Hung out to dry.

I never, ever, learn.
I'm a sucker for a pretty face, always have been.
I fall for it all the time and suffer the consequences.
The look, the flirty smile, a shake of the head, hands smoothing hair behind an ear.
When I think back I was just what she was looking for.
Someone gullible, naive and easy prey for her charm.
I might as well have dickhead or something like that tattooed on my forehead.
...........

The day she came into the laundrette and smiled at me was such a day.
She reeled me in and I was hooked.
"Are any machines free? "
She enquired as she sat opposite me setting a large sports bag down on the bench.
Her accent was East European, Romanian, Hungarian, perhaps Russian.
Who knows I'm no expert, it was to me just another one of those dark delicious accents I fall for along with a pretty face.

" I think number six may be free...!"
As I look along the row of slow tumbling chromed glass boxes.

"Good, thank you" she beams sifting through the contents of the bag.

"Ahh, I thought I had lost these, they were in here all the time! " she announced pulling a set of flimsy lingerie out for display.

"They were...perhaps hiding from me, what do you think...mmm?" she cooed, stretching black silk thongs close to my face.

"Excuse me please " she nods as her phone trills.
"I have to take this call outside, would you mind loading my washing into the machine ...please...only be a moment...?" and kissed me on the cheek.

I watch her pacing the pavement as I tease the thongs carefully from the bag and slip them into my pocket.
She is beautiful.
I can't take my eyes off her as I dip into the bag hoping for more.
I curse and scream in pain as my fingers catch on something sharp.
The machete skids along the floor with a clatter.
A severed head wrapped in a blood soaked towel nods a lopsided smile to me from the depths of the bag.