Checkmate:

The Art of a Con.

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Poor Charlie.

He was so enamored with Veronica’s beauty and charm that he had no idea what he was up against. The locals knew her game. They’d seen it before… again and again. 

But Charlie was new to the area, and completely unaware. 

Vinnie, the young boat hand, felt obligated to warn him, but the men at the Salty Dog Yacht Club made him swear that he’d keep quiet. 

Charlie had a reputation of his own, you see, and a few of these old sailors had been taken by his schemes. He was a swindler…  a fraud… as crooked as they come.

“They deserve each other,” they told Vinnie.

And so it was. For months Charlie wooed Veronica, with weekend dinners at Harbor House, the only five star restaurant for miles, and extravagant gifts and flowers… arriving daily at her door. 

In return, Veronica perplexed him with her mystery and intrigue, behaving like a coy young damsel on occasion, while dazzling him with her allure and seduction on the next. She was obviously intelligent, and impossible to read.

Sometimes you could spot her out on Main Street, dragging on her cigarette like the worn out honky tonk woman that many claimed her to be, and Charlie would turn the corner, nearly catching her mid-puff. 

She always seemed to know he was coming though, and she’d snuff that butt on the bottom of her heel so quickly that Charlie was none the wiser. If there was one thing Charlie hated, it was a woman with a cigarette.

Everyone kept their eyes and ears open, waiting to see what came next. 

“Who’s bamboozling who?” they would laugh. Some were even taking bets.

But there was something that none of them knew… something that was about to unfold… and it was going to turn that sleepy old town on its head. …Keep Reading

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I wasn’t sure if I should add the continuation remark because it may or may not come to fruition. Mainly I just wanted to create a short piece of fiction for the Femme Fatale I was working on.

She’s a partial revamp, constructed of pieces of women from previous illustrations. I used Uma Thurman’s character in Pulp Fiction as a bit of a model for her style.

I started out with the intent of doing an illustration, but the story started to take shape in my head and it kind of took over. That being said, I didn’t focus on the image as much – I rushed to finish it so I could focus on the story.

The whole cigarette idea came to me after Googling “femme fatale” images. Apparently, a lot of them smoke! Or at least they’re portrayed that way in the photographs I found.

I thought that was funny because smokers these days practically hide in back alleys (at least around here). I wondered if femme fatales will eventually break the habit, or if they ever hide their smoking in the midst of their cons and manipulations.

It’s interesting how little details like this can inspire parts of a story. Anyway, I may try to finish it as I’m curious to see if I can pull off this something that I mentioned in the teaser. It sounded like a challenge, so we’ll see.

That’s about all for now. Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed!

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“Every decent con man knows that the simplest truth is more powerful than even the most elaborate lie.”
―Ally Carter, Uncommon Criminals