Love games – flash fiction by Erin McGrath
A bell rang – something was about to happen. Polo-shirted men leaned and gestured knowingly at one another, shaking the rosewood beads around their wrists, their thick fingers wishing for cigarettes. Savvy girls in tight, shimmering inverses of the macaroon-dresses popular in daylight angled their torsos away.
She was alone in the seats Xing had reserved for them, too near the ring. Possibly she would be bled on, or feel a spray of sweat, like a sneeze, diffuse on her forearms. At home she never would have thought to watch two men muddle each others’ faces, but it was pointless to be ethical when the city implicitly endorsed the opposite.