by Frances Gapper

Your domestic set-up’s a tight trinity: you, housekeeper Jane and spider Mabelene. Clever with investments, you’re single but mulling a proposal. Cagey Jane, sent by the agency, sprinkles soy sauce on the desiccated legs of Mabelene’s Hub 9. It ain’t romantic, Jane says, but it’s economical. What’s your reason? She pours Veuve Clicquot, her stabbing hand napkin-wrapped. You say, an astrologer once told me I’d kill a man on my wedding night. So I’m curious. Jane shrugs, anything can be a weapon. Corkscrew to the heart, pen through the eye. It’s me who’s got to clear up the mess.

Frances Gapper’s three story collections are In the Wild Wood, The Tiny Key and Absent Kisses. Her story “Farmer’s Wife” was shortlisted for the Desperate Literature Prize 2019 and published in the booklet Eleven Stories. “Plum Jam” won FlashBack Fiction’s 2018 Microfiction Contest and is included in Best Microfiction 2019.