"Little Red" Part One

the beginning of a new story...

“Little Red” he called her at the beginning, although as time passed he simply called her “Red”. Red like her lips when she bit them, her cape, and the colour she tinted when he said her name. He had courted her gently at first, showing up at the house from time to time with small gifts. His hair slicked back, his beard trimmed, that grey suit she loved freshly pressed. He left the gifts on her window sill outside her bedroom; apples, berries, cigarettes she had to hide from her mother, fake flowers dipped in LSD “to show you the world off the path you follow”. She felt dizzy when she thought of him.

They moved in to a studio apartment at the top of a high rise building. Her mother had found the cigarettes and accused her of being a junkie: his arms were strong and he held her to his chest late at night when she thought she was dying. He bathed her with a sponge that looked like a flower from the woods near her grandmothers house. She'd stopped visiting her family. Her grandma was old and dull and he said “She's bad for you. She won't let you be free.” Sometimes she still baked scones and biscuits and thought about sending them in the post but they never had money for stamps and he almost always caught her, “These are for you” she'd whimper “I made them for you of course.”

Red like the blood on her cheeks, the colour of his eyes mid-argument, her fear, her loneliness.
“I only need you” she echoed when he threatened to leave her and send her home to her mother. Her words reverberated through to the tip of her little red hood.

His beard had grown long and unruly, and scratched her leaving a rash when he made love to her. When she looked at him she saw glaring eyes and sharp teeth. “My,” she said with a sigh. “What big teeth you have.” He laughed. “All the better to eat you with.” The laugh roared around their apartment and she felt his teeth on her neck and hand creep across the small of her back. Fingernails felt like claws. “OUCH!” She said. He apologised and kissed her softly on her forehead.
“I was only trying to- I just wanted to make you feel good.”

A long pause that ends with an awkward cough and a kiss. She leaves the room.