Member-only story
Honey Trap
Short fiction
Most of the village was there on that overcast afternoon in the pub. On the fourth, day after the event, and still no news. Low cigarette smoke furled at eye level. Honey was there in a denim skirt and cowboy boots, muddy from the walk through the lavender track, and the scent of it still on her bare legs. Her breasts were loose in a grubby t-shirt — the words Tainted Love — emblazoned over them so the words rippled from the bounce beneath. She ferried trays of pints and plates of steak and chips and whole gurnard with bones and eyes to tables where fishermen leaned, gnarled hands around their beers.
Honey kept her thoughts to herself. Her face was a mask of customer friendly but her belly was tense. Tense with thoughts of loss and survival.
The band vibrated a mournful tune led by banjo and the singer whisper-growled lyrics of grief and sorrow, and when the band stopped, the crowd raised their glasses in salute.
One of them was missing, lost at sea, and presumed dead. One of them was gone, and he was one of the best. Born and bred a true local. Old Jake Caraway. Who, not so old at thirty-five, but old of soul, the charitable kind, salt of the earth always ready with offers of pearls of wisdom, and that’s why they called him old.
