SARA'S FLESH

Men came early in Sara's life, well before the other girls her age, and once they started coming, they never stopped. As boys they followed her home from school and stood beneath her window, and as young men they fought over her at parties and football games. Then later, as married men, they'd leave their wives for her. It was confusing at first, the way they threw themselves at her, and then it was boring. Even the hardest and coldest men wanted her, and when she kissed him with those thick, red lips, he felt ecstacy. And when she was done with him, he felt dead. Then someone new would come along, and that became the pattern of her life.

When she was 20, Sara met David, who was 35, a lawyer, and married. He'd found her at the lake behind her house, on a day the when the azaleas were blooming purple and pink, and he watched for hours as she lay in the sun. She didn't notice him until she stood to leave, when he pulled her in the bushes and kissed her. She found she liked it – and him – and wanted more.

"Come home with me?" Sara asked. "Please?"

"Of course," he said, and smirked. So she led him home, kept him three days in bed, and sent him back a husk. He was different after that, he lost interest in his work and wife, but he thought about Sara every night. He was frightened she'd come back for him, and desperately afraid she wouldn't, while she rarely thought of him again.

Sara had money – a small inheritance – so she never had to work, and she didn't, except to paint. And she always painted her lovers if she kept them overnight. With long, slow strokes, she slathered thick layers of oil on the canvas, and her works showed nude men reclining in the golden sun of morning, fresh from sleep. When she finished each painting, she'd send the man away. The paintings sold well, for the defeat in the eyes of her lovers haunted buyers, and she grew a reputation for painting broken souls in beautiful bodies. And because she was restless, there were always new bodies.

At 30, Sara seduced David's son of 22 years. It was summer on the lake, the hot sun flashed off the water, and the scent of fresh cut grass hung in the air. Stephan sat near the shore and stared up at the clouds. The grass was soft as skin and Sara ran her bare toes between the blades as she walked. She knew the boy by his face, that he was David's, and she wanted him. "Come with me," she said, and held out her hand.

Stephan knew who she was, and he was afraid. And fascinated. "My father warned me about you," said Stephan. "He said you're dangerous."

Sara's eyes devoured the boy. He was tanned and blond, with soft lips she wanted to crush with her own. The humid air clung to her skin and inflamed her. "Come with me," she said again. Her nipples, tight, pushed through her shirt. The boy saw this and his body betrayed him. She led him away, and when she was done she told him to leave.

"Will I see you again?" Stephan asked.

"No." Crushed, the boy left, and her hunger fed, Sara slept.

Sara continued to prowl the city, and it being small, most knew her, or of her, but men always ignored the warnings. Hundreds fell to her over the years – though she never cared enough to keep count – and her works sold at ever higher prices.

At 49, she met David's grandson, Anton. David was dead by then. Sara had gone to the funeral and saw Stephan, a haggard man with a chubby, graying wife who stared at Sara with fear and hate. David himself, in his coffin, had looked older than his 60 years, in his last days a dried-up old man. Sara first saw Anton at the funeral, a brief glimpse, but he was too young, so she ignored him and led away a married doctor.

It was four more years before she spoke to Anton, and now he was 19. It was winter, and a whistling wind left the lake waters choppy and chilled the skin. Sara approached the boy, her lips open, ready to taste him. He stood at the water's edge and watched the gray skies for a long time, then he turned and saw her coming for him. He saw the nipples beckon, he saw the dark eyes, and the awful red lips.

"You're beautiful," Sara said, and he was. Dark hair, green eyes, strong jaw, far more attractive than father or father's father. "Come with me, let me paint you." She shifted her hips and the wind flipped up her thin skirt, and Anton saw the bare inside of her thighs, a lure to men for decades. She walked closer, so close he could smell her, breathe her in, the scent of orange and roses.

Anton was moved by this and held out his hand, ready to give himself to her. But then he looked at Sara's face, at the wrinkles, the falling chin, the graying skin. The boy looked in her eyes and smiled.

"I can't," he said, "not today." And he turned and walked away.

Sara called out, begged him, made promises other men had left their wives for, but he never turned back. She watched helplessly as he left the field and disappeared, out of her reach forever.

And for the first time in her life, she was alone.

Milan Smith lives in Florida. His work has been published in The Circle, Enigma, Mylxine and Cynic. He's currently working on a novel.