Flash Fiction Friday: The Luchador and the Lady

(Source image: "I Am So Hidden" by China Hamilton)

While El Caballo Córneo slept soundly, Lita took his familiar máscara from the hook where it hung.  The mask of the most famous luchador in El Estado Grande was white with flamboyant gold embellishments around the eyes, on the sides of the face, and the very top of the head. 

Lita had heard stories of El Caballo when she was nine.  She watched him wrestle at ten.  He was so cool and smooth.  That ten-year-old girl loved him.

Standing before the bathroom mirror, Lita donned the iconic visage and fancied that she could now see through his eyes.  She fancied that she possessed his power.

She glanced at El Caballo Córneo, his chest rising and falling as he slept. 

Time to die, luchador. (123)

-Jack

There is no new prompt for Erotic Flash Fiction Friday this week.  Rather than taking the week off, I decided that I would try to write something anyway, even though November is NaNoWriMo and I should be working on other non-blog projects.  I spent an hour or so on Thursday night searching for a quirky, sexy photo that would provide the impetus for an extremely short story.  I found nothing; when you enter "quirky sexy picture" into a search engine, apparently the word "quirky" is disregarded.

Next I decided to visit Insatiabear: A Panserbjørne's Musings and browse previous prompts; as I've only been participating in the meme for five weeks, there were many previous ones from which to choose.  This Flash Fiction Friday prompt was originally posted on March 14, 2011, although I also considered the prompts for Friday, July 1st; Friday, May 8th; and Friday, March 25th.   

I took some creative license in adapting the prompt photo.  Although the model is clearly holding a half-mask, possibly one made of porcelain and intended for decoration, its visual similarity to the full-head masks worn by luchadores such as El Santo and Blue Demon entitled me to adjust the visual in my head; rather than simply holding the mask before her face, she instead actually wears it.

The ambiguity of her motivations was necessitated by the 135-word limit, as I was unwilling to sacrifice what few sparse details I could actually afford.  After completing the story, however, I feel that the sudden revelation of her intention to kill El Caballo Córneo works despite it being mandated by the length of the story.  Admittedly I have no idea what might have led the luchador's young admirer to plot his murder.  Madness?  Revenge?  Orders from some unseen string-puller?  Your guess is as good as mine.

The required phrase for this prompt was "cool and smooth".  In my most rudimentary draft of the story, I planned to use this phrase to describe the hard slate bathroom floor as Lita walked on it in her bare feet.  However, as I edited, trimming excess words and honing the piece into the final product, I decided that describing the floor thusly was far too obvious.  I decided to apply the phrase to El Caballo Córneo instead. Given the story's Latin overtones, it would have been more fitting if the phrase had included the word "suave" rather than "smooth", but I think it worked out fine.

El Estado Grande refers to the Mexican state of Chihuahua.  El Caballo Córneo?  Spanish for The Horny Horse.  If you're unfamiliar with the sport of lucha libre and the colorful, frequently masked luchadores who populate it, read about the subject at Wikipedia.