ATHENA (#fridayflash)

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The first thing I noticed on her when I stepped into Tully's Towne Pub were the hips. She was dancing in front of the juke to Van Halen and it was the fucking sexiest thing I ever saw.

She clutched a long neck in one hand and took a drag of an unfiltered cigarette with the other. The smoke enveloped her like some kind of Gothic specter.

"Holy Christ... Those hips are gonna bear my kids," I told Pam behind the bar. She fetched my beer, opened it and rolled her eyes.

"She looks like a slut to me..." she growled. "Men... "

I stared at the auburn hair and how it flowed to her shoulders. She had deep, piercing emerald eyes that were both welcoming and alarming.

"Somewhere in Athens there's a damn statue that's jealous," I said to Pam but she was now on the other side of the bar.

David Lee Roth's wails were coming to an end and she smiled. I walked over to her and asked if she needed a refill.

"Where's your girlfriend?" she asked.

"Gave her the night off..."

"Then yeah..."

For hours we spoke. She told me her name was Athena (if you can imagine), was fiercely loyal to her father and had been in the country about 10 years. She had an odd accent that sounded like it came from another time. When I asked where she was from all she said was, "Europe..."

Athena almost didn't seem real. She smelled too good. But she made my Levis rise and that's all that mattered after four beers and God knows how many Jacks.

It was almost closing time and Athena took my hand and led me out.

# # #

Passing the posers with their Harleys, Athena and I walked towards the back of the bar. All grew quiet except for the crunching of gravel underneath our feet and the occasional clack of pool balls from an open window. The beer neon sizzled. A distant horn honked.

We settled at the side of a dumpster and I became cold. Frigid, in fact, but I labored through it. I also felt a dampness in the air but there was no rain. Oddly, now, Athena looked wet but I didn't care. It was going where I wanted it to.

Her tongue felt strangely large and it almost slithered inside my mouth hitting the back of my neck. I gagged. In an instant, her perfume went foul. I stopped kissing her and scrunched my nose to see if it was the stench of the dumpster.

But she was now different, no longer the beauty of Tully's Towne Tavern. As cold as the air became outside, her palm was hot, but not clammy. It went underneath my shirt and felt my abs and settled upon my chest.

The last image I had of Athena was her eyes, now black shells. She took a drag of her cigarette and blew smoke in my face and laughed.

The cackle grew stronger, maniacal. Then I felt my flesh rip, but oddly it didn't hurt. Maybe because I was already dead.

As my body plopped to the ground I watched her eat my heart, its dying thumps growing louder as she chewed the life from it. All I heard was a distant voice yelling, "Someone turn the bass on that radio down!" But it was no radio. My heart was losing its life and I was now falling down the cold and wet mineshaft of an unknown plane. Bats flapped all around me.

I'm now a soulmurk. I'm not human. I'm not dead and certainly far from alive. I'm matter. Strictly and purely evil.

I live in the ether.

I go where I'm needed. I serve Athena.

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