was greeted by the maître d’.
“Ah, Mister Slade. Your companion has already arrived. Jean-Pierre, please see Mister Slade to Room 3.”
This was the kind of place I’d never be welcome without the invitation of someone with Cynthia’s gravitas. A real Society place, with a capital S. The footman led me between the tables of lesser patrons and down a corridor lined with doors to private dining rooms. Inside one of these was my patroness.
Cynthia Nichols had not been an overly svelte woman when she darkened the door of my office, and her plenteous figure had only increased over the course of our time together. Eschewing the standard high-backed chairs of this establishment, she rested her ponderous posterior on a wide bench I was certain had been set up the moment she arrived. The be-sequined gown draped over her form would have made a suitable campaign tent—were the material more substantial. Upon my entrance, she paused her rapid repast to leer at me through heavy lashes, pressing her Brobdingnagian bosom between arms that quivered like a pair of young lovers. Her name grew more ironic by the week—silver dollars would have been more apt.
“Stan, you made it.”
As if I weren’t ever at her beck and call. In my profession, falling prey to feminine wiles is an express ticket to trouble, but I was helpless in the face of this hedonism.
“Of course, my dear.”
The footman turned to exit the private room, but Cyntha lazily waved her plumped digits at him. “Please tell Jacque we’d like another bottle, and another plate of canapés.”
“Oui, Ma’mselle.”
This was how my meetings with Cynthia typically went. We’d make polite exchanges in which I carried the lion’s share of the conversation while she did the elephant’s share of the eating. Once she was adequately sated, we’d retire to her apartments—and what followed.
“How was your day, my darling?” She asked between mouthfuls of baguette and brie.
“Slow as ever,” I said. “I’m starting to think there’s no crime left in this city.”
“Well, it’s nice you’re getting a break. Can’t have you digging into our plans.” Cynthia was so engrossed in her gorging that she seemed unaware of her own words. Her eyes widened as her brain caught up with her tongue.
“Our plans?”
“Well, fiddlesticks…”
Reposts
Flash fiction based on this prompt:
Detective tries to solve who is stealing all the ice cream from the city, seemingly oblivious to the Femme Fatale who has ballooned to a literal ton.
Contains: Weight Gain
Scoop of Danger
Somehow, the perpetual rain in this city never managed to take the edge off the heat. It was like a Roman bathhouse without the gossip. Well, there was still plenty of gossip, but a Sears & Roebuck suit was far from the proper attire for such a climate. I drained my Scotch and rolled another cigarette. If I hadn’t been assured by every frozen dairy peddler I’d interviewed in the past month that their walk-in ice boxes were state-of-the-art, I could almost suspect the city’s ice cream supply was simply melting from natural causes.
I’d just gotten off the horn with Lieutenant Briggs. It was a sign of how dire the situation was that the City Police had enlisted my services at all. He was furious, and with good reason. Five ice cream heists in as many weeks, and that didn’t even count the dozens that had happened before I reluctantly took the case. Jobs for the City never paid as well as jealous wives and paranoid husbands, but I owed Miss Cunningham over a month’s back pay, and my whisky supply was growing dangerously low.
I had no leads, no clues—just a fistful of rumors about some gang. No one had a name for the gang or any of its members; just that they worked exclusively in ice cream theft. A “victimless crime.”
I rolled my eyes at my transparent reflection in the rain-speckled window glass. I knew better than most that there was no such thing as a victimless crime. Sure, the victims in this case were insurance companies, and they were little better than a gang of thieves themselves. But between a sweltering summer that seemed endless and the cops breathing down my neck, I was starting to think the biggest victim in this confectionery crime spree was yours truly.
The phone’s bell shattered my melancholy like the rattle of a Tommy gun. I’d sent Miss Cunningham home hours ago, so I picked up the receiver myself.
“Stan Slade.”
“Stan… I thought you were coming by my place tonight?”
Selena Sable was the kind of girl your mom warned you about. But Mrs. Slade, God rest her, always said her son didn’t have the sense the Good Lord gave a goose. Selena was beautiful in the way an M1911 is beautiful. Raven locks, eyes like strong coffee, and a figure to put a housecat from the Upper East Side to shame. I’d always been partial to a zaftig figure, but Miss Sable tested the suspension of the sturdiest taxis. Not that you’d ever hear me complain—the extra girth came with a pair of zeppelins that made me wish I had two more hands to help lift them. Somehow she—and they—seemed bigger every time I saw her.
“Sorry, doll. Got tied up working this case. Lieutenant’s riding me like a two-bit nag.”
“Well… I’m still up if you want to swing by…” Selena’s voice was dark and thick, like fog over the bay at midnight.
The case would still be here in the morning.
“I’ll go down and call a cab toot suite. No traffic at this hour, so twenty minutes at most.”
“I’ll be waiting,” Selena purred.
I should have stopped to wonder how she got so big in a city where a day’s pay couldn’t buy a club sandwich. But I wasn’t exactly thinking with my head.
“Oh, and Stan?”
“Yeah, doll?”
“Would you pick up some supper on your way? I’ve already had dessert…”
~ss.md
Femme Fatale
Barbara reclined languidly on a sofa in her apartment. Her beautiful face was lit only by the flickering glow of a nearby television set. The dark-haired woman took a long gulp from a glass of red wine, then set the glass on a table. She reached out a wobbling arm and chubby fingers to pluck another chocolate cherry from a huge bowl.
On the television screen, a slightly younger and much narrower version of Barbara stood in black and white. She wore a form-fitting black dress under a long overcoat and spoke to a handsome but rough and stern-looking man.
“You have to help me, Mister Rhodes! I don’t have anyone else to turn to!”
”Alright, alright, get ahold of yourself, Miss O’Connell! What we need is a plan…”
Barbara’s double chin jiggled as she swallowed her chocolate, then reached into the bowl for another. A harsh ringing shattered the atmosphere of the dark apartment. Barbara reached her arm above her head, fumbling for the handset on the phone.
“Yes?”
“Barb?”
“Yes.”
“Barb, I have another job for you!”
Barbara slowly pushed herself up to a seated position on the sofa. Her wine–and–chocolate stuffed belly rolled forward onto her lap.
“Another job?”
“That’s right!”
“But Harold retired… Who’s going to hire me to play anything other than Brigid?”
“Oh, that’s just it, Barb… the studio found a new leading man for the Ron Rhodes series, and they want you to come back to give the new film continuity.”
“Well… I suppose I could…”
“You… suppose…”
The voice on the phone paused for a long moment. Barbara could hear a sigh and the creaking of a heavy chair being adjusted.
“Barb, you better more than ‘suppose’ you want this part. I’m sticking my neck out for you here.”
“Sorry, sorry, I know. I just, uh…”
Barbara looked down at her body. Her infamous breasts were swollen with fat and sloped to either side of her bloated gut.
“I’ll have to shed a little weight first…”
“Well, do it, and fast. They want to start filming in less than a month.”
The receiver on the other end clicked off.
Barbara replaced the handset on its holder. She reached for another chocolate, then stopped herself. Instead, she put both hands on the sofa and rocked herself forward and back a few times before rising to stand. She stepped across her apartment and switched on an electric lamp near a large mirror that stood in the corner.
Barbara considered her reflection. She wore her nightdress and dressing gown all day now—none of her clothes fit. Her upper arms were nearly as big around as her waist on the still–playing television screen. When she dropped her arms, they floated to both sides, propped up by her vast hips and enormous waistline. She clutched her massive belly in both hands, watching in the mirror as she let it fall, watching it bob and jiggle for several long seconds.
As her gaze traveled from her double-chinned face to her sloping breasts, rounded and drooping belly, baby seal thighs, wobbling calves, and chubby feet, Barbara looked into her own eyes.
“This… is gonna be a problem.”
~ss.md
The Big Bosom
The cab slowed to a stop in the gravel drive of Harrison House. The door was a few city blocks away, but I didn’t mind a little stretch of the legs. I paid the fresh–faced kid driving the cab and left a healthy tip. No point in stiffing the working man just because I was hard up. I clanged the knocker twice on the ancient mahogany door and waited. The butler who answered looked like he’d been around since before the war.
“Yes?”
“I’m here to see Missus Avery. Stan Slade.”
“Of course, Mister Slade. Won’t you follow me?”
The man had a face carved from granite with eyebrows that wanted a trim when I was still in grammar school. The house was nice. Old money nice. Carved molding and oak panels that were certainly a full–time job to keep dusted. The household clearly had a vacancy in that position. The butler led me to a pair of double doors.
“Just through here, Mister Slade.”
I knew the man was the real deal. Any kind of half–rate butler would have called me sir. I’m no respecter of persons, but any man who calls me sir without my leave is a man I trust as much as a punk nickel.
Mrs Avery’s rooms were well–appointed. The plaster showed more than a few coats of paint, but the most recent had either started as ivory, or had been smeared on long enough ago to have turned ivory. I found Cassandra Avery reclining on a velvet divan in a shade of blue I’d never seen the San Fransisco sky.
I made my face into a mask. I’d heard rumors about Cass Avery, but seeing the heiress in the flesh was something different. Flesh being the operative word. I wondered if the woman could walk, or even stand. She wore a blue silk nightgown that would have served perfectly as a circus tent out in the middle west. She had pouty lips that shone in the dim electric bulbs. A soft chin with a solid line around the jaw. Blonde curls to make even the least vain starlet turn green. Dark emerald eyes that seemed to bore into my soul, if I still had one. I let my eyes roam over her legs. Long pale legs draped over the far end of the divan, well worth a good roam.
All these and more I focused my eyes on, to avoid staring at the elephant in the room. Two elephants. Mrs Avery’s breasts. They were like a bootlegger’s stash exchanged for nickels and stuffed in two sacks. Like a pair of Packards made entirely of flesh. Like the fattest, most bribed chief of police in a city even more corrupt than mine, doubled, split in two, then doubled again.
“Mister Slade?”
I met her eyes. Even without tits the size of Texas, this woman was trouble with a capital T.
“That’s right. How can I help you, Missus Avery?”
“It’s Miss now…”
Oh yes, trouble for sure.
“I’m being blackmailed, Mister Slade. Someone has photos of me in a rather… exposed position.”
I let my eyes briefly roam over Miss Avery again. With as much skin as she was showing, I wondered what she could possibly consider ‘exposed…’
~ss.md
The Bloated Puffin
I stood staring out the window of my dark office into the city. It was raining again. It always seemed to be raining in this city. The drops of water down the cheap uneven panes of glass cast distorted my view of the city lights and gave the place a surreal quality. Like a dream one never woke from. Or was it a nightmare?
I lit another cigarette and poured a few more drops of whiskey into my glass. I needed to get another case, and fast. Catching Mrs Evans’ husband with another woman had been simple enough, but my fees barely covered Miss Cunningham’s salary for the week. My battle-axe of a landlady would be hounding me for the rent check any day now.
As if simply thinking of my young doe–eyed assistant had summoned her, Sally buzzed my intercom just as I’d finished rolling my cigarette and was getting it lit.
“There’s a… woman here to see you, Stan.”
“Send her in, Sally.”
“Umm… you’d better come out here.”
I couldn’t help but sigh. Sally knew I preferred to speak to potential clients in private. Comes with the territory. People scared and desperate were more likely to be straight with me if we were alone. Still, work was work, so I turned the old brass knob and stepped out into the waiting room.
It took me less than two seconds to understand Sally’s hesitation. This woman was huge. Massive even. She looked like she’d had a fork in her hand since she was old enough to eat solid food. She had on a coat that had to be custom made. The tailor must have needed at least two or three cows’ worth of suede to construct the thing. Still, her face was pretty enough. Chubby cheeks of course, but pretty eyes and a well–shaped nose. Shining blonde curls fell down to her hefty shoulders, and her expression seemed more annoyed than angry or afraid. So that was something, anyway.
“Can I help you miss…?”
“York, Devon York.”
“What can I do for you, Miss York?”
Devon York hesitated, her blue eyes darting to the small desk where Sally sat, pretending not to listen in. I knew the book she was staring at was nothing but a phone directory. Of course, Sally Cunningham listened in on all my client meetings, but Miss York didn’t know that.
“Would you like to speak in my office, Miss York?”
“It’s Missus, and yes, I believe I would.”
I turned and stepped back into my dark office, holding the door. Mrs York didn’t seem like the kind of woman who needed me to walk her through a door, and anyway I doubted we would fit through the opening together.
I’d never been more keenly aware of how much smaller my office door was than the outer entrance to my office. Devon York walked cautiously up to the opening, more of a lumber than a stride, then stopped just short of halfway through. I turned to see the poor woman struggling with the old wood frame. Her hips hadn’t passed through at all, and her bulging waist was squeezed tightly in the opening.
“I –hrng– don’t think this will –huff– work, Mister Slade…”
“Why don’t you tell me what your trouble is, Missus York?”
Devon’s face went red as the tomatoes sold down on Market street.
“I… I think my husband is intentionally making me fat…”