The Chosen

queries when the bills are paid and the books are in order, Ms. Abbot. We chose The Inn’s remote location deliberately, for the same reason. And as for The Inn’s checkered past, the same reason too.”

Now Vera understood. “And you chose me, a legitimate restaurant manager, to cover for you without even knowing it.”

“That’s…correct, Ms. Abbot,” Feldspar admitted. “And I hope you will forgive me. In time, I’m sure that you will, when you fully realize what I can offer you ultimately.”

Vera sneered. “And what’s that?”

“Eons, Ms. Abbot. I can offer you eons. We’re both alike, you and I. We are both servants, in a sense.” His eyes pricked into her. “Love me, Vera, and serve with me. And I will give you anything you’ve ever wanted and a million times more. Forever.”

She knew what he was implying, the same thing he’d so discreetly implied all along. She knew there was only one way out:

“All right,” she said.

The shiny face peered back at her, skeptically hopeful. Was he actually shaking, he was so nervous?

“Do you think—” he faltered. “Do you think you could love me?”

“Yes,” she said.

He expression blanked. “Then prove it.”

Vera approached him, willingly, and with desire. She didn’t flinch at all when she noted a white marinade bucket on the cold line—a marinate bucket containing Dan B.’s head.

“Make me immortal and I’ll love you forever,” she whispered, and with that confession she wrapped her arms around Feldspar and kissed him on the mouth—an eternal mouth—a mouth that had reveled in the utterance of blasphemies for a thousand years. She kissed that mouth with all the voracity and passion that she’d ever kissed anyone in her life…

Feldspar returned the kiss. He began to weep.

“Make love to me,” she whispered. “Just like you did all those other nights. Here. Right here.”

Vera sat upon the service line, and with no hesitation whatever she pulled up her nightgown to bare her sex.

“Now,” she breathed.

Feldspar, teary-eyed and in bliss, stepped up between her spread thighs. He placed one hand down, and with the other began to unsash his frock. Between the sackcloth divide, his erection sprouted: a pale and hideous tuber with dark blue veins, pulsing upward.

Vera spread her legs further, to offer herself as fully as any woman could…

“My love,” he whispered and closed his eyes.

Instantaneously her hand snapped up, plucked the shiny rib cleaver from the cutlery rack and brought it down on Feldspar’s hand, which remained opened on the wood butcher block beside the range—

chunk!

His scream sounded disappointingly human, and when he raised his hand, backing away, Vera saw with great satisfaction that three of his fingers remained on the butcher block, his ring finger among them, the finger that sported the big, faceted amethyst…