Mabel is in the bar I work in a lot, always with a different man. I know my job well enough not to let on. She'll walk in and say something like, "This place seems nice. I wonder if their martinis are any good," and I keep my mouth closed rather than replying, "Well, if you don't know after the few hundred you've had, then I guess they're pretty forgettable."
Her fellow regulars likewise keep the secret. When she's here alone, everyone is all, "Mabel! How's it going?" but when she brings a guest, they all hold back snickers as they introduce themselves and give her tips about which drinks are house specialties.
People say a lot in front of bartenders, like they don't realize that we can hear them even if they aren't addressing us. This is why I know that despite their similar styles of dress the men in the well-tailored high-end suits come from a variety of professions and backgrounds. The ones she takes home rather than leaving disappointed all have one thing in common, though, other than their fashion sense. They're complete assholes.
The man tonight is busy telling the woman he thinks is named Heather about his job as a prosecuting attorney. The job itself doesn't make him a grotesque parody of a decent human being, but the way he's bragging about targeting people too poor to afford private attorneys and gloating at how the overworked public defenders don't have time to properly help many of them does.
"That's why you have such a high success rate?" Mabel clarifies. "By not laying charges against people with money?"
"Yep! It really is as simple as that."
It's obvious from the way he boasts that he feels no remorse about this, not even the slightest pang of guilt for disproportionately preying upon those who lack wealth and ignoring equally guilty people of means.
Mabel looks at him like he's a juicy steak and she's been fasting all week.
They leave when their drinks are finished. The man pays but doesn't leave a tip; they seldom do, but that's alright because everyone who works here loves Mabel and she always make up for it later.
I know how the rest of the story plays out, even though it doesn't play out here. She'll take him somewhere they can screw for hours. Then he'll waste away from what doctors will label an unknown sickness, babbling about how he met the perfect woman, someone no one he knows will believe was actually real. And we'll be rid of one more waste of human flesh.
Mabel may be a succubus and thus a demon, but she's doing a lot more to make the world a better place than anyone else I know.
The above artwork is by Tracy Dinnison and can be purchased on pixels.com.
The image was offered as a prompt on my writing prompt project Wording Wednesday, more information about which may be found at https://wordingwednesday.blogspot.com/
Succubus as social justice warrior. :-) I like!
ReplyDeleteAh, but those dregs aren't really targeted despite what he says in a bravado moment. They are criminals, brought before him by law enforcement. He's in the middle of the chain. Lack of funds for a lawyer besides a public defender is usually due to spending on drugs. Mabel would be better serving mankind by preying on those being prosecuted than the pompous prosecutor or the rich criminal that the prosecutor won't touch. Mabel is not the good guy here. I don't see her as a social justice warrior. She is just the opposite. Now she has taken him out of picture, personality aside, how many of those he was 'targeting' will return to the street to drive on bald tires, break into homes for drug money or urinate on the ATM outside of WalMart? Or worst yet, lead the police on a high speed chase and run over mom and her two year-old child in a cross-walk? Rich people do that too, but the ratio is so small as to be negligible.
ReplyDeleteI love your story. I just see it differently as to the conclusion one can take away.