Angelina smoothed her short dark hair, bent closer to check her red lipstick in the mirror and wondered if she looked 30.  Life had been hard, vicious at times, but her green eyes revealed nothing of her past.  She took a step back, turned and silently admired her slim figure.  The black silk dress looked nice, fitting in all the right places.

She knew when she walked back into the restaurant, eyes would follow her.  The eyes of the women, checking, comparing themselves to her.  As she passed them, she always gave a half smile, then looked at them straight in the eye and presented the full bitch smile.  Angelina knew these women were inferior t her.  They always were, and this caused her much joy.

The men's eyes followed her long-legged movements, too, openly, with desire.  Angelina would shyly look at them, lick her full lips and slowly walk on.  she'd later laugh to herself,  remembering the way they looked.  the Pavlov dog syndrome is what she called it.  Grown men with committed women at their side openly salivating, wishing they could have a moment of Angelina's time, a touch, a kiss to make them feel like the man they knew a woman like Angelina could make them become.

She took a deep breath and decided she was ready to rejoin her date.  She made him wait so he'd be nervous, off guard, unsuspecting.  Her blind date would be waiting, nervously looking at his watch,

wondering how he could have been so fortunate as to date a beautiful woman like Angelina.  She was out of his league and he knew it, but the way Angelina looked at him, touched him with those soft long delicate fingers, for the moment made him think he was better than he was.  Made him think he was the man he always wanted to be.

As Angelina approached their table, she knew his thoughts: wondering if she had figured out that he was a misfit, a nobody, a nerd in a suit who hadn't been on a real date in years.  She smiled.  The real fun now begins.

She seductively slides into the booth next to him, taking his nervous fingers and begins licking them one by one.  Angelina knows  all the men are watching, wondering "How did he get so lucky?"  If they only knew.  She tells her date it's time to get more "comfortable," while slowly revealing to him the lack of any undergarments.  She takes his hand and leads him to the door.

The newspaper says all the men are single, lonely, and had sex within an hour of dying.  They're found near water and have smiles drawn on their faces with red lipstick.  There are no clues, no hints as to who the serial killer might be.  Angelina sighs, flips to the personals and reads her ad "SF - looking for a shy, lonely male, preferably on the nerdy sid e..."  Angelina smiles as she call to retrieve her new messages.

- Rene S.