293 Life's Pageant and Those Watching

She had everything, if only skin deep. Glorious on stage, she was the designated beauty from her state. Her buttocks were firm, tenting the bikini bottom just that way. Her breasts were just so...healthy! Hanging perfectly, attentive. Her flat waist perfectly see-sawed above with below.

Her long, shapely, and sinewy legs, begged for the highest skirts. Her feet were petite and lovely, like a child's. Her hands, porcelain. Her arms, cantilevers of poetry.

Her face could launch a thousand ships, but mine had already sailed. Was she on it?

While most noses are scrutinized immediately, attractive ones are visited last; hers was impishly upturned on the perfect side of retroussé and the perfunctory slide of dismissal.

Her gait was a strut, smooth and beckoning, even into the gates of Hell if she so led me. As she walked, all her parts syncopated, redundantly embellishing of her beauty. Her motion played a contrapuntal melody to the idea of moving parts and how they're put together by the Grand Architect.

This was my quintessential woman. Only skin deep? How could I care what was underneath if I couldn't get past the first layer meeting my eyes?

The "beautiful" walking among us, he thought, compete for all eyes. Those who aren't--need only bide their time--for age is the great equalizer. But for now, what's hers was mine.

While it's true that beautiful people may be just as beautiful beyond skin deep--down to the soul--they're trained to stay beautiful as long as possible, with fake adulation earned in fake contests.

She's the winner—the most beautiful. At least in external appearance that belies the truth. In twenty years, he lamented, she'll catch up to everyone else on life's stage. That'd be the final act where the moral of my story emerges, the tableau of the denouement we all knew was coming.

There was only one way she could remain as exquisite, as she struts and towers now: that's to retire at the peak of her game. To die so tragically young.

Her immortality in the mind's eye depends on me!

Maybe next pageant, he thought. For now, I still want to feast my eyes, thrill my soul, and bide my time.

_____________

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

For Saturday, October 19, Day 293 of the 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge

A Halloween story of desire and ill intent. 366 WORDS (without A/N)

75 DAYS TO GO! THIS CHALLENGE PROMENADES ON, 366 BEAUTIFUL WORDS A DAY.

There are currently three Vocal writers in the bathing suit competition in this 2024 Story-a-Day Challenge:

• L.C. Schäfer (Luscious)

• Rachel Deeming (Sultry)

• Gerard DiLeo (Lurking)