A Twist Of Noir 122 - Franky Newhart

BULLETS MAKE BITCHES WEAK - FRANKY NEWHART

Stacy was his ex-girlfriend that always seemed to be talking to herself. Their relationship was one of issues. Stacy wanted someone that was faithful and committed, while Jeffrey wanted someone that believed in him. Everything seemed to be going so well. Fun and games. Long conversations on the phone.

Then they just moved on to fucking each other.

Suddenly, Stacy was needy. She didn't trust Jeffrey with anyone or anything.

“I'm going to hang out with my friend Veronica.”

“Well, then give her a good fuck for me.”

“Wait, baby.”

“You know what, whatever.”

He eventually had to make up excuses to not hang out with his female acquaintances/friends. He did nothing for her not to trust him.

They would have fights that were always petty. Stacy would always start it with a remark like: “Who do you think your talking to? You're like a child; what you say is not even clever.”

Then Jeffrey would reply, “Guess that makes you a pedophile.”

Awkward pause.

“Because we have sex,” Jeffrey said, laughing at his own joke.

Jeffrey lived for Stacy. He never even thought of being with another girl. When he brought this up to Stacy, she replied with, “I don't think you have the balls to cheat on me.”

Exactly what did he do to deserve this?

“It was almost as if the act of sex between us broke your trust,” Jeffrey later responded to Stacy, in an open letter for a poetry reading that she did not attend.

In an ironic plot twist, she broke up with him. After, Jeffrey found out that Stacy was cheating on him with some guy that she met on the internet. They would still make time for each other and be off and on but no matter how many times Jeffrey hit CTRL + ALT + DELETE on the relationship, Stacy was still just a dirty whore that broke his heart.

“Too bad whores aren't bulletproof!” screamed Jeffrey to his gun.

BIO: Franky Newhart realizes that this story might not even qualify genre-wise but figures it's worth a try.

A Twist Of Noir 121 - Franky Newhart

KISS ME, KILL ME - FRANKY NEWHART

“Don’t you think I look pretty in my dress?”

Roy looks at his wife. She’s right.

She looks beautiful. Dressed to kill, with matching red lipstick and heels. Any red-blooded American would storm her shores and hug her with nuclear arms of passion. She’s a diva, a princess, a trophy wife, a knockout. She’s a mysterious game show doll that opens the door you choose.

“You’ve won a brand new car!”

But all you can think about is, “Does she come with the car?”

Roy wants to tell her that she looks like an angel. That the dress fits her like a glove and she looks absolutely positively gorgeous.

Something gets lost in the translation.

“How much did you spend on that thing?”

Jen’s mood crashes and burns as if Roy took a blowtorch to her plastic smile. “I have spent almost an hour trying to look good for you! You promised we go out! We haven’t gone out for a month! Why do you have to be so...”

Roy reaches for his coat and goes to leave before she can finish.

“Don’t you dare go out to that bar! I don’t want your drunken ass in this house and the kids shouldn’t have to see you like that either! If you go, don’t come...”

The last word is censored by a slamming door.

Roy is gone and, in many ways, so is Jen.

She goes to wash the dishes and tries to forget. She thinks about another night failing to live up to her expectations. She slams one of the dishes against the sink cracking it. Misdirected hostility is her only relief.

She looks at the cracked dish and thinks about slitting her wrists.

She glances at the oven and thinks about turning on the gas and sticking her head in.

Jen wonders exactly what keeps her in the relationship.

The thumps and laughter coming from the attic remind her that even “accidents” need to be loved and taken care of.

At the bar, Roy takes a shot after shot of liquor in order to chase away the memories of today. He doesn’t remember the call. He just remembers arriving at the scene with his partner. An unfaithful girlfriend with a leaky face spilled all over the sidewalk. Her boyfriend told her how much he loved her with a butterfly knife.

By the time Roy and his partner got to the scene, it was already too late. She had lost far too much blood.

“Girl wanted to paint the town red,” quipped a CSI before his nose was broken by Roy's fist.

Drinks were ordered and nursed until closing time. Eventually, Roy snapped out of the past and stumbled out of the bar into the cold, hard present.

BIO: Franky Newhart lives in New Jersey and is proud of it. He hasn't been published in anything since college and is unemployed and overrated like New York City. You can reach him at uxpsi@yahoo.com for whatever reason.