They meet at the motel, where neon light licks the wet ground. Cars parked every other space in the lot as if eight and a half feet constitute separate worlds. No one bothers to lock the door. They’re always hungry, too much overtaken by appetite to ask about the kids or the jobs or the husbands who are waiting at home with a box of greasy pizza and soda fizzing over the tops of plastic cups. This week it’s Marlene’s turn to strip off her top and let her bra fall to the floor. Seven women watch in silence as she walks into the center of the room, her chest a flat mask of scars. Feasting on survival, they raise their glasses of champagne and drink every drop.
Ann Walters lives and writes in the Pacific Northwest. Her fiction has appeared in Smokelong Quarterly, Wigleaf, Juked, Kalliope, Quarter After Eight, and others.